How To - Gelatine

[davewaldo]

Polyclar and isinglass.... AAAARRRGGGHHH.

I think I need lessons in this stuff..

After some annoyance from never getting clear beer, and re-reading some threads here and some general Googling, this time I went a bit overboard..

Today I bottled an AG that was brewed a month ago. 2 weeks in primary, 1 week in secondary (all at 17 degrees) before crash chill to 1 degree for a week.
Then 15 ml of Isinglass rather than the 10 that is suggested on the bottle stirred in 2.5 dl of beer from the cube and shook the cube quite a bit.
Then 15 gr of Polyclar (not 5-10 as suggested on the bag) hydrated in boiled, slightly cooled water for 1 hour (just shook it, small bottle with little headspace), then added this one day later than the isinglass and stirred quite a bit with a sanitized spoon.


Today I bottled murky beer (again..).

There is yeast sediment in the cube, so something has fallen out, but clearly not enough. The beer is NOT like in BribieG's Regal Coke bottle, that's for sure..

What am I doing wrong here...?

Bjorn

I'm not sure whats going wrong for you there Bjorn. Do you let everything warm up before bottling? If so this will mix everything up again. I find once I have cold crashed, gelatined and polyclared that I need to rack off the sediment while still at 2 degrees into a bottling bucket. By doing this I can bottle beer as clear at Bribie's Coke bottle photo.

If you are racking when still cold, have you ever looked into the fermenter before you start bottling? Is it clear at this stage?

Hopefully you can get this sorted out as its great bottling clear beer and having minimal sediment in a beer.

Dave.

 

[Screwtop]

gelatine works well but what works better, and is this:
get your still beer really cold in the keg
add your gelatine
pump the pressure up to MAX
hold for 12 - 18 hours , too short it will not work, too long it may overcarbonate the beer.
slowly bleed the pressure (you need a regulator, just popping the PRV leads to tears before bedtime)
carbonate as usual (unless usual is the keg shake rattle 'n roll method)
the huge pressure along with the binding action of the gelatine forces the crud to the bottom..voila, clear beer quickly without filtering.

K

Has always worked well for me. K, thats pretty much my regime. I don't force carb by way of the so called Ross method any more, haven't done so for maybe 18 months. Hot gelatine-beer mix into keg, rack cold beer (1 or 2C) from the fermenter into the keg. Hit with Co2 and purge to reduce air in headspace, then pressurise to 300 Kpa and put in conditioning fridge/freezer. Each day for the next few days I give it a 300 Kpa burst, until the pressure in the keg reads around 100 Kpa when I connect the gas. Then the keg is left conditioning until required for serving when it is put in the keggerator and connected to gas at serving pressure.


Bjorn, thought polyclar was meant to be filtered out of the beer........well that was how I used to do it.

Cheers,

Screwy

 

[BjornJ]

I'm not sure whats going wrong for you there Bjorn. Do you let everything warm up before bottling? If so this will mix everything up again. I find once I have cold crashed, gelatined and polyclared that I need to rack off the sediment while still at 2 degrees into a bottling bucket. By doing this I can bottle beer as clear at Bribie's Coke bottle photo.

If you are racking when still cold, have you ever looked into the fermenter before you start bottling? Is it clear at this stage?

Hopefully you can get this sorted out as its great bottling clear beer and having minimal sediment in a beer.

Dave.

I've started bottling cold beer, so it's straight out of the fridge set at 1 degree, filtered then bottled, so still cold at that stage.
Since I wait until primary fermentation is over before racking to a cube, then leaving another week to give the yeast plenty of time to do any late work, I assume I don't need to allow back up to room temperature before bottling as there is no fermentation going on the week of crash chilling.

Made another beer yesterday and noticed that the trub from around the tap on my Birko 40 litre urn is being sucked into the tap.. The part of the kettle around the tap is clean, the rest of the bottom of the urn has several cm of trub/hot/cold break material... Maybe I am sucking to much of this into the fermenter to get clear beer?

So this time I even filtered the beer with 1 micron filter and not clear. But I have read several places (on here) people saying I can bottle without filtering out the Polyclar as long as I leave the fermenter in cold storage for a day or two before bottling,


thanks
Bjorn

 

[raven19]

Made another beer yesterday and noticed that the trub from around the tap on my Birko 40 litre urn is being sucked into the tap.. The part of the kettle around the tap is clean, the rest of the bottom of the urn has several cm of trub/hot/cold break material... Maybe I am sucking to much of this into the fermenter to get clear beer?

This break material will settle out in the primary fermentation vessel, hence it should not present an issue for beer clarity.

My no chill cubes have heaps of break in them and it always settles out in the fermentor, never making it to secondary.

 

[MattC]

The results speak for themselves. This is the same beer, an American Amber Ale - double batch. Filled two kegs, both dry hopped for 7 days in the keg, then gelatine added to 1 keg only to see the difference. Gelatine was added to beer on right, in case you couldnt tell. Click on pic to enlarge and the results look more obvious.

Just wondering now if I really needed to spend that $100+ on my beer filter ???????

Cheers

 

[Cube]

Looks good. Gelatine is great stuff. Try using it with polyclar.... fantastic.

 

[Fourstar]

The results speak for themselves. This is the same beer, an American Amber Ale - double batch. Filled two kegs, both dry hopped for 7 days in the keg, then gelatine added to 1 keg only to see the difference. Gelatine was added to beer on right, in case you couldnt tell. Click on pic to enlarge and the results look more obvious.
Just wondering now if I really needed to spend that $100+ on my beer filter ???????
Cheers

If you want it even brighter... yes!

I did it to a gelatined beer and it was even brighter and the flavour results spoke for themselves there too, I was really surpised. (sorry not the best photos.)

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum//ind...st&p=538112

 

[Aus_Rider_22]

Just had a go at my first gelatine attempt. Poured 2 lots of Mckenzies gelatine and boiled water into my 2 fermentors. They have been CC'ing for 3 days and samples are the usual hazy look. I will leave them CC'ing with the added gelatine for 48hrs and check on wednesday. I will report back as to how much difference its made.

 

[jzani]

Don't know if this has already been covered, but can't face trawling through 167 replies.

Brewing a Mexican Lager which I racked onto a cup of gelatine as described here. I did use boiling water, however, to dissolve the gelatine. Anyway, after 3 days I added some lemon and lime juice mixed with priming sugar (sterilised), gave it an hour or so, then bottled.

Three weeks later when I cracked my first bottle, there is a distinct taste of gelatine in the brew :icon_vomit: . I've tried crash chilling etc, and the brew is nice and clear, but just has the distinct gelatine taste. Anybody else had this problem, and is there any hope to rescue my 23 litres?

Any help and advice much appreciated.

Juz

 

[Frank]

Don't know if this has already been covered, but can't face trawling through 167 replies.

Brewing a Mexican Lager which I racked onto a cup of gelatine as described here. I did use boiling water, however, to dissolve the gelatine. Anyway, after 3 days I added some lemon and lime juice mixed with priming sugar (sterilised), gave it an hour or so, then bottled.

Three weeks later when I cracked my first bottle, there is a distinct taste of gelatine in the brew :icon_vomit: . I've tried crash chilling etc, and the brew is nice and clear, but just has the distinct gelatine taste. Anybody else had this problem, and is there any hope to rescue my 23 litres?

Any help and advice much appreciated.

Juz

So what flavours are you picking up? Are you sure you are not tasting the lemon and lime?

 

[jzani]

So what flavours are you picking up? Are you sure you are not tasting the lemon and lime?

Any lemon and lime is overpowered by the gelatine flavour.

 

[davewaldo]

You say a cup of gelatine? Do you mean a cup of gelatine dissolved or a cup containing say 1-2 teaspoons of gelatine?

 

[Wolfy]

Brewing a Mexican Lager which I racked onto a cup of gelatine as described here.

Did you use a teaspoons (or two) of gelatin disolved in about a cup of water as described here, or did you use 1 cup of gelatin powder?
One (or two) spoons of gelatin should clump together and fall to the bottom (pulling yeast and other stuff with it) and then be removed from the beer when you rack, keg or bottle. There should be no gelatin in the end product and no gelatin taste at all.

 

[jzani]

Did you use a teaspoons (or two) of gelatin disolved in about a cup of water as described here, or did you use 1 cup of gelatin powder?
One (or two) spoons of gelatin should clump together and fall to the bottom (pulling yeast and other stuff with it) and then be removed from the beer when you rack, keg or bottle. There should be no gelatin in the end product and no gelatin taste at all.

I can understand how the post isn't clear on that, but yes, I only used 1 teaspoon of gelatine powder in 1 cup of boiling water, otherwise, I wouldn't be quite so confused about how strong the taste is!

 

[juzz1981]

Hmmm, cant say i've ever problems using even 2 teaspoons of Gelatin.

 

[Frank]

I can understand how the post isn't clear on that, but yes, I only used 1 teaspoon of gelatine powder in 1 cup of boiling water, otherwise, I wouldn't be quite so confused about how strong the taste is!

What is your brand of Gelatine? Some people have said that they have had a slight meaty flavour from some different brands. Is it a meaty character? Can you give it any other description?

 

[Bribie G]

Some people are just very sensitive to the taste of gelatine, I used to work for Allens sweets and toured the Sydney factory and know what goes into some brands of confectionery. A lot of "compressed tablet" lollies of the lifesavers type actually contain gelatine, and I can pick it up in buckets when sucking a XXX Extra Strong Mint. They are made in New Zealand and maybe their gelatine is more 'rough' than ours. But I can't say I've ever noticed it in beer. Next time try isinglass and see if it's different. Hopefully not fishy

 

[jzani]

Some people are just very sensitive to the taste of gelatine, I used to work for Allens sweets and toured the Sydney factory and know what goes into some brands of confectionery. A lot of "compressed tablet" lollies of the lifesavers type actually contain gelatine, and I can pick it up in buckets when sucking a XXX Extra Strong Mint. They are made in New Zealand and maybe their gelatine is more 'rough' than ours. But I can't say I've ever noticed it in beer. Next time try isinglass and see if it's different. Hopefully not fishy

Guess I'll have to hold out for the hope that it will settle over time. :unsure:

 

[Nick JD]

Guess I'll have to hold out for the hope that it will settle over time. :unsure:

There might be some other stuff in your gelatine that's given it a "taste". There's almost no chance that the gelatine was still floating in the beer when you bottled it.

How long was the gelatine in the brew before you bottled? If your bottles are carbed up then the geletine should be at the bottom and left behind in the sediment even if you did manage to get it into the bottles.

I'm not sure I'd be able to taste 1tsp of anything in 23L - except maybe a tsp of chilli, or garlic...

 

[jzani]

I'm not sure I'd be able to taste 1tsp of anything in 23L - except maybe a tsp of chilli, or garlic...

I would agree with you, but for the fact that I have 23L of Mexican Cervesa that taste like gelatine.