Filtering Carbonated Beer

[pjwhite5]

Hi All,

I have filtered beer in the past but always before carbonating, Has anyone filtered after carbonating, and if so was there any problems. I currently have a couple of beer that taste and smell great but a little on the hazy side.

Cheers

PJ

 

[Adamt]

Yep, if you search around theres info... You need to do it keg-to-keg, pressurise the source and destination keg at the same pressure, then bleed off the destination keg and you should get flow. More info in the other threads though, I'm sure.

 

[Ross]

Yes, easily done.

1. Gas both kegs to a little above carbonation level eg 130kpa.
2. Connect both gas posts together
3. Connect unfiltered beer "out post" to "filter In" & after purging the air out of the filter connect the "filter out" to the beer "out post" of recieving keg.
4. Raise the dispensing keg to a height above the recieving keg & then give a quick pull on the recieving kegs relief valve to start the flow.

Beer will filter by gravity without any loss of carbonation - Should take approx 20 mins, but can be left as needs no attendance.

cheers Ross

Edit: If the haze is "chill haze" you can polyclar the hazy beer in the keg, give it a rock to mix & leave just 10 minutes before filtering.

 

[MattC]

Thanks Ross, how timely, I was just thinking about doing the same myself this weekend and wondered how to do it!! :icon_chickcheers:

 

[pjwhite5]

Thanks Ross, that sounds easy, prior to that, I have had all kinds of different results when filtering uncarbonated beer so this will be interesting. Will be giving it a go this weekend.

Cheers

PJ

 

[Thirsty Boy]

tips:

Put a little keg lube on the o'ring of your filter housing (if you don't already) a filter housing that doesn't leak at normal gravity filtering pressures.. sometimes does at 130kpa

Putting your filter housing in the fridge for an hour or two before you start - cuts down on the initial fobbing in the canister.

I like to connect my filter housing to the "empty" keg first to make sure its at the same pressure as the whole system before any beer gets a chance to flow into it. If you connect to the full keg first, there will be a bit of a rush of beer from the high pressure of the keg to the low pressure of the canister and it will fob like crazy, then you will lose a chunk of beer to your purging; and oxidise the crap out of the "fizzed up" portion that you dont lose.

Optional - but I am fussy about oxidation so I think you should - I like to completely purge my filter & housing with C02 before I start. But thats whenever I filter, not specifically when I am filtering carbonated beer.

TB

 

[pjwhite5]

Thanks Thirsty,

I will take all the tips onboard. Trying to convert my filter to a water filter then back to a beer filter, I cracked the top of the filter housing, So I guess I wont be filtering beer this weekend. On the hunt now for a housing as I don't want to have to buy the whole lot.

Thanks again all

PJ

 

[stew.w]

is there any reason why you cant put the filter inline and just let it filter as you pour the beers?
just curious, anyone tried it?

Cheers,

Stewart

 

[razz]

Stewart, you would end up with a permanently wet and possibly moldy filter.

 

[Zwickel]

is there any reason why you cant put the filter inline and just let it filter as you pour the beers?
just curious, anyone tried it?

Yes you can, Ive tried it.

I took a 0.2 Pall filter inline and everything worked well:

but....this filter Ive used, was far too small in surface. After the 5. beer the filter started clogging and I had to increase the CO2 pressure. That caused an overcarbonated beer.

Later on, I was using a larger filter, but that one was physically too big to match into my kegerator. Thats why I decided to filter the beer from keg to keg prior pouring.

The result:

Cheers :icon_cheers:

 

[stew.w]

Stewart, you would end up with a permanently wet and possibly moldy filter.

aren't these filters designed to be permanently wet? they're just water filters that you find in a house
why would it go moldy? if the filter was to go moldy then so would the inside of the beer lines if you werent using a filter.
i have one of these filter housings that was going to get chucked on a job i was on.
just wondering whether i should mount it inside my keg fridge and run the beer through it?
Zwickel do you still use a 0.2 micron filter?
whats the best filter to use?

Cheers,

Stewart

 

[Zwickel]

Zwickel do you still use a 0.2 micron filter?
whats the best filter to use?

I was long time experimenting and searching for an appropriate filter. Fortunately Ive access to filters with different pore sizes, so I could try it out.

To get the best result, the clearest beer, one should use a pore size smalle than <0.5

Of course the capacity to hold back unwanted stuff is proportional the cloudiness of the beer. So if I have very young and cloudy beer, Im going to install a two or sometimes even three stage filter, such as 5-1-0.2 cascade.

Today I have enough kegs to mature the beer long enough, so I need only one filter at a pore size of 0.2.
The beer comes out nearly perfect.

But to filter from keg to keg one need a pump. Gravitation only would not work.

Whenever I start filtering beer, I do a full batch size, that means 3 kegs 19l.
The pressure (delta P) inside the filter housing starts at around 1KPa and increases continually to sometimes 600KPa.

Cheers :icon_cheers: