I wasn’t sure where to post this question. What are your opinions on gelatin vs. cold conditioning. I know there are instances where cold conditioning for clarity is beneficial for some beers, but if I am only concerned with clarity am I better off using gelatin?
The gelatin seems cheaper and more convenient to clear the beer up rather than having to make the space in the fridge or to purchase an additional fridge to cold condition the beer.
One more thing, if I use the gelatin do I just add it to my secondary fermentor before I bottle it or do I add it to the bucket with the sugar solution just before adding the beer to bottle? Does gelatin really clear the beer up as much as they claim it does?
Past dozen batches or so, I’ve done both. Add gelatin 3 or 4 days before bottling, then cold crash for 24-48 hours before.
By ‘coldcrash’ , I’m just moving the carboy out to my ‘cold’ garage. In warmer weather, I do the swamp cooler thing, with ice bottles.
I started this after I had a comment from a friend that my Irish Red tasted good, but was ‘kind of cloudy’. Wicked clear now.
I’ve tried gelatin a couple times, but the results were never any better than simply cold crashing. Then again, I live in a place where I can cold crash by placing the beer in an insulated box outside for nine months of the year.
For geletin to work properly, the beer needs to be cold first. Get it as cold as you can, without freezing, for a couple of days then add geletin and wait several days.
You definately would not want add it to the bottling bucket. It would have little effect and you would have a ton of sludge in the bottom of each bottle.
Dean Palmer has info on his website about how he uses gelatin in his kegs for crystal clear lagers. I’m going to use gelatin along with a cold crash for a blonde ale I’m kegging on Monday. I’ll put it in the fridge today to start the cold crash and put gelatin in the keg with it.
After reading the posts this is what I ended up doing: I live just outside of Charlotte, NC so it doesn’t stay too cold during the day. I don’t have a fridge yet to cold crash the beer, so I set the beer on the back porch out of any direct sunlight for the rest of the week. Tonight it will be 28F with a high of 55F, Thursday will be roughly the same. Rest of the week it will be lows around 40, highs in the mid-50’s.
I added the gelatin mixture to the beer last night and then set it outside to cold condition it for the rest of the week until bottling day on Sunday. Will I see good results or will I have an issue with the temp fluctuations?
A lot of haze encountered in beer is chill haze. Mostly it is protein that coagulates as the temperature goes down. The gelatin binds with these coagulated proteins and drags them down. If the protein is still in solution there is nothing to bind with.
Doing it the way you suggest will likely have some effect but will probably leave a lot of haze causing proteins behind. If nothing else it would have been better to set it out overnight, then add the gelatin.
Either way, the haze is a cosmetic issue and won’t have a flavor impact.
[quote=“lmarkis”]After reading the posts this is what I ended up doing: I live just outside of Charlotte, NC so it doesn’t stay too cold during the day. I don’t have a fridge yet to cold crash the beer, so I set the beer on the back porch out of any direct sunlight for the rest of the week. Tonight it will be 28F with a high of 55F, Thursday will be roughly the same. Rest of the week it will be lows around 40, highs in the mid-50’s.
I added the gelatin mixture to the beer last night and then set it outside to cold condition it for the rest of the week until bottling day on Sunday. Will I see good results or will I have an issue with the temp fluctuations?[/quote]
Put it in a plastic tub with about 6-8 inches of water, add frozen water bottles to bring the temp down. You’ll need to change the water bottles, probably 4-5 of them every 12 hours but you should be able to get it under 40 degrees that way. Better than having the temp fluctuate all over the place.
[quote=“dannyboy58”][quote=“lmarkis”]After reading the posts this is what I ended up doing: I live just outside of Charlotte, NC so it doesn’t stay too cold during the day. I don’t have a fridge yet to cold crash the beer, so I set the beer on the back porch out of any direct sunlight for the rest of the week. Tonight it will be 28F with a high of 55F, Thursday will be roughly the same. Rest of the week it will be lows around 40, highs in the mid-50’s.
I added the gelatin mixture to the beer last night and then set it outside to cold condition it for the rest of the week until bottling day on Sunday. Will I see good results or will I have an issue with the temp fluctuations?[/quote]
Put it in a plastic tub with about 6-8 inches of water, add frozen water bottles to bring the temp down. You’ll need to change the water bottles, probably 4-5 of them every 12 hours but you should be able to get it under 40 degrees that way. Better than having the temp fluctuate all over the place.[/quote]
And a picnic cooler is better than a plastic tub. Insulating the water from ambient temp will keep it cooler longer.
