gelatin with bottling

Is it worth adding gelatin to a batch of beer during bottling? I haven’t been able to get it done while it’s been cold crashing but really need to get it bottled.

Yeast doesn’t have very far to drop in a bottle, and pressure encourages settling out.

So is that a yes or a no?

Probably not worth it.  That’s my vote.

Cool. Thanks! I figure I’m going to be warming the beer back up to carb so it probably won’t be very effective anyway.

It only takes a short time for the beer to drop bright with gelatin when cold.  If you’re bottling tomorrow, add it today and you’ll be transferring clear beer tomorrow.

Maybe I don’t understand, but if the gelatin is being used to assist in clearing the beer, won’t it also drop the yeast and, as such, no longer allow for proper conditioning and carbonation?

That’s what I thought some time ago and I was assured by some that it wouldn’t be a problem. I have done it without issue on many occasions although I mainly keg my beer.

Fining helps attract yeast together into larger clumps that will drop faster (Stokes’ Law,) it doesn’t hermetically seal them away from the beer.

Fascinating information.  Thank you!!

After bottling more than 5,000 bottles of beer, personal experience has led me to the conclusion that although technically there may be some viable yeast still in the beer after fining and crashing, in most cases there isn’t enough to reliably carbonate the beer in anything like a timely manner - if at all. I always inoculate my priming spiese with a small amount [~1 to 2 oz.] of harvested yeast, and won’t bottle anymore until I’ve verified that fermentation is active. That works reliably for almost all beers, the exception being really high gravity/ABV barrel aged beers, which are a nut I’ve yet to crack.

I routinely fine with gelatin and cold crash at 35°F for two weeks. I have never had a beer fail to carbonate. After bottling I warm my bottles to 80°F for 1 week. I also use the Fermentation temperature in the priming calculator

I too have never had carb problems when using gelatin and cold crashing.

Listen to the recent Brulosophy podcast on using gelatin. Near the end of the show a listener email sparks discussion on this very topic.

With a few exceptions I only have problems with really big beers, and I always do with big beers that have been in a barrel for months.

Fining, and even coarse filtration, leave yeast in the beer.  Only very tight sterile filtration will remove all yeast.  Beer that looks perfectly bright can still have many thousands of cells per milliliter, plenty to carbonate.

…can and probably should, but I wouldn’t and won’t bank on it. It really sucks when you wind up with a couple cases of flat beer that with proper carbonation would have been spectacular.

How did you know that was the problem?

I think, IMHO, much of this depends on the alcohol content.  I brewed a Heavy several years ago and after 10 days in the fermenter, 2 weeks in the secondary and 3 weeks in the bottle, the beer was flat.  In fact, I had to open each bottle and pitch more yeast.  After another 3 weeks, it was fine.  This was the only time this has happened and the last time I brewed a high ABV beer.  Gun shy, I suppose. :-\

I’ve learned that with high alcohol beers, or with beers that have sat for many months, it pays during priming/bottling to co-pitch with just a couple grams of fresh yeast.  The yeast that is left behind from fermentation is very old and very tired.  A little sprinkle of a couple grams of US-05 or yeast of your choice can make a difference here to ensure proper carbonation.