I use irish moss when brewing and, a couple times during the process, filter through a 400 micron mesh. I cold crash and move my beer off the yeast to bottle. Nevertheless, my beer (ales, to this point) lacks clarity. I just picked up a fermenter with a conical bottom that I’m hoping will help. What other pointers do you have for me?
Irish Moss will only help with some protein haze. It’s a kettle fining for helping remove hot break. I don’t even use it and get very cler beers when desired. I’d skip the filtering. A conical will allow you to dump yeast so you can age the beer in the primary longer which is a good thing for clarity but certainly isn’t essential. BioFine clear is an amazing finer that drops beer very bright in just a couple days. Gelatin also works. The key is to make sure they are mixed into the beer thoroughly because they work while they drop out of solution. If you only pour them in the top and don’t mix it properly it won’t work.
Personally I’m only looking for crystal clear clarity in a few styles: Kölsch, lagers, not much else. MOst all my beers come to acceptable clarity in a few days to a couple weeks during some cold consitioning/lagering.
I think my beer is clearer out of kegs than bottles, simply because the keg doesn’t get moved in anyway when dispensing beer. Lots and lots of other factors can affect clarity, but I think time to let yeast settle and then racking to a keg for forced carbonation is a big one.
Some yeast strains are more stubborn to clear that others.
I use a yeast that drops clear, tannin in the mash and boil, kettle finings, rack off yeast, cold crash, and gelatin.
But if you have time, lagering (cold storage) and plenty of time will work if you choose a yeast that drops clear.
We always use Gelatin. It works! If crystal clear beer is your goal, give this a try. You will not be disappointed.
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IMG_1096 by majorvices1, on Flickr[/img]
Kölsch fined with only Gelatin and probably lagered about 2 weeks.
Clarity issues occasionally haunt me. I manage to get clear beer a lot of the time but I have a blonde ale on tap right now that has been very hazy. I thought I may have forgotten to add a gel solution so I whipped up a batch and added that and waited a few days. Grabbed a glass and it was very hazy as I expected if the gel dropped things down to the bottom but as I continued to drink it the beer stayed hazy. I use Whirfloc or Kick Carageenan in every batch, I get clear, trub-free wort into the fermenter, I am careful with my mash pH and I gel every batch and also allow them to condition cold for a decent amount of time but I still whiff occasionally. Those cloudy beers still taste good so they are NOT contaminated… they’re just hazy.
Do you get your gelatin mixed properly? If not it won’t work. Also, try BioFine Clear. That stuff is amazing. I’ve seen it drop a 60bbl batch of beer bright in a few days when mixed in properly.
I do the same thing with the gel solution on every batch. I allow the gel to “bloom” in cold water for awhile and then slowly heat it in a small pot on the stove and add it to the keg. This works 99% of the time. Gel solution does not need to be mixed in with the beer to work. The biggest concern is that the beer be COLD when you add the gel. I tried Biofine but the instructions say to add TWO doses with one of them requiring agitation of the keg and the second one not requiring it. It did not work that well for me although I admit that I did not have BIOFINE but another product that is the same type of colloidal silicon dioxide. I feel like there could be some other things as well. My water has about 140ppm of bicarbonate which needs to be neutralized with lactic acid and I wonder if there are water variations over the course of a year. I watch my pH closely so honestly, mash pH should not be an issue. Many of the cloudy beers are pale which COULD suggest a pH issue.
Village: I’m not exactly sure what you are trying to say, but with Gelatin absolutely has to be mixed throughly into the beer as does biofine - or disseminated evenly on the surface. Both work by creating a positive or negative charge (can’t remember which) that pulls or pushes the haze out with it as it settles. If you aren’t mixing properly you won’t get clarity no matter how hard you try. It also works best cold with gel and is absolutely necessary with BioFine.
If you aren’t getting a good hot or cold break that could be your issue, which is also related to pH. In one sentence you say it definitely isn’t pH but in another you say it may, so not sure what to say there.
I have to disagree about the mixing part. I have watched warm (160F) gelatin solution, poured gently on top of cold beer in a carboy, form a visible layer and, as the temperatures equalize, drop to the bottom taking the haze along with it. No mixing involved.
This is correct. Also, gel solution is NOT a positive or negative-charged thing like Whirfloc is. If you have seen pictures of some of the clear beer I have posted, that is a result of simply opening a keg and pouring some gel solution on top and sealing the keg back up. At that point the beer is cold and flat and I would start carbing afterwards. The solution is warm, the beer is cold so the gel sits on top at first and slowly falls dragging everything else down with it. It’s a physical reaction, I believe not a chemical one. My comment on the pH is that I focus carefully on my mash pH but could slight variations in my pH adjustment cause some cloudiness? I’m not sure. On this blonde ale I have that is cloudy, I have absolutely no idea why it’s cloudy. It may have been gelled TWICE and everything else regarding the brewday went as planned. It just happens sometimes but the vast majority come out very clear.
Are you sure you reached terminal gravity? Maybe the yeast didn’t finish and at fridge temps it is still working albeit very slowly.
I have had this occasional problem also. I am not sure what the issue is. The above is a wild guess.
Interesting. I’d imagine, however, that if I was not getting the clarity I wanted from gelatin I’d try mixing and see if that didn’t work better. It’s possible that in some cases it spreads across the surface and in other cases it doesn’t. Maybe adding it warm is the key though. Since I have always done it in the keg I have racked ontop of it cooled in a corny.
Also, FYI: The collagen in isinglass is a highly ordered, positively charged helical polymer. When used as a fining agent it has the ability to settle yeast and beer proteins very quickly and can do so repeatedly.
Gelatin works the same way Isinglass works only is easier to handle and cheaper. It works because it is positively charged and “pushes” the haze out as it falls - or it binds to it. One or the other. It won’t work properly if it isn’t spread out evenly on surface or throughout as I stated earlier
Edit: “Gelatin works by the same mechanism as isinglass, although because of its amorphous structure it binds less tightly to yeast than the highly ordered helical structure of isinglass.”
Yes, my beers ferment in a fridge and then go awhile longer on the basement floor to finish up and by the time I transfer to a keg (usually 10-12 days after pitching), the yeast is completely settled, the beer is mostly clear and final gravities are low… 1.006 to 1.008 is common. The beers taste good too and I would be able to tell if I was drinking underfermented beer. But there could be a clue here because the beer is clear(ish) at room temp so that suggests it’s chill haze. Funny too because I have been using something called ClearZyme where you add something like 1ml of this liquid when you pitch your yeast and it’s supposed to wipe out chill haze. Many of my beers look pretty much the same so my conclusion is that it doesn’t work very well. I have tried many fining agents but I seem to be a fan of using a gel solution. It [almost] always does what I want. 
I guarantee I could get any beer I wanted as clear as the picture I posted earlier with proper mash pH, proper boil, rapid"ish" chilling, 1-2 weeks cold conditioning and gelatin … or at least biofine clear.
I never “mix” the gelatin into the beer. Instead, it is slowly poured in the top of the keg. The beer is at or very near 32 degrees F.
Works every time.
Used to use gelatin, but switched to BioFine for any folks who may be vegetarian (I’m not and each to their own) and stop by to taste my brews. BioFine has worked just a well if not better IMO.
I use biofine now for beers I want to be bright AND the floating diptubes from Clear Beer. Those alone will make a huge difference.