Clear beer

[Belto]

My brews have all been drinkable and reasonaly clear.
I use Irish moss 15 mins from end of boil
however I do not get the polished look on Ale's & IPA

Is it normal process to add finings or gelatine a couple of days before bottling /cask
Would this remove the aroma of adding hops to seep or last 15 mins of boil

[louthepoo]

do you use isinglass in bottles or keg? I'm about to bottle a lager and keg a bitter and wondered what was the best way to clear.

[louthepoo]

Let it clear in the fermenter partially then in the bottle naturally. Issinglass produces a very unstable sediment and one person here has also experienced this with gelatine.

Beer in bottles clears much quicker than in a keg/barrel.

i'll just bottle without then, i'm not expecting much from it anyway - it was a crap brewday - 45% efficiency!!

[Matt]

I'm no expert on this at all but my observation so far for bottling is that batches that are left long enough, say 2+ months, do clear really well.

(Ales which have been fined with Whirlfloc at the end of the boil and fermented with S-04, in this case).

Cheers,
Matt

[steve_flack]

In my experience, S-04 doesn't take much longer than a couple of days. Wyeast 1968/WhiteLabs WLP-002 is a good floccer too.

[Matt]

Wow Steve

Mine are clear after a couple of days, but the really crystal clear finish is taking that extra amount of time. Would love to hit it sooner.

[steve_flack]

It depends on how clear you want it. It can certainly be clearer than many pub pints I've been served in a very short space of time. Crystal clarity would take a little longer.

Regardless you wouldn;t really want to drink beer that green.

[SteveD]

Just give it time...all most all beer will clear down eventually. I don't use anything other than copper finings - Irish moss/protofloc, etc, and only very rarely get a beer that isn't bright after a few weeks in keg, or a couple of weeks in bottle.

There's a couple of theories about vessels and clearing. Plastic kegs are though to be worst because they possibly hold static charge preventing the yeast from settling quickly. Bottles are said to clear quicker because of tiny scratches on the inside acting as floccing sites, which plastic and steel don't have.

Nottingham clears down fast.