Gelatin - WOW!

You'd probably end up with more yeast on the bottom of the bottle.

 

That's kinda what I'd been thinking. That's something I can deal with since we don't normally pour off the last 1/4 inch anyway, just chug it out of the bottle, in most cases and it give you an extra dose of vitamin B of some type.

 

Glad I found this thread tonight. I cannot wait to use it on my next brew - a Celebration Ale clone!

 

As has been pointed out previously, gelatin has the unfortunate side effect of making the resulting beer unsuitable for vegetarians. Not that that's a problem for me, but it does cut down on the sharability of my homebrew.

I've been in the habit of using irish moss -- 1 tsp per 5 gallon batch added to the last 5-15 minutes of the boil. But I've never tried to quantify how much of a difference the irish moss makes. My beers have gotten better for lots of unrelated reasons since I started using it. Does anyone have experience with both gelatin and irish moss or other fining agents who can report their relative effects?

 

I use both: Whirlfloc for last 5-10 min of boil and gelatin. I also cold crash for clarity with my lagers. I can say that the beers where I did not add gelatin are typically considerably cloudier than those where gelatin is added -- even at very low temps.

 

Hi, I don't mind slightly hazy beer, but my wife and brother and his wife and some other friends get smelly gastro-issues with too much yeast (though I always say it's from the junk food/pizza we tend to eat when we hang out as opposed to the beer). So I like to clarify it a bit.

I always thought the gelatin thing was more complicated, so I've been using Irish moss or whirlflock (sp?) tablets and/or filtering with a 1 micron filter. Filtering is good, but can be messy and is time consuming and just more things to clean after.

So, just double checking the procedure: I take a packet of gelatin (Knox or whatever). Hydrate 1/2 packet with 2/3 cup 170 deg water. Then I pour it in. Easy breezy... But, as usual with my, questions come up...
1) Do I stir the gelatin and water and wait for it to start gelling before adding to the beer or do I mix, stir and pour right away?
2) When adding to the beer: do I drizzle it around the surface or just dump (gently) and go?
3) Is it better to do this before kegging? It sounds like it would be.
4) Does gelatin do as good a job as filtering?

Thanks!

 

I have tried filtering and ended up with oxidized beer a couple of times. While filtering works well, I prefer gelatin.

Here's my procedure for 5 gal.:

1) Add 1 tsp of Knox gelatin to about 6-8 oz of warm water (I usually aim for about 85 degrees)
2) Stir until gelatin dissolves (it should look slightly cloudy)
3) Let sit for 20 min
4) Microwave to reach 170 degrees or until liquid is clear (usually takes me 45 s to 1 min). Stir and cover with sanitized foil.
5) I then use a sanitized wine thief to add the gelatin to the keg (dump from cup into thief). Note: beer should be as cold as possible before adding gelatin.
6) Wait 72 hours or so (I usually wait a couple of weeks as I'm lagering) and pull the first couple of pints off.
7) Enjoy crystal clear beer.

 

I was very stoked on trying this tomorrow, so I've been reading up on it and seeing how other peoples procedures were. I was all set and find to do it till I found out that it has the ability to strip beer of it's dry hopped aroma...which worried be greatly. I'm currently cold crashing the primary in my kegerator now to clear up my Celebration Ale clone, however now I'm not so keen on the idea of losing hop aroma.

Could anyone shed some light on this?