bentonite in beer?

[mmaguy41]

I did a barons kit a while back and it was the clearest of all my kit brews, it included a sachet of bentonite which i understand is usually used in winemaking. The results were so clear its made me consider using it in all my kit brews, has anyone had experience using bentonite in kit beers, if not what other finings or additives would be effective?

 

[BigYin]

Lots of factors affect clarity, but for kits the only thing you have control over is choice of kit, whether or not to rack to secondary, and what, if any, finings to add.

The finings just encourage any particulates in the liquid to clump together until they are large enough to fall out of suspension and sink to the bottom of the fermenter.

There are loads of finings out there. By all means experiment with them, although having done a wee search on Google, Bentonite does appear to be used more in wines than beer as it not only removes the protein molecules, it also removes the yeast... that would make bottle/cask conditioning harder/slower with a much reduced yeast population :hmm:

 

[mmaguy41]

Thats what i had heard but i didnt have any problems with carbonation, it had a really good fizz. I generally do secondary or a long primary

 

[BigYin]

Fair enough - go for it! One of the great bonuses (for me anyway!) of home brewing is YOU get to choose what to do :mrgreen: So, if you've tried it, it works, and you are happy with it, then rock on :

 

[Aleman]

I did a barons kit a while back and it was the clearest of all my kit brews, it included a sachet of bentonite which i understand is usually used in winemaking.

Also used in beer as well, in a Keislguhr filter . . . however, when I did my Barons kit, I left the bentonite out as I wanted to reuse the yeast slurry. I still got a start bright result, but this involved using Polyclar 730 Plus and Isinglass (AllKleer C) in the keg. . . The benefit of using the bentonite is that it gets removed prior to kegging or bottling.

As far as carbonation in the 'bottle' is concerned, even a star bright beer that has been fined contains around 100,000 cells per ml, and will carbonate fine if given time.

Patience, learn you must young paduans!!