Mon Jan 03, 2011 4:43 am
What sort ofnfilter are you using? A plate filter with pads, or a cartridge filter, i can help with cartridge filtering. Thus all my comments are about that.
If you want beer that is approaching commercial beer in brightness - you want to use that 1 micron filter. 5 micron makes your beer pretty clear - but the difference in clarity is noticable between that and a 1 micron filter.
Two step is probably not necessary unless you are impatient and dont give your beer a little time to settle and clear.
I disagree with the idea of you needing to filter cold - you are unlikely to be able to filter out chill haze anyway (you may improve it some) and that is the only real reason to filter cold. But - if you do chill it down, perhaps treat it with something to kill off chill haze, and let it setttle for a few days cold, then you won't need the 5 mjcron pre-filter.
I filter straight out of my primary, via gravity, through a 1 micron absolute cartridge - generally after crash chilling and treating with PVPP - but it depends on the beer.
It all depends on what you want - pretty clear beer, or sparkly bright beer. I want as close to diamond bright as i can get, without stripping out too much flavour - for me that adds up to a 1 micron absolute filter. Around 0.3micron will make it absoutely diamond bright - but i find that at that level of filterring it really does knock out a bunch of colour and flavour.
Filter cold - you dont have to, but it wont hurt and it will kind of force you to wait a few days & save you some money on buying pre-filters
Oh - and with cartridges, if you turn em upside down once the sending keg is pushing nothing but gas, they should empty almost completely out - i probably lose only about a cup or so of beer to the filter housing if i push it through with CO2.
TB
