Wadde Want, Polyclar Brewbrite. Wenna We Want It? Now

[Thirsty Boy]

Mixing a bit of silica gel into the fray certainly bumps up the effectiveness of the pvpp... Although, I have tried gel by itself a couple of times and haven't been able to make it work yet. been pretty cautious with it though as it goes after proteins and I was worried about killing off head retention.

 

[haysie]

I am not sure of the science behind this stuff, hence the pics attached to my post`s, i.e commenting on experience hands on only.
I have cracked both kegs the English and the Helles and what is very clear no pun intended is the beer is brite from the very first pour, i usally have brite beer but sometimes it can take til halfway down the keg. Beers were not filtered. No noticable chill haze, although I very rarely have a prob with haze.
The English is remarkably clear considering the Marris Otter. All in all, a winner. If i did get the placebo, I put it all down to good brewing practices , am more a brewer than a photographer.
Dont understand why it isnt available, other polyclar products are.

 

[Fourstar]

I am not sure of the science behind this stuff, hence the pics attached to my post`s, i.e commenting on experience hands on only.
I have cracked both kegs the English and the Helles and what is very clear no pun intended is the beer is brite from the very first pour, i usally have brite beer but sometimes it can take til halfway down the keg. Beers were not filtered. No noticable chill haze, although I very rarely have a prob with haze.
The English is remarkably clear considering the Marris Otter. All in all, a winner. If i did get the placebo, I put it all down to good brewing practices , am more a brewer than a photographer.
Dont understand why it isnt available, other polyclar products are.

Haze-ie! Lookin pretty bright to me!

Sounds like ive got to get my hand on some asap!

 

[haysie]

Haze-ie! Lookin pretty bright to me!

Sounds like ive got to get my hand on some asap!

Mate, get some if you can, with added filtering WOW factor.
Best part of brewing is trialing things,methods,ingredients. I have a double batch of Brown Porter in the mash tun as I type, my normal mash paddle come hamburger flipper wont reach to the bottom, hence I am now trialing a 9 iron as a mash paddle :lol:

 

[JonnyAnchovy]

So when can we expect to see this, site sponsors?

 

[Bribie G]

So when can we expect to see this, site sponsors?

I'm not cynically suggesting that suppliers are reluctant to sell it as it would impact on sales of two other existing items. I completely accept that it's because of doubts about the shelf life. However at least one major supplier now has the on-site brewing capacity to give it a whirl. The 'samples' etc doing the rounds at the moment have not all been treated as well as packs of Brewbrite that would live in the suppliers' cold rooms or even freezers and so far getting good results. My current brews I forgot to gelatine and some yeast haze in keg still there, but dropping. However on chilling bottles that have dropped clear (I get a keg plus 4 bottles out of each brew) no chill haze.

 

[haysie]

Brewed a double batch of Brown Porter today, wasnt going to use Brewbrite because of the color....... but did. This is my first no-chill using Brewbrite so no pics of massive cold break attached. Made a slurry as per BribieG recent post but still getting clumping of this stuff.
Post up in a few weeks the finished result.

 

[AndrewQLD]

My experience is very similar to yours Haysie, Brewbrite only, no other finings and no filtering and only a week in the keg.

 

[Fourstar]

yep, its official. i need to get my hands on some of this magical plastic!

I winder of polyclar works in the boil (as its basically brewbrite without the carageenan)

My partner has an ABN, anyone ordered a sample with success?!? any cost involved? i wouldnt mind their 8oz sample... would get me through a couple of years of brewing.

 

[SpillsMostOfIt]

I winder of polyclar works in the boil (as its basically brewbrite without the carageenan)

I tried this a while ago (there's a thread here somewhere). It kinda does, but I cannot compare the result to true brewbrite. I'm not having too many problems without it though, if I am patient enough - which I generally am not...

 

[Fourstar]

I tried this a while ago (there's a thread here somewhere). It kinda does, but I cannot compare the result to true brewbrite. I'm not having too many problems without it though, if I am patient enough - which I generally am not...

hmm i wodner if whirlfloc and polyclar together have good enough effects. been reading a few spec sheets and info.. it looks like a nifty little product. :icon_cheers:

 

[dicko]

hmm i wodner if whirlfloc and polyclar together have good enough effects. been reading a few spec sheets and info.. it looks like a nifty little product. :icon_cheers:

Hi Fourstar,

I tried this yesterday with an Alt.
The beer certainly looked clearer than other times in the kettle at the end of the boil and while it was running from the chiller to the fermenter.
I pitched a nice healthy starter last night and put the lot into the fermentation fridge.
Checked it this morning and no activity at all.
Now I know I may sound like a newb but I have never had this happen before.
I tried rousing the brew by stirring and increasing the temperature and in the end I have now pitched a dried yeast.
I wonder if the floccing activity of the polyclar pulled all the yeast I pitched down to the bottom of the fermenter?
I have been thinking maybe I should have let the brew settle overnight and then rack to a clean fermenter.
My beers usually fire up within the first few hours or so.

Btw the yeast was a 1275 wyeast, the ferment temp was 18deg and the wort was aerated.

Cheers

 

[Fourstar]

polyclar bonds polyphenols, i dont think it has an effect on yeast.

 

[dicko]

polyclar bonds polyphenols, i dont think it has an effect on yeast.

Yes that is what I believe, so, I have another problem!

So to answer your enquiry I think it does work if I can say this at the unfermented wort stage.

Cheers

 

[Thirsty Boy]

polyclar mixed with carageenan will (does) work to an extent in the boil... but I can only assume that the Brewbrite product does something more, or more tricky about balancing the two together. Neither will (should) have any particular effect in making yeast floc out early & as a matter of fact it could possibly have the opposite effect via reducing wort calcium levels vs no kettle finings.

I reckon what we might be seeing with the pictures of bright beer posted - is an example of the fact that a lot of haze you see in beer is in fact chill haze. Guys who normally consider their beer pretty clear and without chill haze issues, are seeing it genuinely without chill haze and noticing the difference.

and thats where I see this product hitting its straps - if you normally suffer from chill haze (me) I'm not sure that brewbrite by itself is going to fix the problem... but if you normally make pretty clear beer - brewbrite might just change that "pretty" to a "very"

 

[Thirsty Boy]

OK - the helles I brewed with this stuff is done with primary and I have been crashing it for about 3 days. So its beer now and its either chill haze free beer or it isn't.

I normally get a light but stubborn chill haze in all my beers, I use a malt that's slightly high in protein.. yeah yeah, there's all sorts of things I could do, but what I actually do is polyclar before filtration. Diamond bright pretty much every time after that ... No polyclar = haze.

Here's what I got from PC Brewbrite.

This sample was heated to 25C to make sure no chill haze could be formed and filtered through CG-50 grade glass fibre filter paper to get rid of yeast and any hot haze/bits. Photos are reasonably big to provide detail - sorry about the download burden.

This is close to as clear as this beer will ever be... a little better perhaps after going through the 1 micron. At 23C



Then I put it in an ice bath to chill it down and see if the Brewbrite got rid of the haze forming polyphenols or not.

At 7C The haze at the bottom is fog on the glass. you can see the clarity up the top though.



At 4C - so between 4 & 7 where you would probably be drinking a light lager... all looking good.



And at a truly mega-lager worthy 1.5C. A little haze down at these icy depths, but still pretty damn good.



So -- while I understand that we will never know if this beer would have had chill haze without the brewbrite.... every single other beer I have ever made has had chill haze without treatment - and this one seems to not have a chill haze problem.

My results from Polyclar Brewbrite so far are:

Great job as a kettle fining with a tight trub cone, clear cast wort and far less wort lost to kettle trub than normal

&

Seemingly Chill haze free beer.

So unless it somehow makes the beer taste like crap... I think I might be sold for now.

TB

 

[Bribie G]

One thing that I saw yesterday that I haven't ever seen with Whirlfloc tablets is that when I stirred in the paste, immediately zap the wort turned into a "breadcrumb" soup with the white particles suspended in a suddenly bright wort, and on flame out they sank rapidly.

 

[bum]

Any word on the shelf-life issue yet?

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Yep, same here Bribie - normally when I put in my kettle finings (I use course ground k-carageenan) what happens is that over a period of time, mostly in the whirlpool... The flocs of hot break aggregate together into larger snowflake like chunks. the brew bright makes it look like someone has coarsely crumbled stale bread into the brew pot. Rounder chunkier particles that rapidly sank.

How much you using? I used 6g in a 25L post boil volume. Hydrated the stuff into a slurry with cold water before stirring it in.

TB

 

[MHB]

I've had a long hard look at the shelf life question before spending the best part of a K on getting some into stock (the chemists that work for the manufacture were very helpful). Apparently the product doesn't degrade as such, it takes up moisture and gets gluggy and hard to use.

Comes down to finding suitable packaging, settled on 250 mL pharmaceutical jars with wadded lids (gives the best moisture and air exclusion and easy access) and packaged with a Silica-Gel moisture absorbing sachet. Choosing a smaller jar than the 500 mL jars I use for everything else means the product isn't around as long and if people take care to close the jar immediately and keep it closed when not being used the Brewbrite should be good for over a year.

Early reports coming in on both the Brewbrite and the Polyclar7030+ are very encouraging; personally I'm very impressed with the Polyclar7030+ used in conjunction with a filter. This form of Ployclar has both PVPP and Silica, so it tackles both the Polyphenols and the key proteins that combine to cause haze.

I went for a midrange number ~4 g in 25 litres (rounded teaspoon full) when trialling the Brewbrite and could pretty much cut and paste from Bribie's and TB's posts.

The method I've been using with the Polyclar is to add it to a keg of well chilled well racked beer, leave it over night (in the fridge), then shake it up before filtering (I posted a picture a page or so back) that was through a sub-micron DE paper filter which clogged up pretty quickly, so next time I'm going to add some filter-aide (paper pulp).

I always knew these products worked, guess I'm just a bit surprised at how well.

Interesting Times

MHB