Pages: 1
Anyone filter their beer?
How many in this group filter their beer? I know to some the appearance in very important but I wasn't sure how common of a practice this is. I was considering buying one from Williams brewing but I would need a pair of kegs (which I still do not have either) along with their plate filter system.
On the homebrewing level I really feel this is unnecessary, and can extract some vital hop flavor from many beers. Good solid process with finings, and a cold crash or even gelatin will make most beers crystal.
There are plenty of other improvement things that we can spend money on to make stellar beer, personally I feel filtering is a waste. just my $.02
I'm sorry you probably wanted to hear from someone who DOES filter their beer!
I filter my beer on occasion with that same filter from William's. I filter mostly in the warmer months when Im taking my beer camping etc and dont want it to get stirred up. I like to filter light colored beers that I aim to bottle to avoid sediment in the bottles and clouding the beer when poured months later.
Filtering can be a pain, though. If your yeast hasnt fully dropped you could clog the plates up and end up making a mess and losing beer.
William's plate filter does work well but the "Y" piece on the outlet side breaks easily when changing tubing and there is no replacement part. The first time I broke mine they took one from another set and sent it to me free of charge but then two filtering sessions later I broke it again. Haven't filtered since.
I've started putting my beer in my secondary for one week then I rack it to my bottling carbouy gently, I then leave it there for another three or four days. And I've had very ,very little yeast in my bottles. But it does make the wait that much longer.
Thirsty, I actually wanted to hear comments like yours. Now I will skip this and put my cash into something more useful like the kegs I commented on.
I use Irish Moss, crash, and still filter my beers for public dispensing. For personal and club drinking I'll skip the filtering.
I have a cartridge filter but don't use it any more. I tried it a few times and it didn't seem to do anything. I think my cartridge was too coarse. But the fine ones are too expensive for me.
Now I cold crash for a week with gelatin in there for the second half of the week, and the beer is clear as can be. It's a little cloudy for the first few days, but clears up fast. I'm kegging, but I think it would still work for bottling from what I've read. I've got one going now that I didn't cold crash or gelatin, and it's not clearing up at all after a month on tap, especially compared to the one that was treated. I don't even use any kettle finings.
I mostly use the Irish moss/ cold crash method. If I am going to bottle I usually skip the crash but most of my beer comes out pretty clear. Never had anyone complain about a free beer. 
You can cold crash a beer that you want to bottle but you have to add a small amount of yeast in with your priming sugar. I have noticed when I do it that way that there is less sediment but the beer doesn't come out all that much clearer.
Hope that helps
ID
Not that this is that same. But I use a series of reusable coffee filters, strainers, and 2 weeks of secondary to pull the sediment to the corner, plus Irish moss. I have been able to get some nice crystal clear beer, and none to very little sediment in the bottles.
Thanks for posting this option though I was thinking about trying filtering but now im thinking its not going to be worth the expense.
Pages: 1
Search Home Brewing Knowledge Base
Custom Search
|