Beer Filtering

im tinkering with the idea of using a 15 gallon fish tank filter to filter the sediment out of my beer during bottling. has this been done before? would it be ok useing activated charcol and cotton in the filter? will my beer still carbonate using priming sugar?

sounds to me like it might introduce a bit too much O2. how long are you planning on letting it run? and remember, i have not yet tasted any of my home brewed beer - still waiting - so, grain of salt.

Why would you want to filter your beer? That's the whole point of making homebrew so that it doesn't taste like BMC. If your beer is too cloudy, the conventional technique is to let it settle over a period of weeks or so.

You also don't want to filter out all the yeast- no way of naturally carbonating it afterwards.

Mikey said:

Why would you want to filter your beer? That's the whole point of making homebrew so that it doesn't taste like BMC. If your beer is too cloudy, the conventional technique is to let it settle over a period of weeks or so.

You also don't want to filter out all the yeast- no way of naturally carbonating it afterwards.

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No amount of filtering is going to reduce your beer to the likes of BMC... Filtering will not pull flavors out of your beer, the flavor is the liquid, not the stuff "floating" around in it.

If you keg and force carb, you can use a cheapie inline canister water filter. You may get away with "lightly" filtering if you bottle condition, but you may pull way too much yeast out of your beer to carb it in the bottle.

Using a secondary is one way to clear a beer. I don't have real cloudy beers. I also only use a whirlflock tab ~5 minutes before flameout (no other clarifiers), some use gelatin to help clarify.

Oh yeah - any kind of filter that is NOT sealed will introduce way too much O2 into your beer and ruin it. Most fish tank filter systems use a paddle wheel to move the water or some kind of impeller. No way I would something like those to filter my beer.

Activated charcoal will destroy your beer. If you want to filter, canister and plate systems are your choices. And to do either you'll need a good pump or kegs.

You might try clarifying agents AKA finings first.

dcbrewmeister said:

No amount of filtering is going to reduce your beer to the likes of BMC... Filtering will not pull flavors out of your beer, the flavor is the liquid, not the stuff "floating" around in it.

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I guess you don't drink hefeweizen..................

The point is that beer does not need (or benefit) from filtering and will make carbonation difficult.That's what the poster was asking about.

Mikey said:

I guess you don't drink hefeweizen..................

The point is that beer does not need (or benefit) from filtering and will make carbonation difficult.That's what the poster was asking about.

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Hefe's are supposed to be "cloudy", a pilsner is not. Beer does benefit from filtering (but not over filtering) as it makes it a much "cleaner" tasting brew allowing the more subtle flavors come through, instead of the left over remnants of your hops pellets.

Bottle conditioning (and carbonating) is difficult if you filter because you strip a lot of the yeast out of it. But if you are kegging and using gas to carbonate you will have zero problem if you filter it because you are not relying on the yeast to carbonate it anyway.

There is a product called CLEAR filter that will get the big stuff out. See www.gerrysbrewingproducts.com. It works for me

Use Irish Moss, or Whirlfloc Tablets in the boil. It will all settle in the bottom of the fermenters... cold crash before bottling or kegging. No need to filter...

Gary