I was flipping through the Midwest Supplies catalog and saw they sell beer filtration systems. I wouldn’t buy one because I still bottle condition my beer and I need all the yeast I can get to carbonate my homebrew.
If I were kegging, a system like the one I saw today would be an option.
I wonder how many homebrewers out there do filter their beers. I see a product like this one as something that is not in the spirit of brewing beer at home. Maybe it is just my interpretation of the hobby, but I didn’t think having extreme clarity was the ultimate goal of a home brew.
I remember before I got into the hobby, and having tasted a few home brewed beers, I thought that filtering was crucial. The beers I had tried were overwhelmingly yeasty. The sediment was getting poured into every cup and I thought for this kind of beer to be good, it needed to go through that extra step of getting filtered.
Clearly the examples of homebrew I have tasted since then have improved and I learned after a few years of brewing myself that the yeast content of your brew can be controlled by a longer condition phase, gentler racking at bottling, and a more careful pour.
Still, the filtering system is available in a catalog for your purchase so it leads me to believe there is a demand for people who want to “clean up their brews” before they rack them into kegs.
So I will put it out to you, fine reader.
Do you filter your homebrewed beer?
If so, what are the most significant improvements that you experience?
Would you recommend other to filter their brews?
Leave your answers by leaving a comment on this post. Feel free to weigh your opinion on this topic either way.
I don’t know if I am convinced about beer filtration.
Matt
I don’t filter now, because I also bottle condition. If I were kegging, I might consider filtering, if it seemed like it would make a difference in cleaning the keg/lines/tap/etc. Since I’ve never kegged, I don’t know if that’s a factor or not.
Daniel
I dont filter either, because I bottle condition. But I do have to admit that a glass of clear beer looks way more attractive, especially to your average non home brewing friend.
On a side note I hade one brew sit in the fermentor for about 6 weeks, bottled it, and a couple of weeks later I have this really clear beer! I have never seen it before and I think it might be due to the long settling time in combination with wild yeast infection. The reason I kept it in the fermentor for so long was I noticed the gravity never stopped dropping. That in combination with the more “belgian” taste of the brew led me to believe some wild yeast had infected my batch. Anyway it femented it all the way down to 1.003 and made a really really clear beer.
John
Hey Matt and Daniel – thanks for the comments.
If clear beer just takes time, I wonder if the true benefit of filtering is to shorten the timeline.