Finings?

[BrainYYC]

Hello folks, trying to understand finings, and if or when to use. I previously attempted a small batch of "hazy" ipa and it turned out a little hazy at the 2 week mark, but quickly turned a funky colour after another week or so, I have since read a few articles stating that bottle conditioning a "hazy" beer can be very tough.

To get to my question - I'm going to take another shot at brewing this weekend this time switching to BIAB method, will be going for a juicy hoppy NEPA type thing, if Im not stuck on the hazy aspect of this beer type, should I use Whirlflock? Would finings give me a more consistent product?

Are there drawbacks from using?
Other plus's Im unaware of?

Thank you!

 

[Mark Farrall]

I don't use them myself and don't have a strong opinion on them, but your hazy turning a funky colour after a few weeks could have more to do with oxidation than anything finings would change in the beer. Hazies are likely to turn brown if they've got more oxygen once fermentation is finished. If you do a google image search on 'oxidised hazy beer' does that look like what you experienced?

 

[BrainYYC]

Yuppppp.

 

[Mark Farrall]

What's your process from starting fermentation up to bottling? Then we can give suggestions about what's easy to do to minimise oxygen and what may be harder to do with your setup. There's always some funky (and generally expensive) new way to minimise oxygen on the cold side and you just have to do a cost/benefit look at it based on where you're at currently.

 

[Nosybear]

I don't do hazy but gelatin is my go-to finings for the fermentor.

 

[Hawkbox]

same. I've heard not all gelatin is the same and that knox is the best stuff but I can't prove it. I have some Great Lakes Gelatin and I could not tell you if it works better than Knox or not.

 

[Semper Sitientem]

I don’t do hazy either, but have used whirflock in s the past and currently Irish Moss at the last 15 minutes of boil with consistent success.

 

[Nosybear]

same. I've heard not all gelatin is the same and that knox is the best stuff but I can't prove it. I have some Great Lakes Gelatin and I could not tell you if it works better than Knox or not.

It's mostly all the same, just be sure to use unflavored, unless you really like lime jello.

 

[Nosybear]

I don’t do hazy either, but have used whirflock in s the past and currently Irish Moss at the last 15 minutes of boil with consistent success.

Whirlfloc in the kettle works fine.

 

[Hawkbox]

I expect it's probably all the same, I'm not sure how they could vary greatly. But that's what I heard, who knows.

 

[GFHomebrew]

I've used irish moss, whirlflock - deltaflock 10 to go. I've run out lately and have just been brewing all natural no horses hooves or seaweed.

 

[thunderwagn]

I've used the generic Kroger Brand gelatine and it works just as well as any other out there.

 

[BrainYYC]

Didn’t even know gelatin was an option.

Mark typically once done in the fermenter I gently transfer to my fridge for a day. Then I carefully rack off into a sanitized pot, mix w my priming sugar and then rack off from the pot to bottles with a bottle filler.

 

[Craigerrr]

My thoughts are that the struggles with bottling a hazy would be oxygen exposure. Exposure in the bottling bucket, and each and every one of the bottles having oxygen in them as you fill. If anyone disagrees, please say so. I would personally want to get some Co2 into the bucket, and purge each bottle with Co2 as I filled them. Note that whenever you get a growler filled at your local craft brew establishment they purge you bottle.

 

[Craigerrr]

I still use whirlfloc in the boil when I am doing a hazy, and I cold crash as well.

 

[Nosybear]

My thoughts are that the struggles with bottling a hazy would be oxygen exposure. Exposure in the bottling bucket, and each and every one of the bottles having oxygen in them as you fill. If anyone disagrees, please say so. I would personally want to get some Co2 into the bucket, and purge each bottle with Co2 as I filled them. Note that whenever you get a growler filled at your local craft brew establishment they purge you bottle.

O2 would oxidize that nice golden haze to bruised apple brown in fairly short order. Might cause some off flavors too.

 

[Mark Farrall]

Sorry, missed the post. As Craig said it's problematic with bottling, though some people bottle hazies successfully.

So without investing in using CO2 you can try to bottle when the beer is cold, to slow down the O2 dissolving into the beer. Some people also add oxygen scrubbers, like sodium metabisulfite, though I'd only use these with kegging as it may kill the yeast. Haven't tried it myself. And the main one is to drink them quickly.

There's a bunch of pretty inexpensive pressure capable fermenters hitting the market at the moment. With these you could ferment with the pressure relief valve open for about 80% of your fermentation. Then you could close the valve and use the pressure that builds up in side to carbonate your beer and push it to your bottles. While it is that simple there's a bit of finesse needed on when to close off the pressure.

Something like this is perfect for me as I brew around 12 litres a batch and I got two for $70 USD -

.

And suddenly your 1-2 steps away from kegging, so you might as well...

 

[BrainYYC]

OK thanks guys I will do some thinking on this.