I tried using gelatin to fine for the first time recently, but it does not seem to be working, at all. I used 1/2 tsp first, waited 36 hours and no change. Tried again with 1 tsp and still no change after 24 hours. What’s more is there was not even any gooey junk poured when testing. This makes me wonder if the gelatin is just floating on the surface and not dropping thru the beer. Does this happen? Any ideas what I am doing wrong? This was all done on about 3.5 gallons of kegged and carbonated beer.
Both times the gelatin was added to 1/4 - 1/3 cup room temp water and rested for 20 mins and then heated to 170F the first time and 150F the second. Yes the keg was at 35F for both additions.
i heat it up to about 155F and stir it all in until dissolved. then put it into keg first (did you do this?), rack cold beer on top and then give the keg a good rocking back and forth for a minute.
No stirring was done either time, I guess that is the missing factor. I will trying rocking the keg a bit when I get home and see if that does anything!
Gelatin mostly only removes yeast. If your haze is caused by anything else such as starch or protein or polyphenols, it might not work well at all. In that case, try Polyclar. If that doesn’t work, you might have a starch problem that nothing might solve but to ensure proper mashing next time around.
See this is why I suspected, but a beersmith article (which are not always totally accurate in my experience) about fining agents said gelatin was good for proteins and tannins but did not mention yeast. My beer is already yeast free, so I went with gelatin. The beer is a wheat so it of course has a greater level of protein that all barley beers and I used less whirlfloc than I usually do for this brew so I was trying to ‘fix’ the protein haze with a fining agent. Good to know that gelatin is not super protein effective, but other than inadequate mixing this does not explain why the gelatin has not found its way to the bottom of the keg yet.
Nope no thick pours, no gooey jelloey mess, just the same beer. The gelatin had certainly not solidified into jello before adding, just a viscous mixture.
FWIW, I remember making a beer where I used some flaked wheat - not a lot, under 1/2 lb. I wanted to clear it up a bit and used gelatin. It cleared the wheat protein haze completely out. I’m sure at higher levels of flaked grains it gets tougher.
Ok I will post pics of the gelatin ‘fined’ beer and the same beer without gelatin added (have two kegs of it and I just added gelatin to one for comparison) when I get home. Will not be for about 1.5 hours tho.
I don’t think you need to stir anything. I have been adding hot gelatin mixture onto cold beer without stirring for years with overnight results. I figure as the gelatin temperature reaches equilibrium it sinks to the bottom because it is more dense and takes all the haze with it.
I agree with dmtaylor on this. Maybe you haven’t picked it up because your dip tube is off the bottom of the keg.
This is my process as well. For some reason I have been getting mixed results lately. Some beers clear very fast while others will take 1-2 weeks so at that point I feel that I didn’t follow the correct process or something. My current lager cleared extremely fast but that is probably also due to the nature of very flocculant lager yeast.
No need to stir anything. Generally I swirl the fermenter (or keg in this case) a bit and then pour the gelatin in. The pre-swirling helps to ensure the gelatin will be well incorporated into the beer and not immediately form a pancake someplace. Use the same process for Polyclar.
Ok everybody, a real smh moment here. While I was taking a picture of the two beers to post, I realized that the gelatin fined beer is, in fact, clearer now. I guess it was just a time thing. Took a total of 3 days, and I would not be surprised if it continued to clear a bit more. Never got any sludge, but I suppose the goo has just caked around the dip tube and is holding steady. Thanks for all your help and insight even if it just came down to impatience!
EDIT: correction, took 4 days to show a difference, not 3