filter before or after cold conditioning?

[nathan]

okay, I ferment out, then I keg, then I cold condition.
I have a new plate filter on it's way, courtesy of my biggest fan (my brother), but I am curious if folks are doing their cold conditioning before or after filtration?

or do you keg, cold condition for a few days to settle things (less load for filter), and then filter to new keg and cold condition further?

 

[nitrousjunkie]

Filter beer? You can do that? I just crash mine, keg and carb it. done.

 

[nathan]

yes, I normally do the same and get it pretty close to commercial clarity. I have someone who wanted me to try filtering enough to buy me the filter, though, so...

 

[Bobby_M]

I would cold crash the fermenter, rack to keg, then push it through the filter to the other keg with the O2 purged out of both.

 

[remilard]

Just make sure the beer is fairly clear before you filter, or consider filtering twice with a rougher filter first.

If what you are trying to accomplish is yeast removal (not chill-haze proofing) 6 micron seems to work pretty well. Filtering has the extremely good property of preferentially removing older (and larger) yeast cells.

 

[nathan]

To start I'll go with just rough and medium, as I'm just exploring this. My brother enjoys my beer (he built a five tap kegorator for me to keep full at his house), and he's an honest and valuable critic for me. Taste-wise, I've made changes and improvements based on his advice, which were helpful for me. I was never bothered by beers not being clear, or having some hop particles in them, but he sees it as a place to improve, so now that the filter is on it's way, I figure the cost of pads is pretty cheap, might as well give it a go!

I don't crash ales, unless my lager-freezer is empty, but I rack very carefully (siphon from top down, stop early, brew enough that I can stand the loss of the extra half gallon at bottom). I go straight from primary to cornelius, then sometimes keep the kegs warm if they need to finish further (warm meaning fermentation temp for that style), then chill. That's probably the closest to crashing that I get, so I'll wait till it's cold, give it a few days to settle, then push to the other keg.

Has anyone seen a reason to worry about when to carbonate? any advantage or drawback to starting carbonation while it's settling?

And aging lagers... will they still benefit as much from long cold storage AFTER filtration? Or is there benefit to leaving them sit for a few weeks with the yeast before filtering?

I guess really I'm fine with the mechanics of filtration, just trying to understand how best to fit it in with the evolution of the beer.

 

[Tonedef131]

Has anyone seen a reason to worry about when to carbonate? any advantage or drawback to starting carbonation while it's settling?

I have been wondering this same thing for a while. For example I have a Dusseldorf Alt that I am going to rack this weekend and I want to continue to condition it at about 45, which is where I keep my kegerator. So is there any reason I shouldn't just stick it in there on the gas so when it is done conditioning it will be carbonated? I can't think of any logical reason why but then again beer always suprises me.

 

[nathan]

I've heard gordon biersch is filtering before the cold-aging, and carbonating as well.

I guess I'll just give it a shot!

 

[Displaced MassHole]

I have only used my filter twice but the instructions say not to filter carbonated beer. I imagine that it would cause a lot of foaming pushing carbed beer through it.

 

[nathan]

whoa! I hadn't thought of reading the instructions.
Actually mine should be delivered some time today, so it's not as if I had instructions to ignore yet.

 

[Bobby_M]

I don't know for sure but I suspect the concern about filtering carbed beer is when the receiving container is a non pressurized vessel like a carboy. You'd obviously be depositing pure foam in that case. If you bridge between two kegs with the filter and pressurize both equally, you can then slightly vent the receiving keg to create enough differential to have it flow but not enough to cause the CO2 to come out of solution.

This is just a guess. I've never filtered.

 

[nathan]

That's my plan. Beer kegged and chilled and settled a few days in Keg 1. Keg 2 is cleaned, sanitized. Filter has sanitizer run through it as well. Have one keg as a spot to catch sanitizer ready, and chill keg 2.

use the beer ball locks on either end of the filter to connect to the keg for depositing sanitizer, and bleed off it's pressure releif until beer is coming out the exit tube of the filter (where it enters the recieving keg). Transfer the ball lock to keg 2, and use it's pressure relief valve to bleed pressure off slowly, transferring from keg 1 to keg 2. Then clean keg 1 and the keg with the filter sanitizer in it up and get them ready to use again.

 

[Jaybird]

Your putting WAY to much thought into it. Filter when you have time. Just dont do it before the beer is done. and never after it's carbed.
I filter all the time. My standerd is a 3 micron and sometimes I use a 1 micron. Filtering dosen't give you "bright" beer. You still have to let it sit in a bright tank and finish.
Cheers
JJ

 

[nathan]

okay, so since I usually do most of this stuff on weekends, maybe when the keg is done I toss it in the cold condition freezer until the next weekend, then filter it over and start the carbing after that.

Dang thing was supposed to be here today, but is not here yet... *twiddle*

 

[jvetter]

I do the following: Ferment, stick in freezer for a day or two, filter, keg, cold condition. Putting it in the freezer before filtering ensures that the chill haze is removed.

Don't try filtering carbonated beer. I tried once with a barely carbonated beer and it did not work at all, just lost beer.

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

If you are cold crashing in the keg, I would pour yourself a pre-filter pint to blast out the sediment at the bottom of your keg. That should lighten the load, and give you a sample of what's to come.

 

[nathan]

crud!
It arrived, but no pads came with it. Curses! I re-read the website listing for it, and while it doesn't state that they are not included, it also doesn't state that they are. I figured it would come with the first set of pads.

Okay, so I can at least get it cleaned and put the fittings on it. filtering will have to wait.

 

[wedward]

any updates? I just filtered my first keg (Pale Ale) with a homemade filter (whole house filter) and am dying to see how it turns out.

Also - How does that kit say to store the filter pads? (assuming you can reuse them)

 

[nathan]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/filtering-pad-usage-clogging-time-clearing-sanitizer-113176/