Filtering Beer Trouble

yup

 

Some people love gelatin and, if using a kettle fining to help coagulate protein like irish moss, it should work well. I myself have only used it twice and haven't been amazed by the results. But again, others have reported amazing results with it.

I had a thought recently.....have all of your beers always been hazy or just your recent batches of kolsch? We seem to be focusing only on the idea that your most recent batches are hazy regardless of filtering (which is what makes me think chill haze is to blame). If they all have been hazy, what is your water like? If your water is very soft (less than 50 ppm of calcium to be specific) it can greatly inhibit your beers ability to clear.

 

I may have missed something along the way, and if so, sorry. But it sounds like you are mashing with Reverse Osmosis water (i.e. water with very little minerals...close to zero if your RO filter is efficient). If so, and if you're not adding minerals back in, you are missing Calcium, which is important to yeast flocculation. That could very easily explain cloudy beer that clears much later.

 

So, how´s your mash efficiency?, if you use just RO water to mash without adding acid malt to low mash Ph(pale beers) or baking soda to raise mash Ph(dark beers),calcium chloride and/or calcium sulfate I don´t think you get the proper mash Ph for brewing every beer style , neither enough calcium to get a good fermentation.

 

My tip (the one you quoted) was not about pH. It was about having enough calcium for yeast flocculation. But calcium also affects mash pH, which is important too (though not necessarily associated with yeast flocculation as far as I know).

 

Target pH is always 5.2. But you will want different levels of Calcium, Magnesium, Sodium, Sulfate, Chloride, and Carbonate to give you the correct flavor profile for each style you are brewing.

 

Adding calcium to the mash is one way to lower mash pH. You can also lower the mash pH by using more (or different) specialty malts, or by adding an acid (such as phosophoric acid or lactic acid).

But as far as calcium aiding in yeast flocculation...the calcium doesn't necessarily have to be in the mash. It can be added in the kettle.

 

You don't need to check the hardness of the mash. But if you know your starting water profile, you can compute the various ion levels that will result from adding whatever brewing salts (like Gypsum or Calcium Chloride, etc.) you plan to add.

I would recommend starting by reading this link...
https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/water-knowledge
And/or read the white papers on mash pH at...
http://homebrewingphysics.blogspot.com/
The latter are a little more technical than the former, but very informative.

Once you have some basic knowledge, there are several competent mash pH tools available...
Bru'nWater
EZWater
MpH Calculator
BrewCipher (which is also a general brewing spreadsheet, so the water calcs are automatically integrated with your recipe. I recommend BrewCipher because it's mine, and because it has the excellent MpH calculator models embedded in it)

 

I would like you to start here :

http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15.html

 

Also note that if you do a pH measurement of a mash sample, you should let it cool down first before taking it. If you take it at mash temperature, it could potentially be 0.35 higher. In other words, a target mash pH of 5.2 is the measurement of a cooled sample. The same sample at mash temperature will be roughly 5.5 - 5.6 pH. It is also not the best for the life of the pH pen's measurement probe to take mash temperature readings.

 

There are many variables. But it's not difficult to get it right. As long as you know what your starting water profile is, and what your goals are, the spreadsheets do the math for you as you build.

Mg and Na aren't really needed for fermenting. Ca does help yeast flocculation. You can certainly use your carbon filtered tap water, but it won't be ideal for every style. Maybe not even ideal for one style. But yes, if you have reasonably hard water, you have enough Ca to get cover what the yeast will need.

You can check mash pH and see what kind of pH adjustment is needed. But it's also helpful to be able to predict what that pH will likely be, plan the major adjustments accordingly, and start your mash with those adjustments. Then if further a adjustment is needed (after measuring actual mash pH), it will be a small adjustment.

Acid malt is just pilsner malt with lactic acid. The amount of acid malt you might typically need to use won't change the original recipe significantly. I would not recommend Sulfuric Acid (H2SO4). Lactic or Phosphoric would be a better choice.

Okay, so if it's important to not use any 'chemical compounds' and you want to make beer good enough that people will want to buy it... my recommendation would be to get an analysis of your carbon filtered water and then figure out what styles of beer might match up well with your water. i.e. if you don't want to change your water, brew to your water's strengths.