I want to add gelatin to clear up my beer. I have beer in primary at room temp. I understand that gelatin works best when the beer is cold. Can I add the gelatin while I am racking the room temp beer to a keg before cooling the beer off in the kegerator or does the beer need to be cold when adding the gelatin?
I don't know if it's absolutely necessary for the beer to be cold, but intuition tells me it does. I usually pop the lid off the chilled keg, dump in the dissolved gelatin (it doesn't need to be stirred) replace the lid, and purge the headspace. I come back in two days and pour off a pint or so of an ugly, murky goo, followed by most insanely clear I've ever seen! (yes, each one is the clearest ever ) FWIW, I use about 1/2 envelope of unflavored Knox gelatin from the grocery store. Much cheaper than the LHBS and, while I could be wrong, I suspect it's the same product.
Yeah, no stir huh? The only reason I was wanting to add at time off kegging was to make sure it was dissolved throughout the beer. I will take your suggestion and see what happens.
Seems odd that it worked so well without stirring. But there you have it. My guess is that it simply disperses itself at the top, then settles out slowly over a day or two. The first time I used it, it blew me away!
gelatin binds to haze forming particles. the haze particles form in cold beer. the colder the beer, the more haze particles the gelatin will adhere to and the more will subsequently drop. and the clearer the beer will be. the colder the beer, the better. added to keg beer at serving temp works very well. of course never add gelatin before the beer is cold or you'll get something entirely different. Cheers.
I think gelatin will pretty much do its binding act on beer at room temperature or chilled. It will, however work a lot faster — and perhaps a little better — on chilled beer. At least that's been my experience.
Interesting— But what about the yeast? I don’t cold crashing anymore due to a “brewery” relocation that doesn’t fit my fermentation fridge (I bottle, so no keg crashing either L), but I was planning on adding gelatin to my next batch at the end of primary to help clear the yeast. No?
