To use finings or not use finings..

[NickW]

Hey guys :

A beer kit I'm doing has pretty much finished fermenting - I will wait until tmorrow to see if theres any more fermentation - and I'm going to be force carbonating it from tomorrow evening.

The question is (this is a coopers australian lager kit by the way), should I use beer finings? Or will one or two weeks in the fridge cause the beer to clarify nicely after pulling off a pint of sediment?

Thanks in advance :)

Nick

 

[stixy]

i have used beer finings in two recent brews,one kit and one extract,added to the keg just before they were put somewhere cool to condition,only both times the beer was still rather cloudy even after 4-5 weeks,however the first kit i atempted had no finings and was perfetly clear after 4 weeks
I have just read in another post the type of yeast used could play a major factor in clearing beer as s -04 and s-05 are a bugger to clear and i used the 04 strain in both brews
i would very much then like to know why some yeasts are a bugger to clear and how to clear as the finings dont apper to work??

in answer to your question though from what i can gather, finings or no finings,it really doesnt matter but the type of yeast you used does!

 

[Moley]

I have just read in another post the type of yeast used could play a major factor in clearing beer as s -04 and s-05 are a bugger to clear

Now then, I'm fairly new to all of this (5 kit brews and one AG) and don't know much, but I've used the packed yeasts and no finings in all of my kit brews and they all dropped bright quite quickly, certainly within a week or so of bottling.

In my first All Grain I used S-04, Irish moss in the last 15 minutes of boil, no finings, went away for a week when it was almost finished, and by the time we got back it was crystal clear. I was rather amazed that there wasn't the usual sludge in the bottom of the bucket but the S-04 seemed to have flocculated into small clumps which held together even as I got down to the bottom of the barrel when I bottled it. I even jugged the last couple of pints into a PET through a tea strainer and little yeast carried through.

Priming at half a teaspoon per pint, after 5 days my ‘test PETs’ are firm to the squeeze and it's ready for cellaring, but there's very little sediment in the bottles. I might try to post a pic tonight.

 

[stixy]

what excatly is irish moss then,does it act like finings??very intresting to hear that though may just give it ago,also does gelatine thats been mentioned on here do the same job to clear beer?

 

[jamesb]

what excatly is irish moss then,does it act like finings??very intresting to hear that though may just give it ago,also does gelatine thats been mentioned on here do the same job to clear beer?

Irish moss is a copper fining - you put it in at the end of boiling your wort, it helps to colagulate the proteins. It won't help clear after fermentation.

 

[NickW]

Cheers for the input!

I've got the lager in the fridge carbonating now... I'm hoping the yeast will drop out of suspension within 2 weeks (it needs to, as this lager is for a BBQ!!) - do you reckon this is possible? The fridge is at about 5'c