How do you filter your beer

[PTS_35]

So I've made a few extract kits and I've used irish moss in some of them in attempt to cut down the sediment in the bottle. But it's still getting there even though I try to leave it in carboy when racking and racking again to bottling bucket. The IPA wasn't so bad after I'd chill it and then leave little bit in bottle after the pour. But how do big companies keep their beers so clean? Is there a way to filter that a home brewer novice can do? Looking for options. Thanks

 

[Gadfly]

I drain my wort through a ss mesh strainer into fermenter. It helps, but if you're just bottling you will always have sediment. You need the yeast to carb up your bottles. Switch to kegs and bottle from there to rid yourself of unwanted sediment.

 

[Cavpilot2000]

With my kidneys.

 

[seabrew8]

Cold crash it for 2-4 days and after the first 12-24 hours add gelatin.

The cheapest and simplest way to get clear beer. I do it for all my beer. Commercial clarity in a 1-2 weeks after starting the crash. If you bottle it will have lots of time to totally clear.

I too am on of those guys that prefer clear beer. Gelatin solved my problem. Time will clear it has well but ime is takes too much time. And chill haze is always an issue for me if i don't cold crash and use gelatin.

 

[Elvis_on_Bass]

First trick is to keep as much out of the fermenter as possible by using a strainer or being very careful. When it comes to bottling time you can use a cheesecloth at the bottom of the racking cane. If you are bottle conditioning then you will always have some yeast in there, the trick is to refrigerate it several days before you want to consume it, and then don't pour the sediment in that settles to the bottom. If you dry hop it is a pain to remove the particulate, and a cheesecloth or other filter is necessary.

I forego the cheesecloth and just count on the refrigeration, but I also don't mind the haze caused by low flocculent yeast.

You could also evaluate finings in the fermenter, but I don't use these either.

This is why cold crashing is so common, it helps the beer to clear if you are looking for that or if it is necessary for the style.

 

[bembel]

If you have kegs there are many many options, you can use gelatin to fine the beer, the sludge goes to the bottom, then after about a pint , its all gone and you have clear beer.

I've filtered using a water filter as well, but again, you push the beer from one keg to another through the filter, those run about $50-60 bucks

or spend $35 on a clear draught system, it replaces the dip tube with a silicon hose and pulls the beer from the top of the keg, rather than the bottom!

http://www.clearbeerdraughtsystem.com/info.html

good luck!

 

[schatzke]

If you are bottle conditioning for carbonation there will always be some sediment. If you carbonate in a keg you can bottle off of the keg to get sediment free bottles, which is basically what the commercial brewers do, bottling fully carbonated beer.

 

[GJOCONNELL]

honestly I tried several methods but the easiest and most effective for me was gelatin (un-flavored of course) I was shocked at how clear the beer was and even my wife was like wow is this your beer? I said yeah I was shocked at how clear it was. Yes, you have to throw away the first pint or two but a small price to pay for clear beer that is expensive to achieve and doesn't require a lot of steps.

I did a multi-filter setup and keg transfer but it was cumbersome, slow, and not terribly effective. Gelatin cleared things up quickly.

 

[bfish]

I don't filter, my beer is clear. I do cold crash and I do keg. KISS is the way I roll.

 

[bajaedition]

Using a mechanical filter is a 2 edged sword, and there are a lot of articles written about it, the biggest drawback I see is that at a beneficial level to remove haze causing proteins you are stripping the yeast and cannot naturally carbonate so you need a way to artificially carbonate. That can be expensive to a person who bottles. But to a person who kegs, it is a no brainer.
I filter anything that will be kegged, I have set up a system that uses a 1 micron from bevbrite. I know the filters are around 3 plus clams a piece and I can accept a cost of around 50 cents a batch to filter so what I do is filter the beer, back flush the filter and then freeze it. when I need it again I just thaw it, drop it in a bucket of starsan and go for it, htey probably could last longer that 7 brews, but I figure I have gotten my use and am in budget so I get a new one.

 

[bleme]

I don't care if my beer is hazy but I hate having an inch of trub in the bottom of my bottles. Cold crashing fixes that, but my crash is a little different than most. I put my fermentor in a deep ice chest, fill the chest around it with ice, add a gallon of water to get good contact, cover it with a sleeping bag, and bottle the next day.

I prefer this method because it is fast. Because water conducts so much better than air, it gets to temp faster than most other methods.

It is fool-proof. There is no way for the temperature to end up anywhere but 32F. I forgot to bring home ice once and decided to try it in the chest freezer. When I checked on it 3 days later, it was a solid block of ice. My temperature controller had failed. It thawed and was fine, but that just set me back even more days.

It is easy. It turns the yeast cake into a peanut butter consistency. I don't have to be careful moving it or siphoning. I couldn't siphon that stuff up it I tried.

The only downside is that it could be expensive. I can get all the free ice I want from work, so that isn't an issue for me.

 

[PADave]

A careful pour leaves all the sediment in the bottle.

 

[bleme]

A careful pour leaves all the sediment in the bottle.

I give a lot of bottles away and I get tired of explaining to everyone that the way they have poured all their life is wrong. Minimizing the sediment is just easier.

 

[PADave]

I give a lot of bottles away and I get tired of explaining to everyone that the way they have poured all their life is wrong. Minimizing the sediment is just easier.

You could always bottle from a keg. That is, if you have a keg setup.

 

[Brownalemikie]

With my kidneys.

Kidneys.....why do you want to wear out your kidneys? I use my liver

 

[Brownalemikie]

A careful pour leaves all the sediment in the bottle.

I believe that's called "decanting".

 

[PTS_35]

I get what everyone is saying and yes I have been doing the putting bottled beer in fridge and pouring leaving a bit behind and that does do the trick. But I was hoping to try to avoid some if it. Maybe next batch I'll try the gelatin. How much do you use and how long do you let it sit? Another poster said put cheese cloth on end of syphon cane. Hmm, I never thought of that. That's an idea for when I transfer to bottling bucket. Have to try that. Will either technique mess me up for carbing in bottle?

 

[jaspass]

There are a few things that contribute to lack of clarifying in your situation:

1 - Yeast

As you've stated, "pouring leaving a bit behind does do the trick". That is completely due to yeast, which is needed in order to create CO2 in your bottles. No way around this if you are carbonating your beers in the bottle. You will get a yeast cake at the bottom of your bottles. So leaving a little will leave the yeast behind. Belgian bottle conditioned beers that are commercial have the same thing, and it's ok. If you remove all the yeast from your beer before bottling, you will not get carbonated beer.

2 - Chill Haze

This happens generally on first chilling beer, and will settle out once under refrigeration for a period of time.

3 - Trub and Misc

If when you are transferring from your fermenter to your racking bucket and picking up spent yeast and other trub, then that is easily solved by not drawing that stuff up into the syphon when transferring. It's ok to leave a little behind in the name of clear beer. The instinct is to grab it all, and understandably so, however letting a little go to keep what has settled at the bottom in your primary undisturbed will help a lot in clarification. To offset this a lot of people will brew a little more than needed (5.5 gallons) so that when it comes time to bottling/kegging after transfers and the loss associated, we end with around 5 gallons.

As others have mentioned, if you are able to move to kegging, then you can force carbonate which will produce clearer beers than bottle conditioning. After I keg, I put in fridge under CO2 and forget about it for a week or so. After that time I'm carbonated and the chill haze is gone and I have clear beer. I need only be a little patient. From there I can bottle clear (if I want) using a bottling tool for kegs. However I rarely bottle from kegs, only if I'm entering a competition, or if I have a high ABV brew that I want to last for a long time and need to free a keg up.

If you are going to keep doing bottles and carbonating in the bottles, then you will always have yeast in the bottom, just tell people you brew like the monks and like to bottle condition. After you bottle, but in fridge to allow chill haze to settle, and when pouring simply leave a little behind and what you pour should be clean.

 

[PTS_35]

I do plan on botte conditioning for a long while. I wonder if by dry hopping I'm getting more sediment. I have done that on two of my beers. Odd thing is is thar I had this one bottle of saison that when I opened it, it foamed over and then when I poured it, all kinds if sediment was in the pitcher. Now I thought, oh I over primed but then I opened another a week later and it was fine and I poured as usually do; leaving a bit behind; and it was clean and clear. It also did not foam up. Any thoughts on how that occurred?

 

[kh54s10]

You are talking of two different processes. Filtering as commercial companies to take all the yeast and sediment out of the beer then they carbonate artificially. Or they filter a little to get most of the sediment out then prime and bottle. If you prime and bottle there will be sediment, this is the yeast.

I don't filter at all either before fermentation or after.

 

[kh54s10]

I do plan on botte conditioning for a long while. I wonder if by dry hopping I'm getting more sediment. I have done that on two of my beers. Odd thing is is thar I had this one bottle of saison that when I opened it, it foamed over and then when I poured it, all kinds if sediment was in the pitcher. Now I thought, oh I over primed but then I opened another a week later and it was fine and I poured as usually do; leaving a bit behind; and it was clean and clear. It also did not foam up. Any thoughts on how that occurred?

I suspect that the bottle that foamed over was not conditioned long. Later the co2 in the headspace was absorbed into the beer. And didn't foam over.

I have seen a series of videos that someone posted on HBT where he opened a bottle every couple of days, the early ones foamed as if over carbonated, the later ones did not.

I have never opened a bottle in less than 2 weeks. Usually I wait 3 weeks before drinking my bottled beers. In testing some were well carbonated at 2 weeks. All of them have tasted better at 3 weeks or longer.

 

[masskrug]

I pour it all in and filter later. I zip-tie a sanitized paint strainer on the fermenter side of the siphon hose and proceed to fill the bottling bucket (or keg). This is mostly to filter out the dry hops that clog my bottling wand.

 

[PTS_35]

I do bottle condition...meaning by that is I prime with corn sugar and bottle. My biggest complaint I think is coming off that bottle of saison when it was full of sediment and what appeared to me as leftover hop sediment. When I opened another it didn't have the hop sediment. Just made a hefeweizen and it's been good. I pour then stop, swirl and pour rest as that's what I've read is the way with that beer and though hazy it still looks clean

 

[Brownalemikie]

I do bottle condition...meaning by that is I prime with corn sugar and bottle. My biggest complaint I think is coming off that bottle of saison when it was full of sediment and what appeared to me as leftover hop sediment. When I opened another it didn't have the hop sediment. Just made a hefeweizen and it's been good. I pour then stop, swirl and pour rest as that's what I've read is the way with that beer and though hazy it still looks clean

I simply decant (or pour) my beer slowly without any glugs to agitate the yeast in the bottom of the bottle. Then I immediately rinse the bottle two times. Why worry about an 1/8" of yeast?