Ask The Brewmasters

Hoping for some helpful insight into an issue we've been having for a little while now. We are experiencing very long times for our beers to clarify in the brite tanks, like 14+ days long.

We moved locations and installed an RO system, and the increased time to clarify started around that time. We add salts and target a minimum of 50 ppm of Ca in every brew. We use silicone dioxide ( we've used both biofine clear and sil floc brands) as a clarifying agent. We've done dosing rate tests, generally seeing consistent results of more being better (no signs of "fluffy bottoms" in these tests), but we cap our tests at 200 mL/bbl, which is much higher than the other brewers in the area I've spoken to about their dosing rates. Using that dosing rate of 200mL/bbl we see long conditioning times, with the proteins stratifying before finally settling, leading me to believe we may be dealing with a "fluffy bottoms" situation. So we tried several dosing rates on full batches between 50mL/bbl and 150mL/bbl, those beers seemed to have similar clarifying times, though on the lower end there was no signs of the stratification, but the overall clarity was poor.

This is an issue across styles, no sign of hop heavy beers being a particular problem. These conditioning times are killing our production, but I'm not willing to sacrifice product quality to turn tanks over faster. 

Thanks for any insights,

Hoping for some helpful insight into an issue we've been having for a little while now. We are experiencing very long times for our beers to clarify in the brite tanks, like 14+ days long.

We moved locations and installed an RO system, and the increased time to clarify started around that time. We add salts and target a minimum of 50 ppm of Ca in every brew. We use silicone dioxide ( we've used both biofine clear and sil floc brands) as a clarifying agent. We've done dosing rate tests, generally seeing consistent results of more being better (no signs of "fluffy bottoms" in these tests), but we cap our tests at 200 mL/bbl, which is much higher than the other brewers in the area I've spoken to about their dosing rates. Using that dosing rate of 200mL/bbl we see long conditioning times, with the proteins stratifying before finally settling, leading me to believe we may be dealing with a "fluffy bottoms" situation. So we tried several dosing rates on full batches between 50mL/bbl and 150mL/bbl, those beers seemed to have similar clarifying times, though on the lower end there was no signs of the stratification, but the overall clarity was poor.

This is an issue across styles, no sign of hop heavy beers being a particular problem. These conditioning times are killing our production, but I'm not willing to sacrifice product quality to turn tanks over faster. 

Thanks for any insights,

Hoping for some helpful insight into an issue we've been having for a little while now. We are experiencing very long times for our beers to clarify in the brite tanks, like 14+ days long.

We moved locations and installed an RO system, and the increased time to clarify started around that time. We add salts and target a minimum of 50 ppm of Ca in every brew. We use silicone dioxide ( we've used both biofine clear and sil floc brands) as a clarifying agent. We've done dosing rate tests, generally seeing consistent results of more being better (no signs of "fluffy bottoms" in these tests), but we cap our tests at 200 mL/bbl, which is much higher than the other brewers in the area I've spoken to about their dosing rates. Using that dosing rate of 200mL/bbl we see long conditioning times, with the proteins stratifying before finally settling, leading me to believe we may be dealing with a "fluffy bottoms" situation. So we tried several dosing rates on full batches between 50mL/bbl and 150mL/bbl, those beers seemed to have similar clarifying times, though on the lower end there was no signs of the stratification, but the overall clarity was poor.

This is an issue across styles, no sign of hop heavy beers being a particular problem. These conditioning times are killing our production, but I'm not willing to sacrifice product quality to turn tanks over faster. 

Thanks for any insights,

Daniel,

Thanks for your thoughts. We check our mash pH and are consistently in our target range (5.2-5.6), is there another metric to be checking outside of pH? In terms of kettle finings, we use whirlfloc tabs, and samples of our wort going into the fermenter drop clear fairly quickly on the bench. I am not familiar with Brewbrite, but will look into it.

Hoping for some helpful insight into an issue we've been having for a little while now. We are experiencing very long times for our beers to clarify in the brite tanks, like 14+ days long.

We moved locations and installed an RO system, and the increased time to clarify started around that time. We add salts and target a minimum of 50 ppm of Ca in every brew. We use silicone dioxide ( we've used both biofine clear and sil floc brands) as a clarifying agent. We've done dosing rate tests, generally seeing consistent results of more being better (no signs of "fluffy bottoms" in these tests), but we cap our tests at 200 mL/bbl, which is much higher than the other brewers in the area I've spoken to about their dosing rates. Using that dosing rate of 200mL/bbl we see long conditioning times, with the proteins stratifying before finally settling, leading me to believe we may be dealing with a "fluffy bottoms" situation. So we tried several dosing rates on full batches between 50mL/bbl and 150mL/bbl, those beers seemed to have similar clarifying times, though on the lower end there was no signs of the stratification, but the overall clarity was poor.

This is an issue across styles, no sign of hop heavy beers being a particular problem. These conditioning times are killing our production, but I'm not willing to sacrifice product quality to turn tanks over faster. 

Thanks for any insights,

Hoping for some helpful insight into an issue we've been having for a little while now. We are experiencing very long times for our beers to clarify in the brite tanks, like 14+ days long.

We moved locations and installed an RO system, and the increased time to clarify started around that time. We add salts and target a minimum of 50 ppm of Ca in every brew. We use silicone dioxide ( we've used both biofine clear and sil floc brands) as a clarifying agent. We've done dosing rate tests, generally seeing consistent results of more being better (no signs of "fluffy bottoms" in these tests), but we cap our tests at 200 mL/bbl, which is much higher than the other brewers in the area I've spoken to about their dosing rates. Using that dosing rate of 200mL/bbl we see long conditioning times, with the proteins stratifying before finally settling, leading me to believe we may be dealing with a "fluffy bottoms" situation. So we tried several dosing rates on full batches between 50mL/bbl and 150mL/bbl, those beers seemed to have similar clarifying times, though on the lower end there was no signs of the stratification, but the overall clarity was poor.

This is an issue across styles, no sign of hop heavy beers being a particular problem. These conditioning times are killing our production, but I'm not willing to sacrifice product quality to turn tanks over faster. 

Thanks for any insights,

Hoping for some helpful insight into an issue we've been having for a little while now. We are experiencing very long times for our beers to clarify in the brite tanks, like 14+ days long.

We moved locations and installed an RO system, and the increased time to clarify started around that time. We add salts and target a minimum of 50 ppm of Ca in every brew. We use silicone dioxide ( we've used both biofine clear and sil floc brands) as a clarifying agent. We've done dosing rate tests, generally seeing consistent results of more being better (no signs of "fluffy bottoms" in these tests), but we cap our tests at 200 mL/bbl, which is much higher than the other brewers in the area I've spoken to about their dosing rates. Using that dosing rate of 200mL/bbl we see long conditioning times, with the proteins stratifying before finally settling, leading me to believe we may be dealing with a "fluffy bottoms" situation. So we tried several dosing rates on full batches between 50mL/bbl and 150mL/bbl, those beers seemed to have similar clarifying times, though on the lower end there was no signs of the stratification, but the overall clarity was poor.

This is an issue across styles, no sign of hop heavy beers being a particular problem. These conditioning times are killing our production, but I'm not willing to sacrifice product quality to turn tanks over faster. 

Thanks for any insights,

Hey Matt, 

What temperature are you fining at and how are you dosing/mixing it in? 

Hoping for some helpful insight into an issue we've been having for a little while now. We are experiencing very long times for our beers to clarify in the brite tanks, like 14+ days long.

We moved locations and installed an RO system, and the increased time to clarify started around that time. We add salts and target a minimum of 50 ppm of Ca in every brew. We use silicone dioxide ( we've used both biofine clear and sil floc brands) as a clarifying agent. We've done dosing rate tests, generally seeing consistent results of more being better (no signs of "fluffy bottoms" in these tests), but we cap our tests at 200 mL/bbl, which is much higher than the other brewers in the area I've spoken to about their dosing rates. Using that dosing rate of 200mL/bbl we see long conditioning times, with the proteins stratifying before finally settling, leading me to believe we may be dealing with a "fluffy bottoms" situation. So we tried several dosing rates on full batches between 50mL/bbl and 150mL/bbl, those beers seemed to have similar clarifying times, though on the lower end there was no signs of the stratification, but the overall clarity was poor.

This is an issue across styles, no sign of hop heavy beers being a particular problem. These conditioning times are killing our production, but I'm not willing to sacrifice product quality to turn tanks over faster. 

Thanks for any insights,

Dallas,

We dose the fining into the brite prior to purging, and then transfer crashed beer (32*F) into the tank.

Hey Matt, 

What temperature are you fining at and how are you dosing/mixing it in? 

Hoping for some helpful insight into an issue we've been having for a little while now. We are experiencing very long times for our beers to clarify in the brite tanks, like 14+ days long.

We moved locations and installed an RO system, and the increased time to clarify started around that time. We add salts and target a minimum of 50 ppm of Ca in every brew. We use silicone dioxide ( we've used both biofine clear and sil floc brands) as a clarifying agent. We've done dosing rate tests, generally seeing consistent results of more being better (no signs of "fluffy bottoms" in these tests), but we cap our tests at 200 mL/bbl, which is much higher than the other brewers in the area I've spoken to about their dosing rates. Using that dosing rate of 200mL/bbl we see long conditioning times, with the proteins stratifying before finally settling, leading me to believe we may be dealing with a "fluffy bottoms" situation. So we tried several dosing rates on full batches between 50mL/bbl and 150mL/bbl, those beers seemed to have similar clarifying times, though on the lower end there was no signs of the stratification, but the overall clarity was poor.

This is an issue across styles, no sign of hop heavy beers being a particular problem. These conditioning times are killing our production, but I'm not willing to sacrifice product quality to turn tanks over faster. 

Thanks for any insights,

Hoping for some helpful insight into an issue we've been having for a little while now. We are experiencing very long times for our beers to clarify in the brite tanks, like 14+ days long.

We moved locations and installed an RO system, and the increased time to clarify started around that time. We add salts and target a minimum of 50 ppm of Ca in every brew. We use silicone dioxide ( we've used both biofine clear and sil floc brands) as a clarifying agent. We've done dosing rate tests, generally seeing consistent results of more being better (no signs of "fluffy bottoms" in these tests), but we cap our tests at 200 mL/bbl, which is much higher than the other brewers in the area I've spoken to about their dosing rates. Using that dosing rate of 200mL/bbl we see long conditioning times, with the proteins stratifying before finally settling, leading me to believe we may be dealing with a "fluffy bottoms" situation. So we tried several dosing rates on full batches between 50mL/bbl and 150mL/bbl, those beers seemed to have similar clarifying times, though on the lower end there was no signs of the stratification, but the overall clarity was poor.

This is an issue across styles, no sign of hop heavy beers being a particular problem. These conditioning times are killing our production, but I'm not willing to sacrifice product quality to turn tanks over faster. 

Thanks for any insights,

Another bit of information I forgot to add that is interesting, and somewhat confounding, but may help trigger some thoughts; when we pull samples from tanks that are still hazy, they tend to drop clear on the bench in about 30 minutes, with the proteins dropping to the bottom of the glass in a fairly tight layer. Obviously the same doesn't occur in the tanks in the same timeframe.

Hoping for some helpful insight into an issue we've been having for a little while now. We are experiencing very long times for our beers to clarify in the brite tanks, like 14+ days long.

We moved locations and installed an RO system, and the increased time to clarify started around that time. We add salts and target a minimum of 50 ppm of Ca in every brew. We use silicone dioxide ( we've used both biofine clear and sil floc brands) as a clarifying agent. We've done dosing rate tests, generally seeing consistent results of more being better (no signs of "fluffy bottoms" in these tests), but we cap our tests at 200 mL/bbl, which is much higher than the other brewers in the area I've spoken to about their dosing rates. Using that dosing rate of 200mL/bbl we see long conditioning times, with the proteins stratifying before finally settling, leading me to believe we may be dealing with a "fluffy bottoms" situation. So we tried several dosing rates on full batches between 50mL/bbl and 150mL/bbl, those beers seemed to have similar clarifying times, though on the lower end there was no signs of the stratification, but the overall clarity was poor.

This is an issue across styles, no sign of hop heavy beers being a particular problem. These conditioning times are killing our production, but I'm not willing to sacrifice product quality to turn tanks over faster. 

Thanks for any insights,

Hoping for some helpful insight into an issue we've been having for a little while now. We are experiencing very long times for our beers to clarify in the brite tanks, like 14+ days long.

We moved locations and installed an RO system, and the increased time to clarify started around that time. We add salts and target a minimum of 50 ppm of Ca in every brew. We use silicone dioxide ( we've used both biofine clear and sil floc brands) as a clarifying agent. We've done dosing rate tests, generally seeing consistent results of more being better (no signs of "fluffy bottoms" in these tests), but we cap our tests at 200 mL/bbl, which is much higher than the other brewers in the area I've spoken to about their dosing rates. Using that dosing rate of 200mL/bbl we see long conditioning times, with the proteins stratifying before finally settling, leading me to believe we may be dealing with a "fluffy bottoms" situation. So we tried several dosing rates on full batches between 50mL/bbl and 150mL/bbl, those beers seemed to have similar clarifying times, though on the lower end there was no signs of the stratification, but the overall clarity was poor.

This is an issue across styles, no sign of hop heavy beers being a particular problem. These conditioning times are killing our production, but I'm not willing to sacrifice product quality to turn tanks over faster. 

Thanks for any insights,