Gonna be adding gelatin to my Imperial IPA tomorrow, and cold crashing for a few days before bottling. This is my first time adding gelatin to beer. I used WLP002 English ale yeast, which fermented like a bat out of hell, and by day 4 this yeast cleared and flocc'd out like no other yeast I've used before. I guess the only reason I'm using gelatin is to get the 2.5 oz centennial dry hops to settle in the fermenter. I'm wanting this to carb up fairly quick, since, well, fresh IIPAs are delicious. I know there's still gonna be viable yeast in there, but with a strain this flocculant I want to be sure there's enough to get the job done relatively quickly. Has anyone had bottles carb up normally after using gelatin, or do you find it to take longer than normal?
I have no experience with gelatin. I've never needed it. I pour carefully from bottles, or grit my teeth for the first few pours from a keg. All my beers are as clear as I want them. *Note, that I'm not really particular about pretty beer, but I wouldn't ever call any of mine ugly. As for yeast, if you fermented in an ale pale, you could pull some yeast off the high krausen ring and add it to your bottling bucket. This is the best yeast of the batch anyway. I read on this forum more and more that if you had made a starter that was too large, you'd have a mason jar of yeast in your fridge right now that's begging to go into your bottling bucket. I'm currently looking for a dry yeast that attenuates that low, and I'm not finding anything. Windsor, maybe for a repitch if necessary? Others may have more experience here with layering yeast with gel and what that might do to help floc hops.
Yea... the more I think about it, I may just say screw the cold crash with gelatin on this one. The sample I pulled the other day looked pretty damn clear. I forgot to add that I put in irish moss in the last 15 minutes of boil, which really helped. I was toying with pulling some of the yeast off the cake with a turkey baster, and adding that to the beer in the bottling bucket, but I guess that would defeat the purpose of cold crashing with gelatin. You talked me out of it, @inchrisin I've had this gelatin sitting around for some time now, and am always looking for an excuse to use it, but always cop out in the last few days. It's really just a novelty thing anyways
Never tried it, but something makes me doubt gelatin would drop the hops, especially if they are mostly at the surface of the beer. However, a 3-4 day cold crash without gelatin will drop the hops completely.
In my experience, cold crashing and gelatin will give you a very brilliant beer; people say you can get "clear enough" with the right yeast and cold crashing. While that may be true, I just made a red ale that was so ruby clear that I swear it glowed in the dark. I would pull your dry hops before adding the gelatin. Adding gelatin is very easy; here's a tutorial.
