Cliff wrote:spiderwrangler wants to know If I'm chilling quickly:
Yipper Skipper I have a 50 foot immersion chiller that runs on 50 degree water. My ground water is beastly cold.
I use WhirFloc in the last few minutes of the boil.
Spider & BDawg talk about cold crashing:
I don't keg. I bottle condition. I don't have a fridge to do cold crashing in anyway. So that's out.
ThirstyBoy likes Isinglass:
I understand that it's the gold standard for pulling tough yeasts out of suspension.
But I've also read that it's not the Shizz for protein.
Protein causes chill haze by virtue of globulation (my term), by which the proteins attract other proteins and eventually develop sufficient size to cause a visible cloud in the beer.
Have I been misinformed about Isinglass?
If I have read the correct material about PolyClar ( it was on the interWebs so one never knows) It works by being positively charges and causing the negatively charged polyphenols and proteins to become attached to it. Then it's heavier than beer so it then drags the proteins down into the cake (flocculates 'em). Also that PolyClar must be separated from the beer before bottling by racking it off or else it can cause excessive nucleation because the physical structure of the little plastic bits tends to encourage the CO2 to come out of solution.
Polyclar - or PVPP which is the actual compound rather than the trade name. Adsorbs polyphenols onto its surface and removes them from solution. This prevents them from forming complexes with protein molecules - It is polyphenol/protien complexes that make up chill haze. Its NOT about sinking anything to the bottom of the vessel, its about taking out of the equation, one of the necessary ingredients needed for chill haze to form. Thus PVPP is NOT a finings agent, it does NOT cause anything to precipitate nor cause anything to sink, or even to sink more quickly. It is a process aid which prevents the formation of chill haze in the first place.
Isinglass on the other hand IS a finings agent - it works by making things stick together into bigger lumps, which then fall to the bottom of your vessel more quickly. It is the gold standard for yeast .. and it is one of the only finings agent which also works to remove chill haze. It does this because in solution, isinglass's molecules are very very long and spindly. They are primarily positively charged - this attracts negatively charged yeast and does the same thing as gelatin, making the yeast stick into bigger lumps - which fall to the botom. BUT, because isinglass's molecules are long and complex - there are also areas of negative charge on some side chains. These areas help to attract the positively charged protein/polyphenol complexes which are chill haze. The chill haze is dragged into the same lump as the yeast and isinglass... and falls to the bottom. So - thats why your beer needs to be cold if you want your isinglass to work on removing chill haze - the chill haze needs to have formed for it to be removed in the manner that Isinglass removes it.
Isinglass is NOT as good as things like PVPP, Silica Gel, Papain, Brewers Clarex etc at proofing against chill haze. But it IS the best of the normal finings agents at it. Gelatin does virtually nothing to chill haze, and all these new fangled vegetarian friendly finings agents... well, they might say they work on chill haze. But they aren't what you use if you are looking for an effective solution - they are what you use if you are not able to use isinglass because you need to make beer that vegans can drink without having an apoplexy.
And NONE of these things do a damn thing that you cant do nearly as well - by leaving your beer at 0°C for a month or so and racking the nice clear beer off the top of the crud. So ALL of them are about saving time and/or money - not about effectiveness or simplicity.
