Stirring Your FV

[gmc]

Hi all,

Apologies if this is a stupid question, but I am planning on using finings for the first time. I was recommended Harris Starbrite, the instructions of which say to stir 10ml into your wort/beer a couple of days before bottling.

It seems to me that stirring your beer in this stage would potentially disturb some of the settled yeast as well as also disturbing some of the dried up krausen that gets stuck around the inside of the FV near the surface of the beer. Both of those would be undesirable.

It also seems like there would be an increased chance of infecting your beer by disturbing it with the lid off and sticking a spoon in there. I know to sanitise the spoon etc but still. Am I being overly cautious or do folks think there is a better way to add the Starbrite?

I recently had my first batch of homebrew that went bad, so I am looking to avoid future disappointing batches

 

[AXW123]

I am just about to do the same thing. If you prefer - You can rack into a secondary fermenter before you add the finings. Using a sterilised spoon and stirring gently the danger of infection and stirring things up is fairly low and a reliable way of clearing. However my last brew fell completely clear in 5 days without any intervention so it often isn’t needed.

 

[chrisb8]

I use gelatine for fining and give the wort a very gentle swirl with a sanitised paddle before pouring it in. No splashing, no unnecessary breaking of the surface so I think the chance of oxidisation is minimal and I have had no issues.

 

[Drunkula]

I'm the same as Chris. I gently give it a swirl near the surface and pour the finings over the back of a spoon. It's going to fall down through the liquid so it doesn't have to be stirred deeply.

 

[gmc]

I'm the same as Chris. I gently give it a swirl near the surface and pour the finings over the back of a spoon. It's going to fall down through the liquid so it doesn't have to be stirred deeply.

OK. I think I am should be fine doing this next week when its time. I don't want another dud batch so I am being extra cautious.

 

[Didge]

I have experimented with 3 ways of adding liquid finings, usually Starbrite as my mother-in-law is extremely allergic to the shellfish in some of the other finings.

1. Pour it in over the back of a spoon and giving the top inch a gentle stir.

2. Pour it into a measuring jug containing 2 litres of wort, stirring and then pouring back into FV.

3. Pour it into secondary FV, purge this with CO2 from primary FV, do a closed gravity transfer between the two removing all possible oxygen contact.

In terms of results, all 3 worked equally well, so I just use a spoon nowadays.

Finings do produce less sediment in the bottles but If you can cold crash and wait long enough then none of these are really needed.

 

[gmc]

I have experimented with 3 ways of adding liquid finings, usually Starbrite as my mother-in-law is extremely allergic to the shellfish in some of the other finings.

1. Pour it in over the back of a spoon and giving the top inch a gentle stir.

2. Pour it into a measuring jug containing 2 litres of wort, stirring and then pouring back into FV.

3. Pour it into secondary FV, purge this with CO2 from primary FV, do a closed gravity transfer between the two removing all possible oxygen contact.

In terms of results, all 3 worked equally well, so I just use a spoon nowadays.

Finings do produce less sediment in the bottles but If you can cold crash and wait long enough then none of these are really needed.

Thats super information. Thanks for this. I have no facility for cold crashing but if I can just pour finings over the back of a spoon so get better results than currently, then I will press on with that. Good timing as well as I was planning on doing that tomorrow.