Protofloc v Irish Moss Flakes

[bobtheUKbrewer2]

For 40 years I have used irish moss flakes for the last 20 minutes of the boil. For the last 5 years I have ground the flakes in an electric pepper mill to make them as fine as possible. Recently, on a whim, I purchased some protofloc tablets, and after some online research, used just half a gram in a 6 UK gallons brew (3.8% ABV pale bitter).

I bottled after 7 days at 22-24 deg C and noticed the beer was clearer at the bottling stage. After just 3 days in bottle at around 20 deg C, the beer is brilliantly clear, I probably have never achieved that clarity before.

Does anybody on here use a dose rate less than 0.5 gm per 6 UK gallons?

 

[Subdivisions]

You damn brits inflicted the imperial system upon us then went metric and now you're asking about UK gallons!!! WTF???

On a serious note, are protofloc tablets the same thing as whirlfloc tablets??? I've never heard of them. If so then I haven't seen much difference between whirlfloc and irish moss. Most of my clarity comes from cold crashing and/or gelatin fining.

 

[Mer-man]

I use protafloc. It is likely another brand of whirlfloc stuff.

It is interesting to see how little you need. I just read an article that noted there is a trade off between amount of kettle fining used and amount of break volume resulting. Too much and it gets "fluffy" and hard to manage.
It made a good point.
I have been using .5 tablet per 18L so I will try bringing it down. Have not approached the OPs level though!

 

[bobtheUKbrewer2]

the tablets weigh 2.4 gm so half a tablet is 1.2 gm per 18 litres - = 1.8 gm per 6 gal

do you get a stable yeast and rubbish pancake ?

 

[Mer-man]

I have been using WLP090 lately and I can say that it does not give as stable a cake as, for example, Nottingham.
But yes, the cake is fairly stable after about a week.

Also, I wanted to note this passage from a BSG paper on finings. It suggests that higher mash temps warrant less fining usage, which it correlates with pH. I have not substantiated it, but it is something to test.