Biofine - bested by it again..

[duckmanco]

So I've used this stuff again (3rd or 4th go), and I can't for the life of me get it to work.

This last time was on a blonde ale, which was 80 % pale, 15% Munich and 5% carapils mashed at 146f OG of 1.047 for 5.5 gal, only 2.5oz of colombus in the batch. Fermented with 300ml of wlp002 slurry at 63f and allowed to free rise to 68 and held for 3 days then let rise to room temp and kegged after a week without crash cooling. This time, I flushed keg with co2, poured in 2 tblsp of biofine (mega dose to eliminate that problem) and racked warm beer into keg. I flushed the headspace with co2 and then shook keg (which I never do, and hated the thought of it) in hopes of really mixing the biofine. I then put the keg into the keezer (which I normally can't do, but due to a slot being open I could this time). Gave it 2 days on the gas at 30psi, 2 days later.... Poured the usual murky beer I normally get without biofine that generally will clear on its own in a week or two..... WTF?

Am I screwing this up by not cold crashing first? Will biofine not work in warm beer? I really would like this stuff to work, and I have some left, but thus far, I'm having issues. Any ideas?

[Buttwidget]

It works great for me, here's what I do:

When I am ready to cold crash, I'll add the biofine to the fermentor and set the temp controller down to about 35. I'll usually let it sit for up to a week at 35 and might dose it with a second tsp of Biofine along the way.

I then rack to a keg and carbonate. Biofine doesn't "eat" the haze forming particles, is causes them to "get heavy" and drop to the bottom of the vessel. By dosing with Biofine and immediately racking, you aren't doing anything to remove the haze forming particles.

Hope this helps.

~widget

[duckmanco]

It works great for me, here's what I do:

When I am ready to cold crash, I'll add the biofine to the fermentor and set the temp controller down to about 35. I'll usually let it sit for up to a week at 35 and might dose it with a second tsp of Biofine along the way.

I then rack to a keg and carbonate. Biofine doesn't "eat" the haze forming particles, is causes them to "get heavy" and drop to the bottom of the vessel. By dosing with Biofine and immediately racking, you aren't doing anything to remove the haze forming particles.

Hope this helps.
~widget

Ok, so when u say add it to the fermenter, we talking literally just gently pouring 1 tblsp into the finished beer and then cold crashing? Everything I've seen shows it needs to be mixed well with the beer, which that can't be possible when cold crashing I'd imagine as that would cause oxidation... I'm wondering if this stuff is completely temperature dependent. I can cold crash, but after the crash I don't always have cold storage available for the keg. White people problems I know... But still...

[animaldoc]

Is the beer murky all the way through or just the first few pints? When you fine in the keg (essentially what you are doing) the fining agent - protein aggregate will settle to the bottom of the keg just waiting to be poured into your glass.

[spiderwrangler]

Unless you trim your dip tube to where it's pulling from above and treat that as a bright tank and transfer to another for serving.... lose some beer, but leave behind the stuff that settles out first.

"Let me show you MY dip tube." ~Doc

[duckmanco]

The first pint is always heavy thick sludge, but the rest until about 2 weeks in are "unbrite" as if I never tried to use biofine. I've heard that when this stuff works, its nearly instant clear beer. I feel like I somewhat understand water chemistry, but getting clear beer from a simple liquid is proving to be impossible. Anyone else adding this to cold crashed fermenters?

[Stinkfist]

I have had nothing but exceptional results from gelatin, but I am pretty cold crashing is the key to any clarifier to work well..

[Mtn Minor]

I had this problem and it turned out to be a series of adjustments that solved the issue- water chemistry, whirl floc and cold crashing the fermenter before racking to keg.