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Just wondering about getting a clear beer for my next brew.
I know u can use finings and what not but i was wondering if once u've boiled and put the saucepan on ice, whether scooping the scum off the top would help this? i suppose sieving into the fermenter does the same thing tho.
I always "skim" while boiling. The coagulated protene is not desired in the final product. A bit of irish moss is cheap and very effective. If you want to do an excellent job use polyclar and whole leaf hops, together they should gather everything except a bit of break which you can leave behind.
A sieve is only good for removing larger chunks and not so much for break material. Though it should not have any effect on the flavour of the beer.
Irish Moss is added near the end of the boil to drop the break more effectively. Polyclar is added to the chilled beer to remove chill haze and such. Irish Moss is quite cheap and fairly effective, but if you really want a perfectly clear beer it is best to use both.
Kevnlis wrote:I always "skim" while boiling. The coagulated protene is not desired in the final product.
Kevinlis,
I used to be a skimmer, but have on good authority that the removing this can affect the head on your beer. Considering that no commercial breweries that i'm aware of skim (& they would if it improved beer quality), I no longer do it & the quality of my beer continues to improve, though I can't prove the non-skimming is helping.
Chewie wrote:Just wondering about getting a clear beer for my next brew.
Rack.
I bulk prime by racking into large food-grade bucket that already has my priming sugar (dissolved in boiling water) waiting in it. It's probably not quite as effective as racking to a secondary during fermentation, but it does a pretty good job. Gets the beer off the trub just before bottling, and has the benefit of being an easy way to prime my beer.
Chewie wrote:Just wondering about getting a clear beer for my next brew.
Rack.
I bulk prime by racking into large food-grade bucket that already has my priming sugar (dissolved in boiling water) waiting in it. It's probably not quite as effective as racking to a secondary during fermentation, but it does a pretty good job. Gets the beer off the trub just before bottling, and has the benefit of being an easy way to prime my beer.
Rack for clearer beer faster or give them time in the bottle.
Chewie wrote:Just wondering about getting a clear beer for my next brew.
I know u can use finings and what not but i was wondering if once u've boiled and put the saucepan on ice, whether scooping the scum off the top would help this? i suppose sieving into the fermenter does the same thing tho.
or does it hinder the flavour
A question Chewie, are you using grains or doing kit brews? You mention a saucepan in your post - do you use that to do a small boil with speciality grains?
I may have misunderstood this one. I know nothing of AG if thats what u mean. I'm at the stage where I play around with kits, malts, hops, a bit of grain steeping, and a decent yeast.
To be honest I don't have much more time than this, but I still like the results!
Not a problem Chewie,
A number of people have wanted advice on how to clarify their beers and it's important to know what sort of brewing you get up to, in order to recommend a possible solution. There are a heap of potential reasons as to why you get hazy beer, with your type of brewing, such as:
Water quality (insoluble ions present in the water)
Yeast strain (some are harder to settle than others)
Residual starches caused by steeping base malt instead of specialty grains
Inadvertant boiling of solid grain matter due to poor filtering to kettle
Over sparging the grains
Bad luck...
