Clearing beer with gelatine as a fining agent

[Chris Craig]

There has been some off-line (and now on-line) discussion about this recently, so I thought I'd share my technique and experience. I guess it was Dave that got me thinking about this again a few weeks ago.

1. Get some Knox gelatine.  It's about $7 at the grocery store, and found near Jell-o products.
2. Keg your beer, hit it with about 10-20 PSI just to seal the lid.  Then, disconnect the gas and put it in the fridge and bring down to serving temperature (as close to 0ºC as possible is best)
3. Add 1 packet of gelatine to a pot of about 2 cups of luke warm water (30ish ºC)
4. Slowly heat the mixture while stirring constantly until the gelatine has completely dissolved.
5. Add the solution directly to the cold keg of beer.
6. Pressurize as normal.

After 3 or 4 days, your beer should be crystal clear.

A couple of notes:

1. Gelatine is made from cow byproducts.  Vegans beware.
2. If you put the gelatine into water that is too hot, or if you heat it too quickly and too fast, you'll end up with Jell-o.  Not only will your beer not clear, you'll have gelatine floaties...not good.

[Dave Savoie]

I just add gelatin to the carboy 2 days before kegging and then just siphon to my key as normal !!!

[Richard]

You said before you add it to serving-temp kegs; make your mind up

(cold does seem to help, although I've never had gelatin work 100%)

[Dave Savoie]

Cold does help and when I have the ability to coldcrash i do that but 99% of the time i just add it to my carboy and then keg 2 days later and it always results in clear beer

[Richard]

I just had the fourth glass of this (first two were poured out) - it gets clearer with every pour. This stuff was opaque before.

[Dave Savoie]

PICTURES !!!!!

[fakr]

So where does the gelatin go?  does it sink to the bottom?  and if you add it to a keg, do you throw out the first couple of glasses?

[Richard]

It sinks, and if you do it right, it doesn't gel - just reacts with other shit in the beer and sinks out. First few glasses are like mud (concentrated haze); chuck 'em and you're good to go.

[Richard]

Got no before shot, but this is after...

Glass is a wee bit frosty, but tis mostly clear.

[fakr]

perfect, I'll give it a try.