Ken, I don’t want to rain on your parade, but have you considered grist, pH, time, and yeast strain? (I haven’t read this whole thread)
I’ve never used biofine, but I’ve used gelatin more times than I can count. While gelatin doesn’t take time, I get my clearest beers when allowed to sit a few weeks after using a highly flocculant yeast (Bry-97 90% of the time).
I have a Summer Ale (Pale malt + C40, mash pH 5.2 at room temp) on tap now that is extremely bright that had nothing but Brewtan added to the mash and whirlflock added to the boil. I could sight a rifle thru this beer.
I’ll take a picture this afternoon when I pour a pint.
So in your case I might point to the fact that you start with RO or distilled (I forget which) and build up. No bicarb to speak of and I do wonder if bicarb contributes to haziness. As far as the grist, yeast, pH, etc… yes I have considered those things but when I use the same pilsner malt from the same bag with the same blob of yeast and my water is the same and my pH is very much consistent (even if it’s not ideal) and one beer is clear and another is not then I start wondering what I’m seeing. I feel like what is left after all of that shakes out is “boil strength” and I WAS lowering my boil strength at one point because the LOers were suggesting it. All that said, my parade has been rained on many times and in those rainy moments I look for direction from other brewers so thank you for the reply. All information is valuable for sure.
I have made THREE beers recently (two in the fermenter and one in a keg) where I diluted my source water with 2 gallons of distilled. The beers were styles where this seemed to make sense (helles and other pale lagers). So that’s 26% distilled water in those batches and it was just an experiment to see what less bicarb looked like. Adjusting pH required less acid (as expected) but the question is how will those beers TASTE and how will they LOOK.
So here is this American Lager where I used BioFine when the beer was at basement temps. The first half of the keg was cloudy, cloudy, cloudy. I added some gel solution over the weekend and here it is now…
Much clearer. It’s funny because I called this an “American Lager” and all of the grains were American and the beer really seems like an American Lager because the head sticks around for about 20 seconds. I don’t know if it’s the Briess Full Pint, the Briess Bonlander, etc. but I generally get great head formation and stability on my beers but this one is living up to its name.
Most fining agents work by pulling “stuff” out of suspension via relatively weak electrostatic attractions. At room temp, there is a lot of kinetic energy in the beer molecules, and the stuff is zipping around so quickly that it overcomes the attraction. Slow the stuff down, and it’ll bind. Chilling slows it down. This is why you should only fine after cold-crashing.
The amount of biofine to use to clear a beer is very much dependent on the individual beer. For a given beer, the right way to use biofine is to do trials using small samples of that beer and different amounts of biofine, to see which amount works best. Sounds like a PITA? It is. Which is why no one does this. But this could explain your lack of results.
The king of fining agents is still gelatin, AFAIC. Sorry, vegans.
I think I have finally determined that after 22 years of brewing. I have tried a number of other products and processes but I keep coming back to gel. Another thing about the cold temp situation is that some amount of haze forms at cooler temps and applying the fining agent at that time helps to remove that haze (or the individual components that make the haze?) as well. Back when I used to use a secondary, I would add a gel solution to the secondary and transfer the beer. In a day or two I would have a secondary vessel (sitting on my basement floor) that was really clear. But chilling that beer would create haze and I might see clear beer and I might not. I feel like getting the beer cold and applying the fining agent is the best approach.
Back on page 1 of this thread I mentioned brewers who say their beers clear without fining agents and I STILL don’t know why that works for some and not others.
For why some people get clear beer without finings? No.
Any issues that I was having looks like it may have been a combination of a weak boil and also my use of Biofine when the beer was not COLD. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Okay, I know I will sound crazy (crazier?) but every one of these beers where I used Biofine seems to have an issue with the head on the beer. The head dissipates very quickly. I bought this Biofine from AIH in Michigan and when it arrived it was already very close to the expiration date which does not say much for them. I have never had a head issue like this. The cloudy Biofine beers eventually cleared nicely because I used a gel solution on them. I have some beers in the pipeline where I will not use Biofine and I will be interested in seeing the clarity and also the head formation and stability. I have to assume that I am the only one seeing this, right? I know a lot of people using Biofine with good results.
I tried an extra large dose of Irish Moss on one batch (2-1/2 tsp in a 5 gallon batch IIRC) in an effort to eliminate chill haze. It worked for the chill haze but the beer had very poor head retention - similar to your experience. I guess it removed too much of the proteins.
Interesting. I feel like every time I deviate from my normal routine to try to improve things I end up making things worse. I should just stick to what I’ve been doing and stop tinkering!
There are two interesting graphs in Principles of Brewing Science that show the relative effects of both Irish Moss and silica gel on haze active and foam active proteins.
That’s for that. So from that we can learn that too much Irish Moss can have a larger impact on head formation and stability than too much gel? Biofine is a colloidal silicon dioxide (is that right?) so it suggests that too much Biofine would not impact head, correct?
I wanted to bounce something off the expert panel here on AHA on this topic. One constant that I see when I have a beer that is stubborn to clear goes like this: I go to tap a beer and I get some clear beer (proabably in the line) and then I see a good sized-blob of something cloudy and then I get semi-clear beer. That first glass of beer is VERY cloudy. As the session continues the beer is clearer but not CRYSTAL clear and it stays that way for the rest of the session. The next time the beer is tapped (days later or whatever) the same thing happens. Very cloudy first glass followed by clearer beer the rest of the session. When my beers clear properly, the first glass of the keg might be cloudy as expected but subsequent beers are clear and the first pour of any session is clear. Does this one piece of information suggest anything? How could suspended [whatever] continue to be in the keg like that so that the first pour of every session is so unbelievably cloudy? The good news is that more recent batches have been better (clear from the start) so whatever it was might be in the rear-view mirror. Cheers Beerheads.
That sounds like sediment that is being stirred up by the turbulence of serving a beer. Maybe that sediment gets stirred up and then sucked out of the dip tube into the first few beers and then its gone for that session.
I wonder how the yeast variety plays in as in some yeasts pack more firmly.
Well, the kegs are not moved and when things are right then this does not happen where it seems like something is getting stirred up. It’s very strange because you would think that the entire keg would be cloudy consistently. This almost feels like there is some kind of stratification of the haze or else the haze falls when the beer is not being served but is then suspended during the session. I know that makes absolutely no sense but it has happened here on some batches and it’s consistent. I’ll add this: I did try to use BioFine on some batches where I added it to the keg and transferred on top when the beer was at basement temps. Those beers did not clear and so I used a gel solution and I just wonder if the BioFine + gel solution together would cause a problem. That seems unlikely too. Sometimes there are things that happen and I have no idea why and it frosts my flakes a little bit because I would like to know how to avoid it in the future.
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