Heard Something New About Gelatin

[TheMadKing]

Over the weekend I was chatting with a highly respected local homebrewer. I would never take anything this man has to say lightly (BJCP judge, creates recipes for the local brew pubs, been brewing for 30 odd years).

We were sipping an APA that I had made and his only critique was its cloudiness. I mentioned that I was planning to add gelatin to the keg and he cautioned me by saying:

"If you add gelatin to the keg. you'll want to transfer your beer over to a new keg once it drops clear and immediately wash the first keg with very hot water. Otherwise the gelatin can gum up the works of the keg over time and its a real bugger to get out."

I've never heard anything like this, so I wanted to see if anyone here has had any issues adding gelatin to their kegs and then getting them to come clean. I normally do it in primary, before kegging, but I forgot on this batch, so I have no experience here.

 

[Auger]

I've fined my last 10 batches or so with gelatin in the keg, and haven't racked after fining. I have not noticed any significant buildup that doesn't come clean with PBW and hot water (one of these kegs was kicked in August and just washed on Saturday). I'm not sure what kind of time frame your friend was inferring by "over time", but heat breaks down gelatin pretty readily in my experience.

 

[Peruvian802]

... but heat breaks down gelatin pretty readily in my experience.

^^^^This. A hot water rinse with some oxy/pbw/cleaner of choice and you should be good to go. Be sure to run it through your inlet/outlet though to clean those poppets.

 

[poptarts]

Agree nothing hot PBW shouldn't fix, they were filled with soda syrup for a long time and still work fine.

 

[Psylocide]

I'll add that I haven't had an issue.

I've even taken a similar beer and gone straight into an unwashed keg that just kicked, force carbed, fined again and have had zero issues.

Like the others have said... seems to wash out just fine.

 

[TheMadKing]

Thanks everyone! That was my feeling as well, but as I said, I didn't want to just disregard the opinion of someone with that much more experience than me haha. I feel a bit better now.

 

[Brettomomyces]

I actually notice that it cleans easier for me versus no gelatin. The yeast that eventually makes it way to the bottom of the keg can be a pain to get off sometimes, but the gelatin goop comes right off.