Filtering your beer

[Halite]

Do many people filter their homebrew?

I mainly keg and force carbonate my beers and was looking to experiment with filtering in order to get rid of the taste that yeast and sediment give to beers.

Does anybody have any tips or tricks for a filtering set up, any pics?

[HammerOne]

If you cold crash your kegs for a week all of the yeast and sediment will settle out. then just toss the 1st glass. also using a secondary helps.

[zoebisch01]

The one thing that concerns me with filtering is that it is interrupting a natural process. I prefer alternatives so that the yeast can run their course and complete their work. I am convinced that when beer is force filtered too early that the beer can be 'headache' beer. The local brewpub does this and every time I have more than one of their beers I end up with a headache. For clear beer fast there are some great strains for that out there. S-04 comes to mind for styles that work with it.

Sorry that it doesn't really answer your question though.

[Rhoobarb]

All I do is use gelatin (easy & cheap) and allow time. Usually 2-3 weeks at cold temps will leave you with a very clear beer. I have a Kolsch on tap right now that began with a slight haze, even though I used gelatin. But now, 2-1/2 weeks later, it is brilliantly clear.

[Evan!]

I second what everyone else says. Use a flocculant strain (Wyeast 1968 will literally be crystal clear within 48 hours of the end of active fermentation), cold crash, and as a last resort, use a clarifying agent (Gelatin is easy and cheap, but KC Superkleer works much better in my experience).

You can get filtration rigs where you put the beer in one keg, then hook that keg up to another keg via the out posts, install a filter on the line in between them, and then just push beer from the first keg to the second one with co2. I've never done this, however, and I don't get and adverse "yeast and sediment" flavors from my beers. The only reason I can see to use filtration medium in homebrewing is for stubborn batches that simply will NOT clear. I've had a few like that in my time...cold conditioning at ~38f for months on end, added gelatin...still cloudy. Craft brewers often filter because the general public has this "thing" about their beers being crystal clear (it's an aesthetic thing). But on the homebrew scale, I don't think you'll benefit from it, and the filtration media might just strip out some of the good flavor from your beer.

[Lerxst]

No filtering here.

Flocculant yeast
Patience
Cold crashing

...that's enough for me.

[Big_John]

I bought a plate filter and used it exactly one time. The filtered beer was badly oxidized and that is the only time I have had a problem with oxidation. I attribute it to the filtering. Probably had something to do with the pads having some residual oxygen in them even though I saturated them with Star San prior to running the beer through the filter. I flushed the Star San out with some of the beer. It may have also been due to a small air leak somewhere that I was not aware of. There's lot's of places for an air leak to occur with all of the various connectors and the three plates with a lot of perimeter to seal. I may try it again someday, but I've been getting very good results with just some cold conditioning and occasionally some gelatin or Polyclar added for the very cloudy heavily hop loaded beers. I prefer my beers to be clear, but it's not a big deal really.

[Halite]

Thanks for all the replies guys. Your probably right, I will cold crash for an extended period next batch and see how that turns out. Many thanks for the information.

[Taz]

I can't disagree more with non filtering as I find filtering strips all the yeast and other solids from the brew resulting in a clean tasting clear bright beer. I have tried both aspects of non filter and filtered beer and and the benefits of filtered beer far outweighs the former. Using fine filters such as 1 or .05 micron absolute does mean you need to settle the solids in suspension out to avoid clogging of fine filters. I am not being critical of natural clearing of beer just suffice to say that yeast in beer is not for me and IMO spoils the taste of otherwise good beer. If you you need to step up to that level then filtering is the way to go after all the commercial guys have been doing it for years.

[BC Brew-Op]

can't filter it when you bottle condition or there's nothing left to carbonate.
a local brewpub uses bretanomyces (sp?) for a clarifier. it gives a nice candy floss taste. not too sure how it works, though.