Clear Keg Beer

[ksbrain]

I have an idea that may or may not be true.

Normally I have no patience, and I just put a warm keg in the fridge, hook it up to gas and start drinking it the next day. Eventually it's cold and carbonated and all's well with the world.

Lately, I've been having the beer stay cloudy longer than normal, or dispense hop particles throughout the life of the keg. In contrast, I was able to carbonate one recent beer undisturbed for a few weeks before tapping, and got really no sediment to speak of, not even in the first pint.

I'm wondering if pulling a pint every day or two somehow prevents the gentle settling of yeast and other solids. Anyone think this could be true, or maybe it's complete nonsense.

 

[jgourd]

Could also be that the dip tube in the "clear" keg was slightly higher and missing the sediment and in the other keg slightly lower and pulling some sediment with each pint. That happened to me once. No matter how long the beer sat, I always got some cloudiness. I cut the dip tube about 3/4" on that one.

 

[Warped04]

Your talking about one variable in a slew of variables for why a beer could or could not be clear. Maybe, maybe not.

What I'm more concerned with is that you need to brew more beer so that you can let one keg carbonate while your drinking another. This way you can continue to enjoy a perfectly cold carbonated beer every time.

 

[Edcculus]

I dont think pulling a pint kicks up trub. It takes a good week to two weeks for a keg to get good and clear at fridge temps. If you stick a warm one in the fridge, and drink the next day, all of the stuff is going to be settling the entire week to two weeks it takes you to consume the beer.

Here is what I normally do. Put in fridge and hook up to gas. 24 hours later, add gelatin to keg. Let sit for a week. Pull a pint of sludge. Drink clear beer.

 

[ksbrain]

I'm thinking of trying gelatin. It's the "Let sit for a week" step that I sometimes have a hard time with.

 

[Bobby_M]

You need more pipeline, via more fermenters I think. You should be putting clear beer into the keg, not waiting for it to clear in the keg.

 

[TristanL]

I'm thinking of trying gelatin. It's the "Let sit for a week" step that I sometimes have a hard time with.

If you add the gelatin when the beer is cold in 48 hours it should be clear!

 

[IrregularPulse]

agreed. Gelatin in fermenter after cold crashing, then racking to keg. Then being patient before tapping :mugs:

 

[Edcculus]

You need more pipeline, via more fermenters I think. You should be putting clear beer into the keg, not waiting for it to clear in the keg.

Thats true too. If you are transferring hop particles to the keg, it hasn't been in the fermenter long enough. You could also crash cool the fermenter with gelatin, then only transfer clear or mostly clear beer to the keg.

 

[kaiser423]

Thats true too. If you are transferring hop particles to the keg, it hasn't been in the fermenter long enough. You could also crash cool the fermenter with gelatin, then only transfer clear or mostly clear beer to the keg.

Either that, or he's really disturbing the trub when transferring. He might want to look into that, but in the end a better pipeline might help him out some.

 

[ksbrain]

It's true I have had a planning issue lately, where suddenly I'm killing three kegs in two days. So that is a contributing factor.

But my question was more about if pulling pints of beer that's settling would slow down the clearing out process. I was thinking that pulling a pint could cause a mild turbulence inside the keg which could slightly agitate the softly falling yeast (or chill haze) inside, thus re-suspending some portion of the yeast, and so slowing down the settling process.