Confused about how to use finings

Hello,
I'm brewing my first ever batch from a kit. The kit came with a sachet of beer finings. The instructions on the sachet simply state:

Add sachet directly to your beer, immediately before bottling, for a crystal clear beer with firmer bottle sediment.

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The instructions in the kit say:

For best results, clear your beer with Copper Tun Beer Finings. Add to beer just before bottling. Stir well.

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The finings are Copper Tun (a.k.a. Brewcraft) Beer Finings, 5g sachet, ingredients: hydrolysed collagen (a.k.a. gelatin)

2 things have me confused about how to use them:

1. I've searched online for how to use gelatin finings and all instructions I came across said to mix with water before adding to fermentor. But the instructions do not say to mix in water. They seem to imply dumping them straight in dry.

2. The instructions say to add 'just before bottling' or 'immediately before bottling' but most what I read online says to add a day or 2 prior to bottling. I'm wondering if the intention in this case is to do the clarification in the bottles rather than the fermenter...

Should I follow the kit instructions and add the finings dry immediately before bottling and give them a bit of a stir?

Cheers,
Aidan

I'm not sure about what came with your kit but the procedures for gelatin are as follows:

1. Heat a pint or so of water to 170f
2. Add gelatin packet
3. Let it sit for several minutes, then stir/swirl to mix
4. Cool to the temp of your beer
5. Add to your beer and wait 2-5 days to clear. If you cold crash, the clearing happens much faster, if you don't, you just have to wait the five days.

*As usual, keep everything sanitized.

Do what JonK said.

Except I don't worry about cooling the gelatin too much afterwards because a) I use much less water, like maybe a cup, and b) the relative thermal mass of a cup of water vs 5 gallons of beer basically nullifies any temperature difference.

I do something slightly different:
First, I sanitize a clean pyrex measuring cup.

Then, I add 1/2 of a packet of gelatin to a pint of COLD water in the pyrex and let it bloom for 10 minutes or so. I

Then I heat it in the microwave until it's almost boiling, and give it a stir to ensure the gelatin is dissolved.

Then, I add the entire hot mess of gelatin/water to a keg that's been cold-crashed for 24 hours, and start force-carbing.

By the time the keg is carbed and ready to drink, the gelatin has settled out, taking with it most of the suspended yeast and most, if not all, of any chill haze.

jds said:

I do something slightly different:
First, I sanitize a clean pyrex measuring cup.

Then, I add 1/2 of a packet of gelatin to a pint of COLD water in the pyrex and let it bloom for 10 minutes or so. I

Then I heat it in the microwave until it's almost boiling, and give it a stir to ensure the gelatin is dissolved.

Then, I add the entire hot mess of gelatin/water to a keg that's been cold-crashed for 24 hours, and start force-carbing.

By the time the keg is carbed and ready to drink, the gelatin has settled out, taking with it most of the suspended yeast and most, if not all, of any chill haze.

Click to expand...

That'll work but it seems a bit dangerous to me because if the gelatin actually boils a little when you're not looking you will get a gelatinous mass in your beer.

Also, gelatin smells really bad but don't worry in won't add any flavor at all to your beer.

Thanks guys. The instructions given by jonk331 are similar to what I've seen while searching online which is what had me confused when compared to the kit instructions. Any guesses on what would happen if I followed the kit instructions and added it dry, then bottled right away? Would it work at all?

Thanks JonK - i've done it according to ur instructions. I will leave it for 2 days before bottling. I had it in a turned off fridge to help keep temp fairly constant so now I've actually turned on the fridge at the lowest setting to drop temp down a few degrees (from 22C). I don't know if this what you mean by 'cold crash' but I gather that dropping the temp a bit will heap w. clearing. According to kit instruction temp should not drop below 18C so I'll not let it go lower than that. If you happen to read this response can you explain what you meant by cold crash?