Fining with Isinglass

[denimglen]

Anyone got tips on this stuff (Magi-fine 300)

I've tried it a few times now and doesn't seem to do much.

Mixed about 1 gm in about 200mL water. Added to cold (10C) beer. Left a couple days. Kegged. Still cloudy.

Wort is pretty clear leaving kettle. Doesn't seem to be any infection or anything.

[JoKing]

Time will tell, my friend... time will tell.

[denimglen]

I've been doing a bit of reading over the last bit on water chemistry, a little confused but some things that seem just as important as pH are the salts in the water.

It seems Ca is pretty important for clarity - aiding in break precipitation, yeast flocculation. I dunno about the water in your hood but mines damn near on Pilsen's.

I used Palmer's Mash water calculator thingy and looks like I'll need to add around 6g of CaCO3 for my 16 SRM amber that I'll be brewing on Sat.

[JoKing]

Yeah, 16 is pretty dark.

What you say about Calcium is true - but it is important not to overdo the carbonate. Somethimes you'd be better off leaving it out altogether. Especially because is raises the level of alkalinity of the water resulting in a higher residual pH. Gypsum is still my favourite even though it lowers the pH in all beers.

But have a play - and keep us updated with your findings.

One thing you can do, is mash in and thake a pH reading. If you aren't happy with the pH - you can add the salt to get it where you want it. But know that when they are mashing Guiness - the pH in the mash certainly isn't 5.2!

For the brew you are planning, anywhere up to pH5.7 is acceptable, but I would lower 5.8 if that weas where the pH ended up. 5.5 to 5.6 is realistic.

[denimglen]

"One thing you can do, is mash in and thake a pH reading. If you aren't happy eith the pH - you can add the salt to get it where you want it"

Yeah, my plan exactly.

6.0g of CaCO3 puts me at like 160ppm Ca and 249ppm HCO3, so kinda at the upper limits of each, but that will still get diluted back down in the kettle I guess.

Or I could add half the amount of CaCO3 and then chuck in some 5.2 buffer. But I don't really wanna do that.

I've still gotta dig out the section in Fix's book, apparently that's quite good.