Previously dabbled with cartridge filters, however I've been underwhelmed to date with the clarity they produce. So, I shelled out and purchased a More Beer! plate filter supplied by Grain and Grape (http://www.grainandgrape.com.au/products/category/BFYQHAXP%20filtering-equipment/7FILTER+BEER+COM).
The instructions suggest purging with 2L or so boiled water to remove any papery flavours, and then sanitise as an option (which I did with star san). After fermentation was complete I crash chilled the beer (Helles) in a 19L keg, fined with gelatin, and then the following morning added a slurry of Polyclar. Filtration took roughly 45 minutes to an 1 h, at somewhere between 40-60 KPa with the 'polish' filter pads in place jumping from one keg to another.
The whole process wasn't completely smooth sailing however, as the filtration run is quite slow and any attempt speed it up by winding up the pressure results in beer either gently leaking from the central seal housing, or completely squirting across the room! All in all, probably lost around 1 L of beer mostly from pushing sanitiser out at the start of the filter run. In future I'll either skip the sanitation step, or push sanitiser out with boiled water to minimise losses, and just live with slightly diluted beer.
Aside from that, the beer is brilliantly bright, free of any papery flavours, and doesn't appear to have any haze issues, or stripped of flavour. If anything it tastes clean and fresh. Would be keen to see how the course filter performs, as this would probably offer a slightly faster filter run, without any overpressure issues. Keen to hear anyone else's experience/feedback.
The instructions suggest purging with 2L or so boiled water to remove any papery flavours, and then sanitise as an option (which I did with star san). After fermentation was complete I crash chilled the beer (Helles) in a 19L keg, fined with gelatin, and then the following morning added a slurry of Polyclar. Filtration took roughly 45 minutes to an 1 h, at somewhere between 40-60 KPa with the 'polish' filter pads in place jumping from one keg to another.
The whole process wasn't completely smooth sailing however, as the filtration run is quite slow and any attempt speed it up by winding up the pressure results in beer either gently leaking from the central seal housing, or completely squirting across the room! All in all, probably lost around 1 L of beer mostly from pushing sanitiser out at the start of the filter run. In future I'll either skip the sanitation step, or push sanitiser out with boiled water to minimise losses, and just live with slightly diluted beer.
Aside from that, the beer is brilliantly bright, free of any papery flavours, and doesn't appear to have any haze issues, or stripped of flavour. If anything it tastes clean and fresh. Would be keen to see how the course filter performs, as this would probably offer a slightly faster filter run, without any overpressure issues. Keen to hear anyone else's experience/feedback.
