Gelatine
by Jye on 03-30-2008 at 09:14 am

There have been a number of brewers getting great results with gelatine as a fining lately so here is a tutorial on how to prepare and add it.

Start with 200ml of room temp water. You can choose to boil this first and cool if you wish but Ive found this unnecessary since it will be pasteurised later on. But if you must then a tip is to use the microwave to quickly boil and then chuck it in the freezer. Now add 2 level teaspoons of unflavoured gelatine and allow to stand for 10 min. This lets the gelatine 'bloom' which is much like rehydrating dried yeast and will now look fluffy.

Give it a swirl to mix in the gelatine and gently heat on the stove/microwave to 75C. Heating the gelatine too hot or even boiling will denature it and it will lose the fining ability making it useless.

Hold the solution at 75C for 15 min to pasteurise then add to secondary/keg when rack to mix it well, you do not have to wait for it to cool before adding it to the beer. You should also only add it to beer that has been chilled. If added to the keg then give it a bit of a shake if you're unsure of it being mixing correctly and allow to sit cold for 3 days. The first pour from a keg will also be cloudy with yeast, just the same as if you had left a keg to sit for a number of weeks to clear.

Gelatine does not 'set' on the bottom of the keg, so if you move it after clearing it will once again become cloudy just like a keg without gelatine. Gelatine works by clumping together yeast and increasing the particle size which allows it to fall out of suspension faster.

Thats it… start enjoying your clear beer.

More... with the permission of Jye who wrote the article above. And introduced me to the use of Gelatine as a fining agent.
For those brewers who are maybe a little paranoid about adding animal byproducts to their beer. I used 2 teaspoons of Gelatine in 200ml of water originally as suggested by Jye but have found that 1 teaspoon in 100ml works fine. Maybe paranoid but I am happier using less of the stuff.

Also a hint for pasteurising the Gelatine solution - I put 1 teaspoon of Gelatine in 100ml of water in a microwave safe jug (I use a Pyrex measuring jug) and stir a little, leave it for 5 min to rehydrate and then mix again and put it in the microwave for 15 min on 10% power setting. I have tested the temp at 5 min periods and found it to be 80° - 85°C using our LG microwave. Experiment with your Microwave if it has variable power settings using 100ml of water and test with a thermometer at 5 min intervals. It is important not to boil the Gelatine solution, just keep it around 80° to pasteurise.

I add the solution to the keg straight from the microwave, it's probably around 70°C by the time I take it to the brewery and tip it into the keg, it cools rapidly once added to the empty keg. The beer is then racked from the fermenter (usually the temp has been dropped to about 3°C in the fermentation fridge for a day or so for the yeast to drop out) into the keg on top of the Gelatine solution, with the racking tube right to the bottom of the keg so that it mixes. Following this I force carbonate the keg and then put it in the CCing fridge at 3°C for a week or two depending on the beer style and how long I can wait.

Screwy

ADDENDUM: Lots of UK brewers use this method but instead of using water they use the beer so as not to add anything other than gelatine to their brews. Have been using this method for 12 months without problems, so thought I would update the Wiki. Simply use beer from the fermenter in place of water (open the fermenter tap slowly to draw off the beer, occasionally there will be yeast in the tap, discard this and draw some more off, you want clear beer). If your beer has beed chilled it will need to be brought to room temp before adding the gelatine, otherwise it will begin to set. Simply mix and heat as above and add to your keg/fermenter.

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