thoughts on gelatin in IPA

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stickyfinger

stickyfinger

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I just used gelatin again after several months omitting it from my brewing process. I used it on a Munich Helles that was near freezing. Added maybe 1 tsp boiled up in 100 mL water. Within 2 days the beer was crystal clear. I racked to purged keg and carbonated up and within 1 day I had crystal clear, carbonated Helles, 18 days after brew day!!! I had forgotten how awesome gelatin is!!

I am now beginning to question whether gelatin damages super hoppy beers like NEIPA. Does anyone have any good experience with this? I plan to do an 8 gallon batch and have about 5 gallons of it with my usual non-gelatin process and 3 gallons with fining to compare. I thought I'd do everything the same on both until the point where I chill. I'll cold crash both but into the small batch I'll add the gelatin and see if it kills the hop character.
 
1 tsp seems like quite a large quantity and I'd be concerned about it stripping some/alot of the hop aroma from an IPA.

I'd give it a crack with 1/4 tsp and see how it goes - I am doing this on a red IPA i am brewing this weekend.
 
maverick14 said:
1 tsp seems like quite a large quantity and I'd be concerned about it stripping some/alot of the hop aroma from an IPA.

I'd give it a crack with 1/4 tsp and see how it goes - I am doing this on a red IPA i am brewing this weekend.
Click to expand...

i've been curious about how more results in more stripping. doesn't it just bind to what is available and that is it? how does more result in more stripping? if it is in solution it won't be bound by the gelatin. if it is floating around in the beer as a particle, it very well may. seems like more wouldn't strip more. i just happened to have 1 tsp left in a pouch so i used it. i could try less though if that is based on something.
 
I typically use a full packet of Knox. I have no idea how much that is.

I do it in my ipas, but I haven't done a side by side comparison. I just tasted an ipa after 48 hrs of gelatin. It was crystal clear and delicious with a good aroma. It could use a bit more, but thats really nit picking and I don't know if the gelatin had any effect.

I typically add a second around of dry hops, in the keg, after gelatin.
 
murphyslaw said:
I typically use a full packet of Knox. I have no idea how much that is.

I do it in my ipas, but I haven't done a side by side comparison. I just tasted an ipa after 48 hrs of gelatin. It was crystal clear and delicious with a good aroma. It could use a bit more, but thats really nit picking and I don't know if the gelatin had any effect.

I typically add a second around of dry hops, in the keg, after gelatin.
Click to expand...

i think 1 pack is around 3.5 tsp or so.
 
I wouldn't use it on a NE IPA, because to me clarity isn't desired in that style. Also brulosophy did an experiment and showed that gelatin didn't clear a NE ipa.
 
I am just wondering if clearing out the yeast might make for better IPA. I don't want to sacrifice any hop character though
 
stickyfinger said:
I am just wondering if clearing out the yeast might make for better IPA. I don't want to sacrifice any hop character though
Click to expand...

The best thing to do would be to keg, crash, and carb the beer. Taste it. Then add the gelatin. Then taste it 2 days later.

I just did something similar with keg dry hopping and its really got me second-guessing whether its a practice I should continue.
 
murphyslaw said:
The best thing to do would be to keg, crash, and carb the beer. Taste it. Then add the gelatin. Then taste it 2 days later.

I just did something similar with keg dry hopping and its really got me second-guessing whether its a practice I should continue.
Click to expand...

I'm brewing up a West Coast IPA XBMT today. I am making 8 gallons of wort to split into two 4-gallon batches. I'll ferment the same and hop the same but then one of them will get cold crash with gelatin. The other will just get cold crash.

Regarding keg hopping, I did it for awhile and found that the hop character is a LOT more dank and kind of vegetal to my taste. It can work for some hops I think but not for others, and it is better with a light hand I think. That is just my experience.
 
tab077 said:
http://brulosophy.com/2016/04/25/the-gelatin-effect-pt-4-standard-vs-a-lot-exbeeriment-results/
Click to expand...

Well how about that? I never would have expected more to result in less clarity. My most recent IPA was crystal clear after 2 days with a full packet of gelatin, though. So go figure. I suppose I should try with less and see what happens.


stickyfinger said:
I'm brewing up a West Coast IPA XBMT today. I am making 8 gallons of wort to split into two 4-gallon batches. I'll ferment the same and hop the same but then one of them will get cold crash with gelatin. The other will just get cold crash.

Regarding keg hopping, I did it for awhile and found that the hop character is a LOT more dank and kind of vegetal to my taste. It can work for some hops I think but not for others, and it is better with a light hand I think. That is just my experience.
Click to expand...

Be sure to report back with your XBMT!

Re hopping, that's really interesting because its sort of the conclusion I am leaning towards. I had recently settled on keg hopping after the gelatin clears the keg. Last week I cleared my IPA, and poured a glass. I like a really big hop aroma and I thought it was touch more muted than I prefer. I'm really talking marginal, though. I actually thought the beer was damn near perfect. So then I tossed in the dry hops and tried again a couple hours later. It was cloudy and there were floaties and it tasted really raw. Vegetal and dank are good descriptors for what I tasted. It was the same the next day, but by 48 hours or so it cleared. The vegetal character had mostly faded but its still there slightly.

I'm interested to see how it responds over the next week or so. I was hoping that the off flavor was just something you get before the flavors meld or fade or whatever. Has your experience been that the vegetal character remains?
 
murphyslaw said:
I wouldn't use it on a NE IPA, because to me clarity isn't desired in that style. Also brulosophy did an experiment and showed that gelatin didn't clear a NE ipa.
Click to expand...

I fined a HopHands clone with 1/2 tsp gelatin (5 gal batch) just cause.

No noticeable loss of flavour/aroma and crystal clear.

It was 20% flaked oats, YB Vermont ale yeast, a metric buttload of late & dry hops... typical NEIPA kind of thing.
 
I will qualify that though that it did take longer than usual. My typical experience with that rate of gelatin is that it's bright in 2-7 days. This one maybe took twice that long...
 
murphyslaw said:
I'm interested to see how it responds over the next week or so. I was hoping that the off flavor was just something you get before the flavors meld or fade or whatever. Has your experience been that the vegetal character remains?
Click to expand...

i haven't done it for several months, but i remember not really loving the hop character from keg hopping ever. i did notice that citra seemed to work ok though. some other varieties just don't work well if you ask me. maybe having the CO2 in solution results in some compounds being extracted from the hops that I do not enjoy as much.

I've since discovered that I can dry hop in primary and get enough hop character, so I haven't worried about keg hopping.

I'm excited about this gelatin test. I want to add the minimum just in case, so I think I'll go with either 1/4 tsp or 1/2 tsp per 4 gallons. I think Brulosophy maybe uses around that usually in their XBMTs. I have to say that I absolutely expect to be very disappointed by the fined version despite what people say. I tried it once a couple years ago on a hoppy beer, and I thought it killed it. However, it wasn't a side-by-side. This will be!!!
 
OK, the VERY preliminary results are in. I just kegged my comparison beers, fined vs unfined in WC IPA. My wife (better palate than I have, depressingly) and I did a triangle test. I couldn't really tell a difference b/w the two (except visually as the fined version has a very slight haze and the unfined is much more cloudy - also, you can tell by looking at the head that the fined version has a much tighter, creamier head.) My wife was correct on her first guess. She said the fined version was a fuller mouthfeel, tighter bubbles, rounder. After listening to her critique, I tried again and maybe could see what she was saying, but it could just be my imagination.

Anyway, the take-home for me is that fining had NO negative effect on the hop flavor and possibly helped the mouthfeel. both are hop bombs and delicious!

The disturbing thing to me on this is that the mouthfeel of these beers, both of them, is WAY more than on my usual NE IPAs!!! I used the same 2 oz/gal in the dryhop, but I also used whirfloc in the kettle, and I used a little less than 0.5 oz/gal of CTZ in the last 20 minutes of the boil when I usually just do no kettle hops and a 2 oz/gal dry hop for my NE IPAs! The only other difference is using WY1056 vs WLP095 or Conan (in my NE IPAs) and no fruity hops like Citra, Denali, Mosaic, etc.

I am wondering if the 20 minute addition of CTZ gave the beer the huge mouthfeel?! Seems crazy. I am very confident the WY1056 didn't give it the huge mouthfeel. I've done side-by-side batches of US-05 vs. WLP095 and WLP095 was much better in the smooth round, mouthfeel department, or WY1450 was also excellent compared with US-05....

Confused.

Definitely will be trying more 20 minute kettle hop additions to see if it is a trend. It has such a low bitterness too. The calculator said it would be 60+ IBUs, but it tastes like it has no kettle hops at all, very, very smooth and round, very rich. could also be that the whirfloc resulted in a rounder, smoother flavor and better head by getting rid of more particulates....
 
I don't know how accurate it is, but I read somewhere that 20 minute additions were similar to doing a whirlpool addition for 20 mins. That's somewhat more traditional and what I've been doing for quite a while and I like the results on my pale ales.
 
jmark said:
I don't know how accurate it is, but I read somewhere that 20 minute additions were similar to doing a whirlpool addition for 20 mins. That's somewhat more traditional and what I've been doing for quite a while and I like the results on my pale ales.
Click to expand...

that was at Brulosophy most likely. I'm starting to agree with them on that. I plan to use a late boil addition and/or a whirlpool in my next IPA for sure. It's so smooth, round and juicy with that addition (unless I am missing what else impacted my beer!)
 
stickyfinger said:
OK, the VERY preliminary results are in. I just kegged my comparison beers, fined vs unfined in WC IPA. My wife (better palate than I have, depressingly) and I did a triangle test. I couldn't really tell a difference b/w the two (except visually as the fined version has a very slight haze and the unfined is much more cloudy - also, you can tell by looking at the head that the fined version has a much tighter, creamier head.) My wife was correct on her first guess. She said the fined version was a fuller mouthfeel, tighter bubbles, rounder. After listening to her critique, I tried again and maybe could see what she was saying, but it could just be my imagination.

Anyway, the take-home for me is that fining had NO negative effect on the hop flavor and possibly helped the mouthfeel. both are hop bombs and delicious!

The disturbing thing to me on this is that the mouthfeel of these beers, both of them, is WAY more than on my usual NE IPAs!!! I used the same 2 oz/gal in the dryhop, but I also used whirfloc in the kettle, and I used a little less than 0.5 oz/gal of CTZ in the last 20 minutes of the boil when I usually just do no kettle hops and a 2 oz/gal dry hop for my NE IPAs! The only other difference is using WY1056 vs WLP095 or Conan (in my NE IPAs) and no fruity hops like Citra, Denali, Mosaic, etc.

I am wondering if the 20 minute addition of CTZ gave the beer the huge mouthfeel?! Seems crazy. I am very confident the WY1056 didn't give it the huge mouthfeel. I've done side-by-side batches of US-05 vs. WLP095 and WLP095 was much better in the smooth round, mouthfeel department, or WY1450 was also excellent compared with US-05....

Confused.

Definitely will be trying more 20 minute kettle hop additions to see if it is a trend. It has such a low bitterness too. The calculator said it would be 60+ IBUs, but it tastes like it has no kettle hops at all, very, very smooth and round, very rich. could also be that the whirfloc resulted in a rounder, smoother flavor and better head by getting rid of more particulates....
Click to expand...

So no whirlpool hops either?
 
i put in the 20 min addn and then let that whirlpool for 15 mins while recirculating to sanitize my tubing but no specific hopstand hops
 
forgot to post a picture of the two beers:

uc
 

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