So I, like so many other homebrewers like my beer to be as brilliantly clear as possible especially for styles that demand clarity. Most of my beers get kegged in a 34-35f fridge. Usually my beers take 3-6 weeks in the keg to become (without finings) satisfactorily clear at which point I package the beer in bottles. I've been seriously considering getting a filtration system to expedite this process. It's also my understanding that filtering speeds up (almost instantly) a beers maturation phase. Filtration obviously strips a lot of flavor particulates (good and bad), so I imagine I may need to tweak my recipe formulation with filtering. I would love to hear from some first hand filterers out there but all opinions and thoughts are welcome! *finings annoy me, don't always work for me, and I'm sick of them* *i do like and use whirlfloc in the boil*
Interested to see what comes about on this. I'm all for cloudy IPA, but like a good clear pale, and blonde, which I get like you said in the keg after a while. Use Irish moss mostly, but prefer whirlfloc better actually. That said, I also thought about filtering my lagers after the lagering phase.
“Filtration obviously strips a lot of flavor particulates (good and bad)…” OK, so you recognize the ‘situation’. As a homebrewer I am strongly of the opinion that filtration is not a positive thing. If I am able to purchase commercial beers that are unfiltered (and not fined) I prefer to buy that beer. I really, really think that filtering and fining has a negative impact on the quality of the resulting beer (it strips too much flavor). You may be interested in knowing that Sierra Nevada Brewing has stopped filtering their beers: “When Steve Dressler of Sierra Nevada spoke at Hop Union’s Hop School he said they had stepped away from filtering that it tends to strip flavors.” Cheers!
Its a pain in the ass and not really worth it. Fining your beer with something like Biofine, gelatin or PVPP and then racking to the keg (or doing it in the keg and flushing out the first pint or two containing debris) will do just as good of a job (Note I see you hate finings... have you used Biofine clear or PVPP?). I had a canister type filter device and in spite of purging the system with CO2 multiple times I still picked up a good degree of oxygenation in any beers I filtered with it. The pros use plate chillers (we also use the plates in the lab), which may be a better choice than the canisters, but I haven't experimented with them. Checking the reviews of plate type homebrew filters, it seems many of them leak or clog, although that may be heavily dependent on the user, and not an inherent fault of the equipment. One major point, if you want to sterile filter and not just remove some particulate you have to go through a 0.22 micron filter to remove bacteria and that will take multiple passes as you'll have to filter from coarse to fine: 5 micron+ to 1 micron to 0.22 micron. Any potential oxidation will be magnified by an increased number of passages through the filtration cycle.
With knowing that filtration does strip flavors I would imagine that the brewer could address this at the recipe development stage. Increasing specialty/flavor malts, hop additions etc to match that of the flavor profile of the previously unfiltered (same) beer. I think that adapting my current setup with filtration would take some trial and error and recipe modification but I would imagine it is do-able. ? It was mentioned by Jamil on a CYBI episode that he may have to start filtering his clone attempts as commercial beers are often brilliantly clear and his homebrew is not. Tasty was able to clone many beers on that podcast and he does filter his beer. Often times tasty's beer would actually be more clear than the commercial example.
@barfdiggs I have biofine and have used it a few times with mixed results. Ive Racked beers to keg on top of 1-2 droppers of biofine and neither of those seemed to drop brite faster than that of a beer without it. Perhaps I need to use more?
At one time I considered filtering, and researched what it would take to do it right . And then I entered a (unfiltered) Kolsch (a beer that almost requires filtering per the guidelines) in a competition, and worried about how it would score. Turns out it did well, but more importantly, both judges used words like 'briliiantly clear' to describe it, and they were right. At that point, I more or less concluded that if I didn't need to filter a Kolsch, I probably don't need to filter anything. Good process, whirfloc, time, and gravity seem to do the trick. For me, waiting a couple weeks for the beer to clear just seems easier than what I learned about the alternative.
Pat, do you subscribe to BYO? In the October 2013 issue Mr. Wizard did an excellent write-up on how to obtain a clear beer via proper process. A list of the topics he mentioned: Proper malt milling Conduct a vorlauf Vigorous boil (using Irish Moss) Rapid wort cooling Cold storage prior to packaging He intimates that if a homebrewer does the above properly there is no need for finings (or filtering). If you can get your hands on the October BYO, this article is a worthwhile read. Cheers! P.S. As to whether commercial breweries can ‘compensate’ for filtering I have no idea. Sly Fox will occasionally make a draft unfiltered version of Pikeland Pils which they call Keller Pils. In my opinion the Keller Pils is tastier than the Pikeland Pils. I am of the opinion that the reason that commercial breweries filter their beers is for aesthetics (i.e., beer consumers expect clear beer) and simply accept that some flavors will be lost. Needless to say but Sierra Nevada has ‘bucked this trend’ by no longer filtering their beers; they consider making a fully flavorful beer is more important to their business.
@JackHorzempa I have yet to subscribe to Byo but plan on doing so soon. I've read a couple of the summer editions and enjoyed them. Ill seek out that October issue. I do all the main points you listed from the article except for proper malt milling because I don't own a mill online stores and my LHBS do it for me. Thanks for the input!
@VikeMan do you bottle from keg for most beer styles that don't benefit from bottle conditioning? The reason I ask is this. My procedure is keg my beer and store and serve my beer very (too) cold. It seems like it takes forever to clear in the keg and ill keep wishing, pouring, drinking, hoping it will but it never quite becomes brilliant (in the keg). So I eventually bottle the beer up with the beer gun (which I love) and I have found that my beer does become brilliantly clear in the bottle in a relatively short timeframe. Say 1-2 weeks. Is any other keg bottling people finding this to be the case?
I normally serve from the keg, and bottle only for competitions/shares/gifts, etc. I admit I'm baffled as to why the beer you bottle from the keg clears up while with the same amount of time in the keg it doesn't. Are you sure the extra two weeks in the keg wouldn't have done the same? i.e. have you bottled some and left some in the keg (from the same batch), for a direct comparison?
I don't think this is a fair or entirely true criticism. Commercial breweries often use sterile filtration units (less than .3 micron) because filtering increases the shelf-stability of packaged beer by removing almost all micro-organisms from the beer.
