Currently I have a czech pilsner lagering/carbing up at 30f and decided to give Gelatin a crack on it.
I heated 2 oz of water and 1/2 tsp of Gelatin in a mug using 7 second bursts until it hit 145f. Then I poured it into my serving keg. The plan is to wait like 4 days then pull a couple pints off. I just wanted to check to see if theres anything I’m doing wrong or should be aware of? I’m thinking ideally in the future I’ll do this in the fermentor so I can completely rack off it.
Did you allow the gelatin to bloom before heating? Other than that, I think you golden. I don’t know how critical blooming is, but I know it’s a step in most candy and baked good recipes that use it.
I heat the mixture to 150-155F, then add to the keg, no blooming. Results are excellent.
I have been having mixed results lately. Not sure what I am doing wrong. I do similar to the OP however I normally use about 3/4 c water and 1 tsp of gelatin. I let sit for about 15 minutes then heat to around 150 and add to keg. I feel like sometimes I get great results and other times I may as well have not even used it. I have tried adding during kegging and a day later to a cold keg with no noticeable difference.
It seems that most lager yeasts drop easily so that will help in this case as well. The one light lager that I have brewed was crystal clear with very little effort.
+1
I use 1/2 tsp gelatin in 1/4 cup of water. The beer is 32F coming out of the fermenter. Racking onto the gelatin mixes it well and seems to work better for me than adding it to the fermenter. I can usually pull crystal-clear pints the following day.
I typically use around 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of cold water in a bowl that has a lid and just sprinkle about 1 tsp of gel over that, put the lid on and shake it every few minutes. I let it sit for 10-15 minutes and then heat it slowly on the stove in a small pot. I stop just short of boiling it and all of the granules have dissolved so it just looks like water with nothing in it. I let that cool a bit and then add it to secondary and rack the beer from primary on top. This will typically create very clear beer in a few days depending on the rest of your processes. If I want the beer even clearer, I will rack to a keg, chill it overnight (maybe 35° or so), add another batch of gel solution to the keg and then start force-carbing. Using the gel on room-temp beer is good but using it on cold beer will help to drag down what contributes to chill-haze (proteins, tannins?) and it seems like the cold addition is the better bang for your buck.
I did not let it bloom, glad to hear some of you have good results without letting it bloom. I seem to remember some comments about it smelling like rotten meat as it drops? Guess you have to be careful with the first and last pints?
My method, after a total failure a couple times
Edit… nuke time will depend on your nuker. Mine is a tiny peice of crap. So maybe you’ll want to do 10 second nukes.
Jim: if you add the gel to the primary, do you reuse that yeast in there? I have always wondered if you could and I would think it would be totally possible to reuse it without issue. I know a number of brewers who add it to the primary but don’t reuse the yeast or only add gel to the primary when that is the last use of the yeast. Cheers.
Im not the yeast or gel expert, but thats OK. Here’s what I think. Gel doesn’t grow. So here’s what I would do if I wanted to reuse the yeast from a gelled primary. I’d leave about an inch of beer on the yeast cake, swirl that all up and pour it in a jar. When im ready to brew I would swirl it so its a thin slurry, and I’d make a starter with 100ml of the slurry. The gel isnt going to reproduce, or really do anything, and there’s just a little in that 100ml anyway. Not sure that I would just pour a new wort onto the whole gelled yeast cake, but I dont do that with yeast cakes anyway.
Have I reused gelled yeast? No. But I think that probably its fine. And if I did, thats how I’d do it.
Followup: On the second day I pulled a pint and it looked the same (expected), pulled a second later and still super hazy. I was almost disappointed until I pulled a 3rd glass later and it was crystal clear! That definitely did the trick. I’d say the pilsner hit the clarity level right away that my non-gelatin oktoberfest developed after like 3 weeks in the keg.
Just for the hell of it I added some yesterday to a very heavily dry hopped saison with 20% oats. It will be interesting if it can get through that haze.
Thanks for the tips everyone.
+1
Gelatin wouldn’t be expected to be very effective against protein or polyphenol haze. Just a heads-up in case you don’t get what you’re looking for (ha!).
been my experience-couple pints of hazy junk and then clear beer thereafter. ive stopped fining my PA and IPA…whether its in my mind or actual, the hoppier beers taste better to me without it.
Some brewers have expressed concern that a gel solution will actually strip a beer of late hop additions. If you dry hop a pale ale and then gel it… does it remove or lower the level on your late/dry hops? I’m not enough of a hophead to know the answer to this. If I make a dry hopped beer, I gel the beer in secondary and get it clear. Then I dry hop it for 5-7 days, rack it to a keg and then just let the beer go… no more gel additions. Those beers are typically hazy for awhile and then they slightly clear. For those looking for that uber-fresh, late hop character… I would stay away from the gel after you dry hop. Just my 2¢. Cheers.
I haven’t personally noticed much difference with my dry-hopped beers. Not that I’ve tried them side by side. For me, if I can’t personally tell the difference without a side by side tasting, then I’m not too worried about it.
I start my cold crash in the morning or night before. Set to ~33 degrees
Once at temp I mix a half teaspoon of gelatin in 1/4 cup of water and immediately heat in the microwave in short bursts until it’s between 145 and 150. I use my thermometer to stir the mixture in between bursts to ensure all the gelatin is dissolved.
I then just dump straight into my fermenter and rack to the keg about 2 days later.
So far my brews have all been crystal clear when using this method. If I’m very careful when racking (love my speidel fermenter for this) the beer pours clear from the first glass to the last.
Good to know that late-hopped beers may not suffer. I agree that if you can’t tell, you’re probably good. I like my occasional hoppy beers but I’m not really into IIPAs, etc. I am a certified clear-beer freak so that is ALWAYS a priority to me. But if I wanted a beer with a nice, late-hop punch, I would accept some haze. Maybe I’ll try to gel one of my upcoming dry-hopped beers when it’s cold in the keg and see how it compares to past batches. Cheers.
You would be correct… 2 days and 2 pints later the beer is still super hazy haha. No worries, I don’t really mind haze in a saison anyway, just curious what would happen.
I gelled this blonde ale in the secondary and then again after it was in the keg and cold (but before carbing). It looks filtered…
Looks nice! Pretty much identical to the cream ale I gelled over the summer.