Questions about gelatin

I personally have not used Gelatin in my homebrewing. Below is from the Beersmith website:

“Gelatin

Common unflavored clear gelatin can be purchased from the local grocery store and is effective in reducing both proteins and polyphenols. Gelatin is a collagen based agent derived from hooved animals. Add 1 tsp of unflavored gelatin to a cup of hot, but not boiling water and gently mix it into your fermenter. Again, wait a few days before bottling or racking to allow the gelatin to clear the beer.”

My understanding of the above is that Gelatin will clear room temperature beer.

Cheers!

 

This blog indicates that gelatin is more effective if you add it to cold beer:

“Fermenter or Keg

The first question to ask, is: What state should our beer be in when we add the gelatin? There are two methods, and they both work equally well. You can fine with gelatin in either a fermenter (primary or secondary), or directly in the serving keg. I typically opt for the later. Although, in either case, you want the beer to be cold, and I mean ICE cold. The colder the beer is, the more haze-forming particulate will form. The more haze-forming particulate that forms, the more particulate the gelatin can fine out. I've heard people have used gelatin with some success at cellar temps (50-55F), but I've only had it work well when the beer was at serving temp (32-40F).”

http://www.bertusbrewery.com/2012/06/how-to-clear-your-beer-with-gelatin.html

Cheers!

 

FWIW, below is what is listed on the Midwest Brewing website:

“Note: Gelatin Finings can take up to 2 weeks to clear a beer or wine.”

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/gelatin-finings.html

Maybe your beer will clear up given time (e.g., 2 weeks).

It would seem that adding Gelatin to cold beer results in clear beer more quickly?

Cheers!

 

The colder it is, the more haze forming particles form. When warm the proteins and polyphenols are non aggregated and thus have too small a hydrodynamic radius to be seen by the naked eye. When cold the polyphenols can polymerize and subsequently aggregate with proteins (clump together), thus increasing their hydrodynamic radius and eventually, when they get big enough, become visible to the eye. If the nature of the bonding between the polyphenols and proteins changes from non-covalent to covalent, or the aggregation becomes permanent and you get permanent haze.

The long winded chill haze explanation aside, if the beer is not cold those aggregates won't form thus your gelatin won't really clear the beer. At this point your gelatin is probably sitting at the bottom of your keg in a clump, and thus inverting the keg won't do anything other than mix gelatin. Make up some fresh gelatin and dump it into the keg, and you'll have your "exquisitely" clear beer in a couple days.

 

What is different about gelatin vs isinglass then? because all the wine kits I buy use isinglass and most explicitly state to leave the wine at room temp or the isinglass will not be as effective.

 

They're both primarily collagen, one is derived from animal by-products the other from fish bladder.

Selective removal of different types of compounds in Beer vs. wine probably (FYI I know shit about wine making). Personal experience with isinglass, if the beer's not cold, it won't work as well.

 

I should first caveat that I don’t have a lot of experience in using finings. I always add kettle finings (rehydrated Irish Moss flakes) but typically rely on time & gravity to further clarify my beers.

I did use Isinglass a few times in the past when I fermented with Wyeast 2278; those beers would not clarify even with 6-7 weeks of lagering. Isinglass cleared those beers up just fine (no pun intended).

It is my understanding that Isinglass is principally used to settle ‘excess’ yeast while Gelatin is used primarily to settle ‘excess’ proteins and polyphenols. Isinglass will also help some proteins and polyphenols to settle out but that is a secondary process as I understand it.

I always added the isinglass to warmish beer (cellar temperatures: below 60°F).

Cheers!

 

For me, gelatin clears a beer in 2 days max at near freezing (35F).

 

“It will clear fairly well, though not brilliantly, in two weeks all by itself.”

Yeah, I am unsure why Midwest Brewing stated two weeks for Gelatin. I personally have never used Gelatin so the best I can do is quote second sources.

Cheers!

 

Anecdotally, gelatin works...too good...for some reason it seemed to pull hop flavor out, too. I will never use gelatin in an IPA again...better hazy than bland.

 

You are not the first person to post about gelatin having an impact on beer flavor. Below is a post I found in the past:

“Gelatin will in general always affect the flavor of the beer...but it's not because you're adding something to the beer...it's what gets taken out.

Much like fine filtering, gelatin will help to take out the larger particles in the beer...and they affect the flavor. Some of the common things that will drop out are yeast, proteins, and some of the hop compounds. All these items have a flavor impact on beer, and their absence is noticeable too.”

I personally prefer to just use gravity and time since I think that has a lesser impact on beer flavor.

Cheers!

 

Between you and me, we seem to have aversions to many of the fining agents out there. At least cold crashing, PVPP and Biofine seem to work well

 

I generally just use some Irish moss in the boil, and whatever haze is there, is there. I notice more haze if I forget the Irish moss, but it doesn't taste any different as far as I can tell.

I actually have a small thing of gelatin, as it was real cheep so I picked some up. May not bother using it for quite a while tho, especially not on a real hoppy beer. Whether the flavor loss is anecdote or fact, I just don't care enough about having perfectly clear beer to take the chance. Now my blonde ale, I could use gelatin on that, as it's not real hoppy and clear is good for that style. I suppose I'll try it sooner or later.

 

Regarding flavor loss and gelatin usage, I think its over interpreted. If you brew a beer and it doesn't have enough brown malt flavor in it what do you do? Next time you add more brown malt right. Well the same thing applies here. You make gelatin fining part of your regular brewing process. You brew, fine, taste it and rebrew. There is no change being taken that you'll lose something. Fining with gelatin is just a process issue. Flavors issues are almost always manageable on the recipe end.
Yeast tend to bind up hop flavor as well, so maybe brewers shouldn't use yeast? No you use more hops to compensate. And by more in both examples we are talking trace amounts of flavor loss.

FWIW, I don't care about super clear beer either and normally don't use a fining step. But I did start experimenting with gelatin lately and that's where my diatribe above comes from. If you want to make a homebrewed beer for a group of people that you really want to impress the visual will be the first thing that sets them off or turns them on. Using gelatin can help push you over that initial first impression for many of the "un-initiated".

 

Do you ever add Biofine to the keg? I've only used it in secondary, then racked off of it. I'm curious to know if the beer sitting on it the entire time in the keg has any adverse effects.

 

Kinda off topic - but isn't it weird that a Cream Ale is supposed to be so clean and refreshing? It seems like a cream ale should be a really thick and hazy beer with a creamy mouthfeeel. The name is all wrong.