Advice to clarify my beer

[Phill Chevsi]

Hi,

At the moment I am doing my second partial mash.  One thing I am really trying to work on is clarifying my beer.  The first batch tasted fine but would have been great if I could get rid of the sediments as much as I could.  I have been looking around on the net and have found some ideas that some people are for and some against.  I thought I would seek ideas from the real beer forum as you guys have been great in the past.

I was thinking about moving the beer from the fermenter into a secondary fermenter before bottling.  My aim for this is to have the beer separated from the yeast cake at the bottom of the first fermenter.  I thought that this may be a way of clarifying the beer somewhat and then adding finings to the second fermenter before bottling a few days later.  I am somewhat cautious though as I am aware that this may lead to oxidation (and of course the possibility of contamination.  Any advice about this or any other ideas about clarifying would be very much appreciated.  

Phil

[Ralph]

If you are bottle conditioning then you will get sediment from the yeast that do the secondary fermentation in the bottle no matter how much you fine the beer beforehand.

If you want home brew with very little sediment in the bottle then it gets more complicated... Bottling from a keg is one way you might achieve this.

I find the best way to get good clear beer from bottle conditioning is to use a yeast that is very flocculant and so the sediment sits very firm on the bottom of the bottle. The danstar Nottingham dried yeast is one that I have found achieves this well. Other than that store your beer upright, handle it with care and pour the clear beer off the yeast in one go.

[Phill Chevsi]

Cheers Ralph,

I was reading about getting good yeast flocculation recently.  Think I will hunt some out for my next batch.  Thanks heaps for your input.  Much appreciated.

Phil

[Kelly Milligan]

Hey Phil :)

Raplh is spot on, it's the actual act of carbonation in the bottle that generates most of that sediment you find in your bottles. Notty is awesome for this, it floccs out to a very good clarity within weeks (those english strains.. they're mutant I tells ya!). 

Otherwise, do you find that the clarity is better at room temp, but gets much worse once you stick your beer in the fridge?  How about when you switched from extract to partial mash, did it get far worse with the mash batches?

[Phill Chevsi]

Hey Kelly,

Thanks for your input.  No I haven't  really found a huge change in clarity when I fridge it.  I guess I was looking back at other brewers batches that I have tried and am keen to achieve what they have done (Not that what Ive made is in any way bad.  Its always good and friends are more than happy to drink it)  

I hadn't thought about sediment from carbonation, and now that makes perfect sense to me.  Also, thanks for advice on the Notty.  Yeast is something that I have been learning a lot about recently so will give this a try next time.  

Thanks again for your thoughts and advice

Phil

[Edmund Barker]

Heya Kelly,

Is Nottingham good for a sparkling golden ale? I have US-05, but if Notty will floculate better, I might go for that and save the US-05 for my IPA. Cheers :)

[Kelly Milligan]

I think Notty would be great for a sparkling ale! :) might give you slightly more yeast character than the 05, which is a good thing for the style. I do have a soft spot for US-05, but unless you're able to cold crash it for several weeks or use Gelatine (which i use, and it works spectacularly!) then clarity can be pretty troublesome.

[Dan]

I found my beer got lots more"murky" when I went to Grain. Try using some Super Moss or similar at last 10mins of the boil and strain your wort well before you put into fermentor (I run mine though viole). Made a huge difference to my beer clarity.

[Phill Chevsi]

Cheers Dan,

I was reading about Super Moss recently.  Think I will give it a go in the next batch if it has worked for you.

Thanks for your ideas

Phil

[Nick]

With grain brewing, beet clarity and stability start at mash time. The cloudiness you're seeing is probably protein in the beer that causes cold haze.

I found four things that make a big difference.

1. Make sure your boil is vigorous and you get a really good hot break in the kettle. Irish moss is a good addition to help this happen.

2. Chilling the hot wort as quickly as possible helps with a good cold break which I rack the wort off as I found that it breaks up once fermentation starts.

3. Cold conditioning the beer after fermentation is complete causes the proteins to curl up (form the haze), clump together, and settle out of the finished beer.

4. If I'm bottling, I use a fresh yeast with high floculation properties so it forms a good sticky sediment that stays put in the bottom of the bottle. In fact, after cold conditioning, I found this essential as there is very little yeast left in the beer and the yeast there is is naturally non-floculant (which is why is remained in suspension so long). I found that if I didn't "krausen" the beer at bottling time, it would take months to carbonate, resulting in awesome fine bubbles, but the yeast rises from the bottom as soon as you open it.