Beer Clarity

[Crusader-Rob]

I'm wanting to improve the clarity of my brews, I normally Use Irish moss of Koppafloc at 15mins to help make my beer look beautiful in the chosen glass. 

What do people use, and when and how much, in what size brew?

Where do they get it from etc. the clarity isn't too bad on some of my beers.

How does it affect flavour etc. if at all.

by the way, I'm not interested in filtering, before anyone mentions it. lol.

cheers.

[Matt Smith]

I use Koppafloc in the boil, usually 15 mins from the end at a rate of 1.2g for a 20L batch. After cold break my wort is always crystal clear. The cold break is really important, as it forces haze forming proteins out of solutions. You really need to have a wort chiller for this to work.

After fermentation, I try to cold crash and hold at 0 degrees for 3 days to precipitate out yeast and proteins. To be fair though, this almost never happens as I'm always rushing it out to get something else in. Finally, I'll dissolve 1 teaspoon of gelatin in a little water just below boiling, add this to a keg, and rack on top of this. My beer is always bright within 48 hours, gelatin does a great job.

If you are bottling, I would cold crash your fermenter, gently stir in the gelatin with a sanitized spoon, then hold for 48 hours before bottling. You may have to wait a bit longer for the bottles to carb as there will be very little yeast in suspension. Alternatively, you could add a very small amount of dry yeast to the bottling bucket, this will carb up your beer nice and should leave just a small dusty layer on the bottom, rather than the big gloop you quite often get in bottle conditioned beer,

[Matt Smith]

Oh I forgot to mention, I use the regular supermarket gelatin that comes in a small white cardboard box, it cost me about $3 from memory and has lasted me about 30 brews so far. Don't buy the pre-packaged single dose stuff from brew shops, its ridiculously expensive.

[Chris P]

I use Polyclar PVT from Craftbrewer in Australia.

Some people get away with a decent lagering at the end of fermentation and that gets it clear enough.

[Crusader-Rob]

yeah, i thought that gelatin, would be the option most use. just the supermarket stuff, i guess its the same thing really, when you say below boiling is there a recommended temperature, to avoid it turning to jelly...

[Matt Smith]

Not sure really, I just pour boiling water into a small pyrex jug, wait a couple mins, then stir it in. I have never had a jelly issue.

[Matt Smith]

Do you know if that stuff is Vegan? I can't seem to find much info on it

[Tilt]

Another aspect to clarity is watching pH to prevent development of protein haze.  This can be minimised by getting the mash and sparge pH right (5.2-5.5 is where I aim using the pH figures in the EZ water calculator spreadsheet). 

Generally for me this means 50-100g of acidulated malt in a standard Gladfields malt Pale Ale and 5g of kitchen grade citric acid in my sparge water.

Its worth hunting up the Brew Strong episode on beer clarity where Charles Bamforth  spills his guts about clarity and turbidity  (also talks about why its important from a beer longevity and flavour stability perspective)

[Stu H]

On a side note, how do I get in on this Gladfields malt gravy train?

[Tilt]

Give them a call and set up an order.  The best shipping rates to Auckland are if you can piece together a combined order of 200kg from memory.  Maybe put the word out and see if anyone else is keen to go in on a bulk order.

[Gareth Kerr]

I've usually gone the koppafloc route myself (about 1/4 of a teaspoon for a 30l batch, when I remember!) and that usually leads to fairly clear wort into the fermenter. If I don't dry hop or dry hop very lightly then the clarity is usually pretty good, but most heavily dry hopped brews (which is a good portion) tend to get a decent amount of haze. I've just started doing the gelatin + cold crash thing too so we'll see if that helps with the polyphenol haze. This page has a pretty good guide: http://www.bertusbrewery.com/2012/06/how-to-clear-your-beer-with-ge...

[Crusader-Rob]

Good Answers guys! I'd like to try the gelatine Optionto start with, see what sort of results I get. Just to clarify the process, do you boil the water to sanitise? how much gelatin? do you add and cold crash straight away?

I have Irish moss to use up, and I have Koppafloc as well, which hasn't been opened yet.

[JumpR]

My process for gelatine is to cold crash the beer to 2oC & wait a few days till it is properly chilled - then I my add gelatine 24-48 hours before bottling.  My process is:

boil 150ml water

let water cool to 75oC

add 1 teaspoon of unflavoured gelatine, stir till dissolved

maintain temp near to 65-75oC for 10 min (I use microwave on low setting) to pasteurise

add straight to fermentation vessel (no need to cool)

stir with sanitised spoon (very gently).

Leave fridge at 2oC temperature till bottling.

 

I followed this process this weekend, and was very happy with the clarity of my pale ale (that had a lot of dry hops).