-Peter McMindes-
As homebrewers, we pride ourselves on delivering delicious tasting beer to our friends, family and ourselves. While demonstrating how well-made fresh beer tastes, we also like to focus on the presentation. When seeing the brightness and clarity of other homebrewers’ beer, you may wonder how they achieve such a level in the finished product, and the answer is usually a fining agent known as gelatin.
Many commercial and larger craft breweries may filter their beer and use bright tanks, but on the homebrew level fining with gelatin is far less time consuming and very inexpensive. Along with other fining agents such as Irish Moss, Whirfloc Tablets, Clarity Ferm etc., gelatin gives a level of clarity beyond the rest. Many consider gelatin “liquid time,” as it achieves the clarity that is usually achieved by cold conditioning before or after packaging for lengthy periods of time.
The way gelatin works is fairly simple. Post fermentation, the yeast will flocculate and drop, as well as hop matter and/or other solids from additions during the fermentation process. Cold crashing (bringing your fermentation vessel temp down to around 34 °F) will speed this process immensely, and if left over time, either in the primary vessel or the serving vessel, will clear on its own. But, if there is chill haze present or you do not have the patience (like most homebrewers), gelatin will do the job quickly. The way gelatin finings act on particles is actually quite interesting. Gelatin exhibits a positive charge when mixed with water and then begins attracting negatively charged particles. It attaches to proteins and other particulates in suspension and allows them to settle out faster and give way to gravity.
Adding Gelatin to the Beer
There are different schools of thought in regards to when to add gelatin to your beer. Personally, I prefer adding it to the fermentor during the second day of cold crashing prior to packaging, but others may add to the keg prior to serving. There are four main benefits to adding gelatin to the fermentor. It allows brewers who bottle their beer to enjoy the full benefit of gelatin fining, and it removes any further work after packaging. It also gives you a clear beer to rack to the keg so as not to have additional trub to suck out of (a possibly clog) your posts or lines. Finally, it eliminates the possibility of introducing new oxygen into your brew post packaging. But, as we all know, sometimes you forget or you have none at hand during packaging, so the option to add to the keg is there. If this is done, be prepared to suck a good bit of sediment (a pint or two) out of the keg prior to getting to the clear stuff.
Either way, the beer must be cold (34-40 °F) when fining with gelatin. I let the beer crash for 24 hours to drop out the main sediment, then gelatin fine for another 24 hours to allow the very fine sediment to drop out. I do the same regardless of kegging or bottling, as fining with gelatin will have no negative effect on the yeast in suspension needed to bottle condition/prime your beer.
How to add gelatin:
Here is a list of materials you will need:
- Gelatin Finings: Make sure it is UNFLAVORED.
- Pyrex Measuring Cup
- Sanitizer
- Thermometer
Steps: (per 5 gallons of beer)
- Add ¼ to ½ cup of cold filtered water to a sanitized measuring cup
- Add ½ teaspoon of gelatin on surface
- Let sit for 10-15 minutes to partially dissolve
- Heat water to 150-155 °F (I usually do small 5-10 bursts in the microwave. You may also heat the water by adding very small increments of boiled water) DO NOT BOIL THE WATER, you will make Jell-O instead.
- Stir and test temp with sanitized thermometer
- Pour into fermenter or keg. Use care in avoiding unnecessary cold side oxidation.
- Allow 24-48 hours to work its magic prior to packaging or serving.
Overall, fining with gelatin is a great way to achieve clear beer without the wait. Not only do I prefer a super clear beer, regardless of the lack of difference in taste, but the people I serve it to are impressed as well. Not all styles require this method, but I do it for 90% of the beer I make. The only time I veer away from this process is when I am producing a hazy beer like a NEIPA or a hazy wheat, or if someone I may be serving is a strict vegan (gelatin is animal based). Cheers to clear beer!!!
Ramiro Duran says
Very well described. Thanks !
Greg Z says
Good article.
I have boiled the gelatin solution plenty of times and haven’t noticed a difference however. It still clears up the same.
Cheers
Cody says
I wish this said whether to do this when pressurizing the keg or not.
Chris R says
Today I used gelatin for the first time ever. I added it to the keg after allowing it to cold crash for two days, and pouring off a pint of trub.
The gelatin smelled like ass. Normally ass wouldn’t be a flavor adjunct I’d like to add to my beers but at 1/4 cup I figured it likely won’t make much of a difference. Exciting to see what happens!
Randy Hair says
Great information, but what do you mean by “Use care in avoiding unnecessary cold side oxidation” and exactly what care do I take? Thanks.
ashley says
Hi Randy, Yeast start with aerobic metabolic activity utilizing oxygen in solution to replicate. Once depleted, the yeast go into an anaerobic stage in which no oxygen is left. When fermentation is complete and you are fining or transferring the beer, you have to take care to not introduce oxygen back to it. This will “stale” your beer. In terms of fining, that means avoiding a suck back of O2 when lowering the temperature while cold crashing prior to using gelatin. You may introduce head pressure with a tank or a balloon with CO2 to avoid this.
Barun says
Hello. Thanks for the information. Very helpful. A request – what quantity (grams) of gelatin would you recommend for clarifying a 5 litre batch (I brew small batches and therefore want to get the measurement right). Thanks.
Ruben Ruiz says
Hello, I intend to put my 1 gallon fermenter in the fridge this Thursday and then add the gelatin on Saturday. Shall I place the fermenter back again in the fridge after I added the gelatin and bottle on Sunday? Or shall I leave the fermentor at room temperature? This is summer time, btw.
ashley says
The gelatin will be most efficacious if it is used at cooler temperatures. It will need to be in contact with the beer for a minimum of 2-3 days at cooler temps in order to drop those particles out of solution. So, do not remove the beer from the fridge after adding the gelatin finings. It is advised that it clarify at cooler temps.
Cheers!
ashley says
Hi Barun, I recommend 1/2 tsp in 1/4 cup of water — Peter
B. says
Rubbish. Third gen. home brewer with decades of practice and never have i so called “cold crashed” or any other time wasting non sense of this nature. Ever! Clarity or clearness of my beers has never changed from crystal clear, like amber coloured water.
The way i use gelatin
1 tspn gelatin to 125ml of water at about 50 degrees Celsius.
Stir til dissolved (5 mins or so).
Fermentation process has finished (check sg if in doubt) open fermenter and spread water mix using spoon evenly to the top of wort , no mixing! Wort is still at about 21 deg celsius.
I let it sit for 48hrs then bottle. Never have i heard of cold crashing improving the clarity of a well brewed beer and I’ve got my grandfather’s brew diary from over 100 years ago with countless processes and recipes but above all the main reading in it imparts the simple yet vitally import point is to understand what is actually happening, in terms of the process, when fermenting.
Best way to learn this is just try. We learn from mistakes.
kelvin says
B – share some recipes bro!
MikeA01 says
Hi. I have brewed many thousands of hectolitres of beer over the last 40 years, both commercial and craft beers, in one of the world’s biggest brewing companies. A comment for B. If there is wort after fermentation then the brewer has failed and the brew should be dumped, or reworked (=bad brewing practice). If you are just using the wrong words then ignore that comment and stand corrected.. Further, cold crashing, or whatever you call it, is the basis of lagering, the standard practice in many countries and the law (rhineheidsbebot) in Bavaria and much of Germany. It is the way to brew beers like lagers and pilseners. Lagering means cold storage in Germany. Adding gelatin or any other form of finings is considered chemical brewing and illegal under German purity laws. Finings may contain nasty sulphitic compounds that taste and or smell bad and can pose health risks to athsmatics. Clarification of commercial beer post ferment is usually done by centrifugation. Lagering, or cold maturation for clarification and flavor development takes place at about minus two degrees Celcius for a week or more. If all of the yeast is removed at racking there will be no maturation (so don’t over fine the brew). Some yeast, about 0.5 million cells per ml is required for maturation, mainly to clean up diacetyl and sulphitic compounds. At racking the beer is crash chilled from about plus 15C to about minus 2 degrees, in-line via plate and frame or shell and tube chillers. A centrifuge is out of scope for the home brewer, but refrigeration and time are usually available. Long cold storage will always produce a better beer than a rushed chemical product made from cattle hooves.. Happy brewing!
Sam says
Like B I too have never cold crashed beer, I’ve brewed about 6000 gallons in my lifetime. Main reason is I don’t have room in my kitchen for an extra fridge or cooler. I’m sure it is worthwhile though. Time usually clears beer especially when using high flocculating English Ale yeasts. I only brew English Pale Ales, Bitters and IPAs. Which I serve at room temperature about 14-18C most of the year in my unheated kitchen here in England. So there is not much chance of cold temperature hazes forming On occasion I have used gelatin it smells awful and as professional brewer Mike says contains sulphites. However I have never been able to detect the smell or flavour of either the gelatin or the tiny amount of sulphites it adds to the beer. It also does not need to be cold for it to work, it just takes longer.
At the end of the day we are just homebrewers and we can do what suits us best, many folk are coming round to accepting commercial beers that are not crystal clear but great tasting without the flavour filtered out. Anybody who’s had the chance to drink Unfiltered unpasteurized Urquell Pilsener which is slightly cloudy and compare it to standard will know that clear beer is often not the best beer.
Yvonne Liu says
do you filter the beer after using gelatin
ashley says
Hi Yvonne, No, I do not; the point of using gelatin to fine your beer is to make it really clear so filtering would not even be needed. That’s the benefit of fining. Cheers!
Dazza says
Peter. “5. Stir and test temp with sanitized thermometer”.
What temperature are you after here?