Biofine Clear AND Gelatin

[NateBrews]

Hi All,

Has anyone tried using both to speed the maturation process of a beer? I'm not sure if would be like saying "I'm a guy who likes boobs" (just redundant), or if maybe I could get effectively faster maturing.

I've used both of those products individually before many times and they both work great (gelatin slightly more so). I looked around on the interwebs and didn't see anything about people trying both.

The main point is that I have some beers that I'm kegging today that I need ready for Christmas, so I want them to be as good as possible in 4 days. I was going to just gelatin them, but then I saw the biofine clear on my shelf and it got me thinking. Two of them are lagers (using the Tasty method) and one is an english bitter (with 1968 that dropped brilliantly clear on its own at the end of fermentation).

Thoughts, comments?

[brewinhard]

Sorry for the late reply. I am sure you banged out a decision already.

I went through a larger bottle of biofine and simply did not think the results were better than gelatin and almost 2-3x the cost.
Yes, gelatin does have some work involved in preparation, but IMO it clears the beer faster and more thoroughly. I don't see the harm in adding both, and would like to hear your results if you decide to go with it. I still think you would get the same results with using just gelatin and not biofine.

From what I have seen, you could easily have gotten away with adding gelatin to a chilled beer 4 days from christmas, carb it during those 4 days, and be pulling pretty clear beer pretty darn fast. Keep in mind, try not to move the beers after adding the gelatin as this will kick up sediment and make your pours not so brilliant.

Merry Christmas!

[NateBrews]

So this is what I did.

I added biofine to 2 kegs and nothing to the 3rd when I racked in the beer. I then put them on CO2 and gave them a 3 minute shake to distribute the biofine and get a bit of CO2 into them (ok, really I was trying to finish off the CO2 tank so I could go get it refilled before the shop closed for the holiday). Anyway, I left that for 2 days and then pulled off the gunk, of which there was some. The beer was still pretty hazy at that point, so in went the gelatin too (yesterday, 3g+150mL H2O/keg ). Tonight I pulled the gunk out of each keg, and there was a pretty healthy slug of goo that came out.

The flavor of the beers after biofine was still a bit harsh (yeast/particulates adding a bite). The pilsner had a somewhat odd odor to it that I couldn't put my finger on. After the gelatin, all the beers are noticeably clearer (they will take another day or two so to fully get to brilliance), and the odd odor in the pilsner was gone.

Overall, I have done 6 batches with biofine clear and probably 35 batches with gelatin and I feel there is no contest. Gelatin wins every time. The prep is really quite simple, I don't know why anyone would complain about that. To be fair to the biofine clear, I did find that if I used enough of it (which was usually 1-2TBSP) it would clear things up brilliantly too, but it took longer and that stuff isn't terribly cheap and I can't get it around here so I have to order it from NB.

So I think I agree with you, just the gelatin would have probably been just as good as both.

Merry Christmas All!

[brewinhard]

Great report!

As I said, some love it, and others not so much. Interesting to hear you had similar results with it. I too found it worked OK, but only when used in high amounts which is not cost effective (at least to home brewers) to warrant its use. Funny how you still had to add gelatin to finish the job. Save your bucks, gelatin all the way!