Dried Issinglass (Cracked It?)

[RabMaxwell]

Should work well with my soft water my issinglass isn't working as well these days as it froze in the winter

[RabMaxwell]

If you try it Rab can you let us know how you get on

It will be a while Daab as i have 2 litres of new Hop & Grape issinglass to use first.I have used the dry stuff before if i remember right it mixed ok with my hand blender

[Graham]

After pondering on why Brupaks supply citric acid with their paste I assumed the water used to mix the finings needs to be low in alkalinity or possibly a little acidic

Actually, not a little, but quite a lot acidic. It won't dissolve properly above pH5 and you really want pH2.5 or thereabouts, certainly for a decent shelf life.

My way would be, bearing in mind that I am not sure whether the Brupaks stuff is pre-treated in some way or is simply milled isinglass.

1). Put the powder into a container and add just enough acidified water to cover it.

2). The isinglass should absorb most of this water and swell. From time to time add more acidified water to cover it until it stops absorbing the water.

3). Leave for a while to make sure.

4). Give it a preliminary blitz and then add sufficient acidified water to give your desired concentration and give it the main blitz.

If you are going to store it for some time, the thicker the better and the pH should be ~= pH2.5. You can always post-dilute it before use.

If it is down to the alkalinity of the water, I guess people in soft water areas don't recognise this problem but I have hard water and treating it seems to make all the difference.

Their water is is unlikely to be of low enough pH to be that effective.

Of course, Brupaks powder might be treated or acidified in some way. Might have citric acid mixed in with it. In which case, deionised water is probably a better bet to remove the uncertainties of alkalinity. The statement "24 hours" does seem a bit optimistic to me, well a lot optimistic, so it might be treated in some way.

With untreated Isinglass granules, I've used neat vinegar for stage one and two above.

[WallyBrew]

From the picture it looks like you have ribbons of "isinglass"

If this is the case then to make 1 "gram barrel" of finings you would need:

1.5g of the product

0.4g of tartaric acid (2g of citric may be a substitute)

0.3g of sodium metabisulphate

360ml of distilled/R.O./deionised/boiled & cooled tap water at less than 15C

THE FOLLOWING SHOULD NOT BE CARRIED OUT BY PEOPLE WITH A DISPOSITION TO ASTHMA (OR ALLIED PROBLEMS)

add all the solid ingredients to a bottle of circa 500ml capacity and 100ml of the water

shake like b*g*ery for a couple of minutes

leave for 4 hours, examine and shake as previous. If a good amount of swelling has occurred then add 100ml of whatever type of water was added in the first place. Shake and place in refrigerator.

Check at 24 hours and shake again. Add another 160ml of whatever type of water was added in the first place. Shake again. Leave for a further 24 hours.

If the "fishy bits were any good" this should result in appropriate looking finings.

If one has to resort to a blender with shearing action to get clear finings then - well???

Note that excessive acidity and and shearing when mixing results in overcut finings.

EDIT - this post edited from 2g of acid to 0.4. Bad recall from years ago.

[Graham]

I don't think BP IG has anything mixed with it, it's flakes rather than granules, I think it is was it is what it says on the tin.
Right, i'm off to play with vinegar now

That photo is not what I expected. The Brupaks web site call it "a fine powder" which is not something I have come across to be honest, and is obviously not what it says on the tin.

The stuff in your photo looks like standard isinglass that has been shoved through an office shredder. The stuff that I have used was also shredded, but then chopped (Sutton and Philips I think); it was little, say, three millimetre, cubes of the stuff that were about the same size as Imperial Imps (for those that are old enough to remember them). If it is unadulterated Isinglass, then 24 hours is optimistic. A blender, of course may, reduce it from ten days to twenty-four hours, but I wouldn't bet on it.

As for pH: in my view , for your stock solution, you need to be well below pH4.5 .You need the pH as low as you can get it. It's all to do with your isoelectric points again. You want your Isinglass to stay in the liquid phase, as chemists call it, and that demands a low pH.

If your isinglass is not in the liquid phase, or the Ph of the Isinglass is close to or above the pH of the beer to which it is going to be added, it won't work any better than gelatine.

Remember that the pH of beer in cask can be, should be, below pH4.

[Vossy1]

A fascinating topic
Good man for kicking it off DaaB

Just one question that's been bugging me sunce moving over to BP dried IG

When they say 1tsp does it mean volume or weight ?

I've made mine by volume so far...have you seen how much 5g of dried IG is

I'll be giving the WhalleyBrew method a go on the next brew.

[Vossy1]

Has 1 tsp ever been a measure of weight then ?

...actually....yes...liberally

[Vossy1]

Is there any harm in filtering the remaining bits out of solution ?

(he says as a large chunk of IG settles at the bottom of his pint )

[Graham]

Ahh, OK, it looks like i'll need some ph strips then...the lure of a ph meter is getting stronger...must resist

I have some soaking in vinegar as I type and it's taken on a fair amount liquid. If I add that to water at ph 4.5 it'll bring it down although I would have thought as far as 2.5 (but that's just a wild guess).

I've also got some distilled water cooling at the moment so i'll give WB's method a go also.

I can only test one so i'm going to give the first batch I prep'ed a go with an extra 1/2ml of CRS in it. If it works well then i'm all set as it's the easiest of the methods. I have a couple more batches planned hopefully so i'll be trying them all out eventually

Quite frankly, you can get away without a pH meter or test strips. If you have water at pH4.5, add a bit more CRS for luck and the pH will drop like a stone. Although there might be a bottom limit for pH (I don't know what it is if there is), or at least acidity, we are not likely to achieve that with the less reactive acids or even with CRS. The lower the pH the better.

[Graham]

Well i've given IG1 a final blitz and it's virtually the smooth homgenous blend mentioned in the BP intructions, it's a little foamy to use at the moment though and the ph is below 3.8. (the lowest indicator on my strips).

Below 3.8 is good.

IG2 is rehydrating and IG3 stinks of vinegar and rotten fish It is taking on liquid though.

Yep neat vinegar smells like - umm - neat vinegar.
The smell of rotten fish, however, means that it is doing its job. Surely all isinglass smells like fish?

I am getting worried about the amount of experiments you are doing. You are doing as many, if not more, than me. I just hope that I get my book out before yours. The way things are looking at the moment, you'll be first.

[Vossy1]

You are supposed to give it time to settle out after you add it

This brew was racked with IG on the 7/05/08.....surely that's time enough

Obviously the fish ain't done swimmin

[Vossy1]

Have you noticed that, that bloody small piece of fish guts always manages to lodge itself in the back of your throat and it just won't go away......

it's just me then

[Graham]

Surely all isinglass smells like fish?

It is a bit of an individual fishy smell though, worse than I remember from the last pack of dried IG and much stronger than the concentrated liquid stuff from H&G. The vinegar adds an extra dimension to it

Well, you can always use a different acid next time. The type of acid isn't that important. The procedure is though! Traditional breweries used to cut their glass with "beer sours". This was returned beer poured into an open tank until it acidified. It was acetic acid with, no doubt, a fair sprinkling of lactic.

When I visited Palmer's of Bridport, got to be 12 years ago now, they still used "sours" to cut their glass. So did Hook Norton. Mind you, both Palmers and Hook Norton used "coolships" and open "refrigerators" to cool their beer. According to their web site, Palmer's still do.

No books from me though, i'll stick to reading them, this is a little bit of interest for me as it's yet another homebrew mystery on its way to being cracked.

If you are cracking home-brew mysteries, then a book, or comprehensive web site should be considered. You can't let the knowledge gained go to waste. Your name, or at least your pseudonym, is well enough known to be taken seriously.

Someone has to quench the momilies and bad-practice that still goes on in home brewing. I've tried my best, but nobody takes a grumpy old sod like me seriously any more.

Any thoughts on the correct temperature to use it at and does this temperature need to be maintained? (My fermenter is at 12 deg c at the moment but i'd like to get the beer into a corni which will be at the mercy of mother nature).

It used to be said that Isinglass works best on a rising beer temperature, but this apparently is a myth. The isinglass comes out of your fridge, so it will be colder than the beer which is fine. Mix it with a bit of beer and then bung it in.

The biggest problem with isinglass and home brewing is that people are encouraged, often by the the instructions that come with the stuff, to use it too early.

You need to let the yeast to do its best naturally before fining. This means leaving it some time in cask before the deed. It is no good shoving the finings in immediately after fermentation as is often advocated. It is like trying to catch a swarm of locust with a butterfly net. It can't be done.

It means cracking open your cornie and depressurising it a week or two before you plan to drink the stuff, but it will be better for it and it will regain condition within days.

[Vossy1]

Someone has to quench the momilies and bad-practice that still goes on in home brewing. I've tried my best, but nobody takes a grumpy old sod like me seriously any more.

Me thinks you under estimate yourself

[Graham]

I Once it's done i'll be going to ground (hopefully not 6 feet below it though ).

You do worry me sometimes.