Filtering

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richlong8020

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Just a quick question. Do any of you filter your beer? If so, what are you techniques? Is it only for kegging? Just trying to minimize the sediment in bottle. Looking for ideas. Thx ;)


~RDWHAHB~
 
I'm not sure you would want to filter before bottle conditioning, unless you were adding more yeast for conditioning which would defeat the purpose.
 
Unless you are planning on bottling from the keg, I'm not sure what filtration options there are for you. The only filter setups I've seen have been for kegs.

I used to filter by running beer via a keg jumper from one keg to another, with a plate filter in between. After that I would force carbonate in the second keg, and then bottle from the keg or just leave the beer in the second keg.

The filter setup worked pretty well as far as the end result goes (clear, sediment free beer); however, it was a huge PITA to use, and I have since decided it was not worth the effort.

I now use the following methods instead to get clear, sediment free beer:
1) Hard 90-minute biol
2) irish moss in last 15 minutes of boil
3) rapid chill wort with immersion chiller
4) siphon from BK to fermenter, leaving most of the trub behind
5) extended primary phase
6) cold crash + gelatin finings
7) force carb in keg + lager period (even for ales)

My beers are just is clear as before, only no mucking about with a filtration setup. The only tradeoff is that it takes longer, but if you have a decent pipeline built up that's not much of an issue.

If you are bottle-carbing your beers, you are always going to have a bit of yeast sediment on the bottom of the bottles. There is no way around that, unless you start force carbing in the keg and then bottling after. However, you can still minimize the amount of sediment by making sure as little of it get as little of it into the bottles in the first place by only bottling clear beer. Techniques like I outlined above (irish moss, gelatin, cold crash, etc) can be very helpful on that front.
 
I cleared a beer using gelatin. It took longer to carb in the bottle (because there was less yeast in suspension) but at the end, there was very low yeast in my bottles. It almost removed all the aroma from the dry hopping though.

If you filter, you'll filter out your yeast as well and you'll have to use another yeast to bottle condition your beer. It's helpful to filter and add another yeast if you use a yeast strain that remains in suspension. Lallemand produces a yeast that's specially made for that: clean flavor, highly flocculent and leaves just a thin deposit in the bottles.


Envoyé de mon iPhone à l'aide de Home Brew
 
If you are waiting for your beer to clear, you should have little sediment in the bottle. It really doesn't take much yeast to bottle condition.

99% of the mess is just going to settle over time. If you don't want that to happen in the bottle, the easiest way is to just let it sit there for a while longer in the fermenter. You can speed that long by dropping the temp or adding a fining like gelatin.
 
Well since I'm not at the kegging phase just yet I really appreciate the replies. I was looking for a way to remove sediment from the bottle but I guess there is now way around that. Thanks all for the quick response.


~RDWHAHB~
 
I am always amazed that after leaving the brew in the FV for three or four weeks, then after a very delicate transfer into the bottling bucket onto the priming solution that it then chooses to drop out, I tell myself that it is the yeast that has eaten it's full on the priming sugar, but it can't be that as it drops out within two days of bottling. So what, it don't bother me a bit after the first three bottles of the evening.
 
Sometimes I will filter if I'm serving a crowd of none-craftbrew drinkers.
I use two kegs for the process. I push beer from the conditioning keg thru the filter to the serving keg with gas.
 
I have added an extra step to my process, but since I take an overnight rest, it doesn't bother me. From the mash tun that cools overnight, into the BK, I lay three layers of painters filter bags into a "u" shaped strainer, and strain though that. It doesn't get out a huge amount, but the husks and bigger stuff that got past the sparge step, and some of the smaller stuff as well.
Now, into the BK for the correct amount of time, and then cool below 160* F as quick as possible, then I will then chill the BK down as low as possible, let it rest overnight, and then pass through a clean set of paint filters again. At this point there will be very little particulate going into the fermenter, and leaving almost nothing behind after the cold crash, so racking to the bottling bucket is almost crystal clear at that point.
I often leave my beer in the primary for 3, sometimes 4 weeks or more before cold crashing, so I know that helps as well.
By doing my brewing this way, I strain/filter every time I rack, and if there is any wort/beer lost, it is less than 1 cup from start to finish.
So, is the "extra" step worth not losing a gallon or so like the old way?, you tell me, I have my answer already.
 
The last beer I made had an ounce of pellet dry hops and I had put them directly into the fermenter. When I racked it to the bottling bucket I put a chunk, as in a part of the foot section, of new, unused, and sanitized pantyhose over the end of the autosiphon outlet. They're pretty fine mesh and despite being careful to avoid sucking trub, the filter still caught maybe a couple tablespoons of trub.

When I was done bottling there was virtually no "stuff" left that had settled out in the mean time.
 
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