Filtering Beer

[Andrew Luxmoore]

Hey guys, so I've built the home brewery up to a level where I'm happy with it - fermentation control on a fridge and a chest freezer, a keggle and keg HLT, a cooler mash tun, a bunch of kegs and all that jazz.

The one thing that is still frustrating me is haze on a few different styles I'm making. While I know it's not a big deal, I would really like to source a filter that can be hooked up between kegs so I can just force from one to the other for brighter beer.

Any idea if that sort of thing exists in New Zealand? Aware they sell them in the US - 0.5 micron filters and the like. 

[Peter Church]

Brewshop has this option. Youd need to add the filter, keg connects etc. Haven't seen any others in nz

http://www.brewshop.co.nz/beer-filtering-system-1019.html

[Smiffy]

That's the sort of thing I've got. I believe it's meant as a water filter so try your local water filter shop. A one micron filter is perfect.

I had to make wooden "spanners" to be able to do it up tight enough.

I use caustic soda to clean the paper filter.

It does need 1-2 psi of pressure.

[Robert McLeod]

Do you just soak them in caustic or do you have to blast them?

[Smiffy]

I rinse first to get all the surface stuff off, then soak in a 25g/l solution, and the dirt falls off in front of your eyes. Probably only takes 5-10 minutes, then rinse for quite a while, then I normally leave mine soaking in water until I'm ready to use it again at which point I sterilize it with peracetic acid.

[Druid]

Curious about where you get items like peracetic acid (and caustic) from? Must be cheaper than starsan I'm guessing?.

[Smiffy]

You can get the caustic from Bunnings. Or you can ask your local friendly brewery if you are luck enough to have one just up the road.

[Hamish Jones]

Not sure if this filter would be up to much but I have been thinking about something like this, you could always find a finer inline filter for it

 

http://www.trademe.co.nz/home-living/food-beverage/other-beverages/... 

[Robert McLeod]

Contact Karl at allgrain.co.nz

he setup a double filter for me (5 micron into 1 micron, keg connects at both ends and an optional 1/4" quick connect from conical).

Try not to go lower than 1 micron unless you want to strip everything out of your beer (including flavour).

I'm not sure how much i paid for it -I dont think it was cheap though. 

You could probably just go for 1 micron maybe?

[Peter Church]

Anyone had experience with the following filter type

http://www.trademe.co.nz/business-farming-industry/industrial/water...

2 Quality 0.9 (sub one micron) Ceramic 10" Filter Cartridges...

Absolute filtration to 0.9 Micron...

Wondering what pressure would be needed among other things. My thought being that I would put the filter in line with pump when transfering from fermenter to keg. Wondering if pump would wind up aerating the wort though. Any thoughts on this?

 

[Smiffy]

I would expect that they would work pretty much the same as the 1 micron paper ones of the same size, but perhaps last longer, and perhaps be a bit more of a restriction.

I use a bit of pressure in the fermenter, 2 psi at the most, and the paper filter doesn't cause the beer to de-gas, but I also do it slowly, probably less than a litre per minute.

If using a pump, definitely put the filter downstream of the pump, so that the beer in the filter is under pressure not suction.

[Peter Church]

thanks Smiffy, pretty much what I thought, how long does the paper filter last you, I am guessing you control the flow using a valve downstream from the filter

a fermenter under pressure... I guess you have a concial.

[Smiffy]

I think about 15-20 uses. I control the flow by controlling the pressure via the regulator on the CO2 bottle connected to the top of the fermenter.Using the outlet valve to regulate flow would cause turbulence and de-gassing. I also keep the gas connection on the keg almost closed so there is a very slight positive pressure in there too.

Prior to getting the conical, I used a rotokeg as a fermenter so that I could pressurise it.