Filtration

[c46854]

For the hell of it I thought I'd pass my latest brew through a fermenter full of fine granulated carbon. Started to transfer from the brewing fermenter into the carbon one and waited to see (and taste!) what came out. Surprise, surprise, slightly cloudy water became the end product! The carbon element had filtered bloody near everything originally put into it, taste, colour, alchohol, enhancer, everything! Luckily, I was cautious enough initially to just drop a couple of litres through so my Mexican brew was mainly intact. Scared the hell out of me though, could have lost the lot! Anyone tried a similar experiment in filtration?

 

Rowie

[kieran]

Hey Rowie, just a couple of things.

 

 

 

(1) Unless you're kegging and force carbonating, you need some of the yeast going through into your secondary otherwise you will not get carbonation. You need to be careful with filtration that it isn't too fine, or you'll extract all the yeast and have nothing left to carbonate your beer!

 

 

 

(2) The cheapest/easiest way to clear up your beer is to not pass your beer through a filtration unit, but to pass it into a holding fermenter and let it sit for a few days (called racking). Most remaining yeast will floculate (get sticky, bunch together, get heavy) and drop out of solution, and help clear your beer. Some beers will be hazy anyway, depending on the level of malt in the beer, but the mexican cerveza comes up fine just with the "let it sit" method.

 

 

 

If you want better results, especially with lagers, chill the beer to 4C and let it sit for a week, syphon the beer off, bulk prime and bottle - you'll get beautiful clean beer (alhtough with a tiny amount of yeast still in it). :)

 

 

 

There are pro filtration units to do it, of course, and I think the ones used for clearing up wine work the best. Although if you use them, you need to artifically gas your beer (that's where wine making is a tad easier, once you have alcohol in the wine, the yeast has done its job and can be dispatched).