Filtering beer for bottling

[JosephN]

So I'm still pretty new at brewing and all of the practices that go along with it. Now I took a lot of time to make this nice high gravity IPA and wanted to filter out all the hops I used in dry hopping it. I used a 5 micron filter and now I'm having issues with carbonation levels. My conclusion is that I either filtered out most of the yeast or I under carbonated this batch, which I think I used more priming sugar than the others, but I'm not sure at this time and would have to refer back to my notes. The bottles have been carbonating since 7/26

Is filtering into bottles a "NO NO"?

 

[Yooper]

So I'm still pretty new at brewing and all of the practices that go along with it. Now I took a lot of time to make this nice high gravity IPA and wanted to filter out all the hops I used in dry hopping it. I used a 5 micron filter and now I'm having issues with carbonation levels. My conclusion is that I either filtered out most of the yeast or I under carbonated this batch, which I think I used more priming sugar than the others, but I'm not sure at this time and would have to refer back to my notes. The bottles have been carbonating since 7/26

Is filtering into bottles a "NO NO"?

If you have the proper filtering set up (c02 to push it or a buon mini-jet) it would be fine. 5 microns isn't enough to remove the yeast.

How did you go about priming and filtering?

 

[JosephN]

Well I did different than most people suggested, which was I primed in a bottling bucket and had my filter hooked up straight out of there and my bottling wand on the outlet side of the filter. I heated up my priming sugar in about 1 cup of water and mixed it in, pre-filter. No co2 was used, just gravity. I kind of feel like I got a bad taste in my mouth, not literally, for filtering my beer. Since its been about 17 days since I've bottles and I have very limited carbonation, I decided to not filter my pale ale the other day.

Did I answer your question yooper?

 

[Calder]

Give it time, I think it will eventually carb.

I think you took out a lot of the yeast with the filter, so the little yeast left will take a while to carb. 5 microns is too big to filter out yeast, but as the filter starts to collect other particles, it's effective micron rating will get smaller and it will filter the yeast. You might find the bottles done first will carb quicker.

Not really sure why you feel the need to filter, but that is not the topic of this thread.

 

[Acaciadrian]

Give it time, I think it will eventually carb.



I think you took out a lot of the yeast with the filter, so the little yeast left will take a while to carb. 5 microns is too big to filter out yeast, but as the filter starts to collect other particles, it's effective micron rating will get smaller and it will filter the yeast. You might find the bottles done first will carb quicker.



Not really sure why you feel the need to filter, but that is not the topic of this thread.

Calder is right, it sounds like you may have filtered out the majority of your active yeast. Give it some time and you should be fine! Again I'll repeat Calder but I don't see the purpose of filtering, but to each style their own
Brew on!

 

[JosephN]

I had filtered because I'm new at this and with commercial beers and some microbrews I get are clearer than what I had. I don't think I'll be doing it again. This was a big IPA 9.2% with 10 oz of hops and now since its gonna take a while to carb I'm sure my double dry hopping won't mean much. Basically it was a waste.

 

[ricshayne]

Without knowing your whole process it's hard to pinpoint but I'm almost sure the filter isn't the problem. 9.2% is a big beer and is going to take a while to carb, sometimes a month or two. Did you use a starter for your yeast? If not they might be stressed and take longer

 

[Yooper]

A 5 micron filter won't filter out yeast.

It sounds like a "big" beer, and if the yeast is near its alcohol tolerance it may take a while to carb up. But it will, given enough time.

 

[JosephN]

Really?? A couple months!!! Man I making a imperial pumpkin porter this weekend at 10.2%. I hope it's ready by Halloween.

 

[JosephN]

Did you use a starter for your yeast? If not they might be stressed and take longer

I did make a starter and the yeast we literally 6 days old from packaging, so they were very aggressive.

 

[ricshayne]

Really?? A couple months!!! Man I making a imperial pumpkin porter this weekend at 10.2%. I hope it's ready by Halloween.

It should be, but yeast work on their own timeline

 

[wobdee]

According to Wyeast, yeast is 5-10 microns in size so I suspect your removed most of them.

 

[JosephN]

Maybe I'll need to open the bottles and add a little yeast to each bottle in order to carbonate them properly. Any thoughts?

 

[aprichman]

With that 10.2% pumpkin beer I would definitely add some yeast that's tolerant of higher ABV when you're bottling. You might want to checkout Danstar CBC-1 which is recommended for that purpose.

 

[Calder]

According to Wyeast, yeast is 5-10 microns in size so I suspect your removed most of them.

White and Zainasheff say the same in their book, Yeast, Chapter 2, second paragraph; "A single yeast cell is about 5 to 10 microns in size and round to ovoid in shape." Some may have gotten through, but you may have removed most of them.

 

[JosephN]

With that 10.2% pumpkin beer I would definitely add some yeast that's tolerant of higher ABV when you're bottling. You might want to checkout Danstar CBC-1 which is recommended for that purpose.

My local homebrew store has a couple packages of this, and I think I'm going to pick one up tomorrow. I briefly glanced at the website to read a little bit about it and it seems like you're right from what I saw. I'm wondering if you have a process that I should go through in order to make sure I do it correctly. Because I know I'm going to have to take each cap off and add some yeast to each bottle. I'm just wondering if I should add more sugar or if the sugar that's in there should still be OK? I know they're slightly carbonated but they're more flat than anything. Someone told me that all they did, when this happened to them, was simply remove the caps, add a few granules of the yeast, and recap them. Can anyone confirm or deny this process?

 

[JosephN]

White and Zainasheff say the same in their book, Yeast, Chapter 2, second paragraph; "A single yeast cell is about 5 to 10 microns in size and round to ovoid in shape." Some may have gotten through, but you may have removed most of them.

Yep, sounds like that's exactly what I did! I won't be making that mistake again