How to use Gelatin Finings?

I use the knox stuff from the grocery store, but assume gelatin is gelatin.

I take the packet and do a tablespoon or so, and put it in 150-160 degree water that I heat in the microwave. Don't want to boil it. Stir and dissolve.

Here's the key though. Your primary needs to be COLD.. Like crash it down for a day or three in your fermentation freezer or fridge.. Once it's cold through, that'll help clump up the crap, and allow the gelatin to pull it down to the bottom. Put it in the carboy and swirl/mix gently. Let it do it's thing for a couple of days and you'll find clear beer there in no time.

I've never done it at room temp, so I can't offer any help if it works that well or not. Cold crashing it, and adding it, works by far the best.

 

Has anyone ever had a problem bottling conditioning a beer after using gelatin?

 

I've done it both cold and warm, and cold works much better. I force carbonate, so can't comment on that aspect, although I suspect a lot of residual yeast is pulled down by the process (they do contribute to haze, after all!).

 

Palmer recommends ~1/2 tsp per 5G added to the 2ndary.

=====
Sprinkle gelatin onto 1/2 cup water.
Rest ~15"
Nuke 30 seconds.
Pitch.

 

I usually add 1/2 tsp to a 1/2 pint of water and just heat the mixture up until its 170 or so (which I usually do by eyeball) and then just put it straight in the keg and rack cold-crashed beer on top of it. It works much better in cold beer.

Don't boil it or it will actually congeal. Some people just nuke the solution in the microwave first, but it takes like 90 seconds to get a 1/2 pint of water to boiling so I don't really bother to use the microwave.

 

I found this helpful and will be doing it for the first time next weekend. We shall see.

 

I used gelatin to quickly clear a single hop Nelson IPA a few weeks ago. I only used a primary carboy and dry hopped then cold crashed then added the gelatin. Before adding the gelatin it had a bright white grape, gooseberry aroma and flavor that it was supposed to have. After the gelatin went in after 2 days it was crystal clear but tasted like nothing compared to before. Plus I bottled conditioned and it just got cloudy again from that, most people seem to use gelatin when kegging. I probably won't use gelatin again, at least not in a hoppy beer, and was wondering if it might be better to use gelatin in the primary then rack to a secondary and dry hop in there, then bottle. Or if the gelatin would still strip some of the hops away doing that too.

 

I'm not sure that gelatin will clear out the pumpkin beer. Did you use actual pumpkin in the beer? I'm not sure that gelatin will clear out pectin coming from the vegetable.

 

Does using gelatin change the way the beer tastes alot?

 

no. unless you used flavored Jello-O.

the unflavored gelatin is neutral. most people buy a big box of Knox gelatin from the grocery store and use a half packet at a time. it is much cheaper than buying from the HB store.
you won't taste any gelatin, but if done correctly the beer will be much brighter.
some might claim that clarified beer loses some character, but I am not one of those people. if you are used to yeasty beer, then sure, you would lose that element. but this is mostly a good thing.
Cheers.

 

BYO ran an article recently by Terry Foster on finings.
For 5G batch-size...add 1/2 to 1 tsp plain (eg. Knox brand) gelatin to the bottling bucket prepared as follows:
If 1/2 tsp doesn't clear the beer...use 1 tsp.

- Add gelatin to 1/2 cup cold water
- Stir well
- Nuke for 30 - 45 secs (don't let it boil)
- Chill...pitch...and mix

Works for me.
Tried using the 1/2 measure but have found the full measure is more better.

 

If someone is looking for a yeasty character in their beer, then they likely wouldn't be interested in fining.
And ditto on the Knox stuff. Your beer will virtually disappear in two days if done correctly

 

im not concerned about losing yeast flavor, i want my hop flavor to come out more

 

I added gelatin to my keg today, just like Don Osborn did in the youtube video(this guy is awesome, watch his stuff!) probly about 4 gal in there. very cold. Ill wait until the day after tomorow and report back what happens. I can do a side by side comparison- I have 2 5 gal batches of the same beer, both about the same murkiness. Should be interesting.
Cheers!

 

I often see the "DO NOT BOIL" warning thrown out by a lot of people in these types of forums. Gelatin CAN congeal when boiled, however, that's concentration dependent and occurs at lower temperatures than you'll be cooling it to before adding it to beer. Unless you're boiling your 1/2 tsp or gelatin in an incredibly small volume of water and cooling it to refrigerator temperatures, you're fine. The premise that your gelatin will not work properly if it is boiled is a myth, and I am completely at a loss for how it started, especially when the instructions for use right on the LD Carlson bottle indicate that you "soak 1 hour [to bloom and increase solubility], boil to dissolve".

Here's something I wrote a little while back on Reddit that explains gelatin on a scientific level, and why boiling doesn't affect performance:

"As a scientist who works in protein chemistry in the Bay Area, I can tell you outright that boiling the gelatin will not affect the performance. This is due in large part to two things:

1) Gelatin is simply hydrolyzed collagen, and is often produced by boiling source material rich in collagen in a mild acid to encourage hydrolysis. Boiling is an actual step that speeds up hydrolysis that many manufacturers use.

2) Collagen, and therefore gelatin, is a protein/peptide based material. So, while boiling (or even heating to 180 F) would affect the structure, the structure is not what results in the clearing effect seen with the use of gelatin as a fining agent.

The approximate amino acid composition of gelatin is: glycine 21%, proline 12%, hydroxyproline 12%, glutamic acid 10%, alanine 9%, arginine 8%, aspartic acid 6%, lysine 4%, serine 4%, leucine 3%, valine 2%, phenylalanine 2%, threonine 2%, isoleucine 1%, hydroxylysine 1%, methionine and histidine <1% and tyrosine <0.5%. The clearing effect of gelatin arises due to the fact that, at the pH of beer, the collagen is highly positively charged, allowing it to bind to negatively charged molecules in solution and on the cell surface. The positive charge arises NOT because of structure, but because:

• the pH is slightly higher than the pKa of side chains (carboxylic acids) on aspartic acid and glutamic acid, making them negatively charged, but only slightly so, as the pH of beer is only slightly higher than the pKa of these acid sidechains.
  
  
• the pH is significantly lower than the pKa of sidechains (primary and secondary amines) on proline, hydroxyproline, arginine, lysine, and hydroxylysine, making them very positively charged. The positive charge resulting from these residues is not only enough to offset the small amount of negative charge on the glutamic and aspartic acids, but it is sufficiently high enough to give a large positive charge to the overall gelatin molecules.
  

The remainder of the amino acids in the structure have primarily hydrophobic side chains, and do not result in contribution to charge.

So, if you have been boiling your gelatin, fear not! It should have no affect on the ability of gelatin to fine your beer. The pH of your beer and the temperature at which you fine are the two most important factors."

I typically soak for 1 hour at room temperature, boil for a couple of minutes, cool to room temp, add to keg/fermentor, rack beer into that container and place in the refrigerator. Works every time!

 

It would appear, then, that boiling doesn't hurt. But, since it also doesn't help, I'll continue to not do it!

 

Very True! It just grinds my gears when people claim boil makes it somehow not work properly.

Cheers!

 

Thanks for the informed reply. I'm taking the online Chemistry for Brewers course and have learned just enough about organic chemistry to appreciate the knowledge required to formulate your response.

Related: Could you address "Isinglass" . . . how it clears beer and its relative merits/demerits compared to gelatin?

 

Not very familiar with Isinglass, and I have never used it. It is a form of collagen though, so I would guess the mode of action is somewhat similar to that of gelatin, which is simply hydrolyzed collagen. Not really sure though.

Cheers!