Filtered 10 gallons of 5D today. The beer was not real cloudy, but it had a good amount of haziness. It had been put in the serving keg 5 days ago.
My previous experience with filtering was very good. Using a 5 micron & 3 micron standard water filter, I always achieved brilliant crystal clear beer.
Today for the first time I used the Bev-Brite 3 mic and 1 mic.
Very disappointed in the results. The beer is only slightly more clear than it was before. So I hit one keg with gelatin, and it should be clear within 3 or 4 days at most.
The flavor of the pre and post filtered beer did not seem any different.
I am going to ask more beer dot com if they will take these filters back. They are of little use to me.
Lost very little beer in the process, less than 1 pint from each keg.
The beer is now brilliant, crystal clear. I do not perceive any loss in flavor from filtering. Yes, I hit it with gelatin.
Via Craft Beer & Brewing, I watched an hour long interview with the head brewer at Altstadt Brewery, multiple Gold Medal winners at the GABF. He said anything tighter than 3 microns would strip the flavor.
I will contact More Beer this week, and see if they will exchange the 1 micron for a 3 micron, or a 5 micron. While my experience was less than 100% successful with this attempt, I am not ready to completely abandon filtering.
If gelatin cleared it up that quickly, the haze was caused by yeast. Why a 1 micron filter didn’t remove that like it should, I’m not sure. If anything a filter than fine would be prone to clogging. Are you sure it was assembled correctly?
Yes, assembly was correct. The beer went through a 3 micron filter first. I did make sure to connect the “in” line to the “out” line on the keg. When I pulled a sample, it was still cloudy / hazy. Then I figured the 1 micron will clean it up. Nope! Still hazy.
I started filtering at around 5 psi. Near the end, had to bump up the pressure to 10 psi.
The filters did not clog.
Yes, after adding gelatin, this beer is brilliant clear today. After less than 2 days total time.
What is odd is that in previous filtering with a 5 mic followed by a 3 mic, the beer was always brilliant.
Spun-polypropylene filters are disposable filters and cannot be cleaned and used more than once. However, you can filter multiple kegs with one filter. 3 micron will remove most yeast, and 1 micron filtration will remove almost all yeast. All filters are rated nominal (will filter out 80-85% of matter at given rating). Temperature rated to 125°F.
Mine are 90% rated. Would a higher rating have performed better? You can get them in 99.8%.
Note the words “most” and “almost”. So, I guess I removed “almost” all yeast. You either remove yeast, or you don’t. Obviously, I didn’t.
The results are in…my brewing friend, and neighbor, and former craft brewer in Austin, Texas, has picked the winner.
In a blind taste test, he chose the filtered beer over the non filtered beer.
The first thing he said was the filtered beer was brilliant, crystal clear.
The two beers were nearly identical in all regards except for being filtered. He did go back and forth, with multiple tastings, having a hard time picking a winner. As the beers warmed up, his choice became more clear.
Dave had no info on the beers, or how they were brewed. All he knew was they represented my effort to brew a 5D Classic German Pilsner.
