Filtration of Beer/Cider

Paulus said:

I have tried filtering. I think I used the same 1micron filter you have .
Have you checked the instructions? I believe they say the beer should be uncarbonated for transfer?
What I found was a much paler beer leaving the filter and I think it had less taste, also a fair loss of beer in the filter (about a litre size) with loads of foaming.
I just cold crash now for 2 days, transfer to the keg (with floating dip tube outlet) and force carbonate at 5C for a week.
I then bottle some for friends/family. By the time they pour it there is next to nothing in the bottom of the bottle and being careful when pouring means the drink is very clear.
Pouring from the keg it is just clear anyway.
I'd have thought the lagering you do would settle any sediment? I assume your fermenter has a floating dip tube? Is it too long? Again a floating dip tube in the keg and you'll get clear beer until the last litre and even that is not really cloudy.

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Yeah I have, I'm transferring to a keg tonight as I ran out of CO2 last night and will let it lager out before giving it a shake to remove any carb from it for filtering
I have a light lager on so a pale, light taste is what I'm after.

I do have a floating dip tube, I've adjust it so that the 50mesh diptube filter is just resting on the bottom of the fermzilla with a little slack in it

Tempted to swap my cornies over to floating dip tubes as well tbh but we'll see, I've spent enough on this hobbies to date and want to start getting returns before I continue to invest any more

Larse said:

Worth trying, especially with lagers. I find gelatine best. Better results in bottles than kegs, so I'd be interested to hear your experiences with the filter. I'd be belt and braces and use both if the filtration works.

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Which gelatine do you use, looking to give this a try?

Laner said:

Which gelatine do you use, looking to give this a try?

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Originally was using the Youngs liquid gelatine, but not very impressed with it. I bought a pack of three sachets of gelatine powder (Dr. Oetker 12g) in Tesco and have used that in the London Pride clone I'm making. One sachet in about 150ml of water - add the powder to cold water, stir in and bring to ~65° whilst stirring from time to time. Then poured that into the fermenter after racking from primary. Gave it a bit of a shake to mix in and left it. Was about 40° when I poured it in.

This morning decanted some and looks really clear, even though it really needs about two to three days.

The only question I have is how to use this when pressure fermenting. I normally pressure ferment to FG and then cold crash before kegging. If I add it to the keg before transfer, the cold beer will likely solidify it before it can do any good. The other option is to add it to the fermenter before the cold crash (ideally a couple of days before), but that means releasing the pressure. I don't think it would be advisable to push it through the liquid post, would maybe clog it.

On balance, releasing the pressure and adding it to the fermenter is probably the least worst alternative. Can always repressurise after mixing it in. But it's not ideal.

Like @DocAnna, when I did my MSc in brewing science, filtration was covered quite extensively. Usually it is carried in at least two steps as a fine filter like your 1 micron 0.001mm) filter risks choking fairly quickly without an earlier step (filtration or settlement) to remove most of the yeast cells. i think, your current 50 gauge (0.0254mm) fiilter may be too coarse to remove much in the way of yeast cells. I have never come across filtration of carbonated beer - could be messy! But this us a hobby, try it and see what works! If you keep samples of unfiltered beer to compare with the filtered product you can decide whether filtration is worth the extra faff. I have done it once…

I would expect the filtration of carbonated beer to froth & foam like a good 'un as the filter will provide a massive surface area on which the dissolved gas can nucleate.

Also question to @DocAnna and @Wynne: will this type of filtration remove chill haze too?

Won’t it be filtered keg to keg though? If the filter line and receiving keg match the source pressure the co2 will stay in solution rather than nucleate?

I have a stainless steel filter and have used it a few times with limited success. You still need to properly cold crash to minimise the matter that is sent to the filter as they clog up real quickly, so should really be used a s secondary 'safety net' solution as opposed to a primary method of trying to achieve crystal clear beer. The plate filters they use in commercial breweries are HUGE, so in comparison the filters that are available to homebrewers are tiny in comparison. There is also alot of wastage associated with filters I'm told.

On gelatine fining I've used Dr Oetker granuals available from your local supermarket baking section. Do the job perfectly if you want properly crystal clear beer. I've always batch fined in the keg or fermenter.

Caramel Ox said:

Won’t it be filtered keg to keg though? If the filter line and receiving keg match the source pressure the co2 will stay in solution rather than nucleate?

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Just thinking about this. Would the nucleation not happen when the first beer hits the filter? And subsequently with all the released CO2, there would be potentially a lot of the filter unsaturated due to the released CO2 and it may continue to nucleate?

Larse said:

Just thinking about this. Would the nucleation not happen when the first beer hits the filter? And subsequently with all the released CO2, there would be potentially a lot of the filter unsaturated due to the released CO2 and it may continue to nucleate?

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Filtration requires the beer not to be carbonated. Any filtration requires a pressure drop across the filter and there are few circumstances where this won't lead to foaming and degredation of the filter by nucleation within the filter media. If filtering at low enough temperature with only marginal carbonation I suppose it could feasibly be possible but it's not an approach I can see working. If I was to put in place a filter it would be a single step frame and sheet filter. This could then be used as a polishing filter last step, but the type of filters is wide and their application depends upon what stage is being filtered. Chill hazes can be filtered at low enough temperatures - and beers are often advertised as 'chill filtered' for this purpose.

Darcy's law informs filtration rate and pressure which means that pressurising the whole system is not sufficient to control carbonation as the pressure drop will vary with flow rate and during filtration

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The filtration that I think most people are familiar with is surface filtration - like a sieve - which isn't how brewing filtration works. Beer filters are depth filters that rely on adsorption and particles being retained within the depth of the filter media. This also applies to using Kieselguhr which creates a depth filter on a sieve like filter media base. The short version is that unless you have a plate frame filter setup, it's not going to be possible to filter a beer to clarity, and even then you'd need to carbonate after that step.

A simpler approach is to put the kegs in a fridge near zero and forget about them for a couple of weeks, nice clear beer out after that which can be bottled or canned.

jof said:

I would expect the filtration of carbonated beer to froth & foam like a good 'un as the filter will provide a massive surface area on which the dissolved gas can nucleate.

Also question to @DocAnna and @Wynne: will this type of filtration remove chill haze too?

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I agree with @DocAnna - with a fine enough filter theoretically “yes”. After a period of cold storage to form virtually all the “chill haze” particles that can form they can be filtered out.
In practice, brewing aids are used to remove either or both of the pre-cursors to chill haze (malt protein molecules and hop tannin molecules) which at low temperatures weakly bind together to form larger particles.
My one attempt at filtration at home with a cartridge filter was to try to remove chill haze from a highly dry-hopped ale. It was a faff to sanitise and remove air from the filter and it didn’t work. I do however often filter wine a couple of times with a Vinbrite filter before bottling and that works quite well.
Good luck @aero-spaced-out - please let us know how you get on.

aero-spaced-out said:

large commercial breweries

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Just cos they do, rarely means we should. They are brewing for different reasons, profit not taste. Filtering removes flavour at some degree.

Filtering commercially is about speed and product stability (he says knowing the doctor is watching ) @DocAnna

Why do you want to make an identical copy of a commercial brew... most of us think its pish

aero-spaced-out said:

I also would just like to have a play and experiment with bits of kit lol

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We all still do. I for one bought a 20x20 plate filter and pump many years ago (can't find the shaking head emoji )

Crack on and tell us all about it. The facts however interesting are irrelevant!

Then try finings, gravity and time.

aero-spaced-out said:

Just for clarification

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I see what you did there

Larse said:

egg whites.

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Yup. As an aside real egg whites work very well in wine.