I just had my latest entry to a brewing contest come back rated. It was a Northern English Brown ale, and it received a score of 28.5. I had 2 major issues with it before I sent it out. First, I force carbonate with a keg, and don't have a counter pressure bottle filler, so I semi-rigged one up with a lump of duct tape and some hose. Needless to say, I did not MacGuyver that as well as my floating thermometer hack. My other big issue was that it was very cloudy. I have a mini-jet filter, but never use it... My question is, should I? If I do, how should I expect it to affect the flavor? Any advice would be very appreciated!
To Filter, or not?
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Id use finings (whirlfloc in the kettle, and something like gelatin or kieselsol) before I would filter. Even without finings in the fermentor the beer most should drop clear enough with a few weeks of cold conditioning. Examine you process more if its not.
Also determine the source of the haze, is it yeast haze? chill haze? A permanent starch haze? etc, then you can look on what you could improve in your mashing, and other processes to remove the cause of the problem.
Filtering will effect the beer flavor more. It effects the hop flavor, and some say the mouthfeel. Conceptually, I just dont like it. But thats just a bias.
Also determine the source of the haze, is it yeast haze? chill haze? A permanent starch haze? etc, then you can look on what you could improve in your mashing, and other processes to remove the cause of the problem.
Filtering will effect the beer flavor more. It effects the hop flavor, and some say the mouthfeel. Conceptually, I just dont like it. But thats just a bias.
flars
Well-Known Member
How long did you primary your beer? Did you rush it to the keg while a lot of sediment was still in suspension?
hunter_le five
Sheriff Underscore
I used to filter my beer; I don't anymore. Not because there was anything wrong with it, I just found it to be more trouble than it was worth.
I've since found that with using good techniques (irish moss, hard rolling boil, rapid chilling, extended primary, cold crashing, gelatin finings, careful transfers, etc) I can get the beer just as clear as when I filtered, without all the hassle.
YMMV
I've since found that with using good techniques (irish moss, hard rolling boil, rapid chilling, extended primary, cold crashing, gelatin finings, careful transfers, etc) I can get the beer just as clear as when I filtered, without all the hassle.
YMMV
"Not".
Cheers!
Cheers!
I have to confess fully... the problems were completely of my own doing. I forgot to add the Irish Moss in the last 15 minutes, so I knew it was not going to settle well, plus this was a speed experiment. I wasn't brewing it for the competition, I was trying to get a 14 day total batch done just to see if I could, the competition was just a good excuse to get some BJCP judges opinions on it. 11 days in the fermenter, and 3 days in the keg to drinkability, and the keg didn't last more than 45 minutes at my buddy's end of the summer party. The the question really is, will filtering be good or bad to work towards the 2 week max brew time goal I set? I know the big breweries filter, so I've often wondered why homebrewers don't regularly do it. To be fair, the fast brew worked great as the beer was very drinkable. My notes from the competition's overall impression was:
"An easy to drink and effervescent beer. Carbonation is too high, doesn't let the flavor come through. back off on flavor hops."
I overcompensated after bottling failures by not having a counterpressure bottle filler... Apparently the duct tape hose rig worked well enough! The hops issue I developed from my beersmith recipe, whenever Beersmith says 18 IBU for my hops, it really means 28... it doesn't seem to calculate IBU correctly for low-acid hops. I have been making my own notes about Beersmith's inaccuracies, so I don't repeat the errors.
"An easy to drink and effervescent beer. Carbonation is too high, doesn't let the flavor come through. back off on flavor hops."
I overcompensated after bottling failures by not having a counterpressure bottle filler... Apparently the duct tape hose rig worked well enough! The hops issue I developed from my beersmith recipe, whenever Beersmith says 18 IBU for my hops, it really means 28... it doesn't seem to calculate IBU correctly for low-acid hops. I have been making my own notes about Beersmith's inaccuracies, so I don't repeat the errors.
If you are turning around for speed, id look into finings first, filtering is a pain in the ass, and has more impact on the beer. In addition to irish moss/whirlfloc, use a fining agent in the fermentor 2 days before kegging. I use keiselsol as I have vegan friends who drink my beer, but there is gelatin, pvc, isinglass, chitosan, a few options. There are positive and negative charged finings. I forget which is which but one set will drop out any residual starches (chill haze) and one will drop the yeast out. The beer will clear much quicker.
That said, almost any beer will improve greatly with 2-3 weeks in the cold conditioner close to freezing. You might just want to brew more so you have a backstock.
That said, almost any beer will improve greatly with 2-3 weeks in the cold conditioner close to freezing. You might just want to brew more so you have a backstock.
" 11 days in the fermenter, and 3 days in the keg to drinkability"
There is your problem.
There is your problem.
The beer was tasty, don't be a troll... oh sorry, too late for that, I should say don't continue to be a troll. Since you seem to have poor reading comprehension skills I'll help you out, the question was: Will filtering help me with my speed-brew experiments, or will it be a detriment.
Here's an example, the others who responded brought up good points:
Filtering is messy;
Other fining agents might work just as well without the trouble;
There are possible flavor effects;
Filtering is a time consuming step;
Speed brewing is a goal of mine, because I can eventually shore out the shortest time necessary to develop the flavors I'm going for, if you can't see the value in this goal, then just don't respond!
I'm interested in the gelatine step... other posters said you add it in the last 2 days in the fermenter? Do you need to chill it to get good results, or are 64 degree fermentation temps ok?
Yesterday was day 9 of my current brew, fermentation seems to be over, I took a sample in my cylinder and there was no churning, or activity but it was fairly cloudy, so I dropped in some Gelatin and am keeping it as cold as I can, around 52 degrees or so. Checked it today and it's crystal clear! Going to keg it tonight or tomorrow. Looks like Gelatin is definitely a great alternative to the messy, time consuming filtering.
agrazela
Well-Known Member
Gelatin is definitely very nice for fining. And I have found that it works quite well even without cold-crashing (which I don't yet have the capability to do).
For a 5gal batch, I dissolve 1g gelatin (250 bloom, type A) into 50mL water (that has been boiled, then cooled to about 150°F), put that into my secondary (bright tank, really), siphon from primary onto that (mixes it in), and simply let that sit at room T. Within hours it starts to clear up, and within 2-3 days it is as clear as you like and ready to package. And that sediment is nicely compacted, making siphoning to bottling bucket (or wherever) easy.
(Knox gelatin from the store is only like 150 bloom, I dunno if that translates to needing more than 1g)
I'm sure I could get even more clarity by including a cold crash (on the equipment wish list, along with kegging!), but this has greatly improved my clarity and storability, and keeps the nastier sediments out of my bottle. And vegetarians can drink juice.
For a 5gal batch, I dissolve 1g gelatin (250 bloom, type A) into 50mL water (that has been boiled, then cooled to about 150°F), put that into my secondary (bright tank, really), siphon from primary onto that (mixes it in), and simply let that sit at room T. Within hours it starts to clear up, and within 2-3 days it is as clear as you like and ready to package. And that sediment is nicely compacted, making siphoning to bottling bucket (or wherever) easy.
(Knox gelatin from the store is only like 150 bloom, I dunno if that translates to needing more than 1g)
I'm sure I could get even more clarity by including a cold crash (on the equipment wish list, along with kegging!), but this has greatly improved my clarity and storability, and keeps the nastier sediments out of my bottle. And vegetarians can drink juice.
