Beer Forum

Howdy,
I was just listening to the podcast on filtering beer.
The guy promoting this method makes a serious mistake using his method of putting in the filter medium (mats) in a dry state after sanitizing the filterbody and hoses only.
Filter mats are made up of cellulose fibres and they are not taste neutral out of the box.
All manufacturers of filter mats recommend watering(pumping water through) these mats for about 15 to 20 minutes to eliminate any loose cellulose fibre parrticles and residual taste which is something that you definitely do not want in your filtered beer.
I just thought to bring this point up, so other brewers will not copy this mistake after having listened to the podcast.
Other than that, I really love the shows and think that they are a tremendous help to other brewers apart from being very entertaining.
So keep up the good work, guys.
Saying PROST from Germany
skookum

skookum wrote:Howdy,
I was just listening to the podcast on filtering beer.
The guy promoting this method makes a serious mistake using his method of putting in the filter medium (mats) in a dry state after sanitizing the filterbody and hoses only.
Filter mats are made up of cellulose fibres and they are not taste neutral out of the box.
All manufacturers of filter mats recommend watering(pumping water through) these mats for about 15 to 20 minutes to eliminate any loose cellulose fibre parrticles and residual taste which is something that you definitely do not want in your filtered beer.
I just thought to bring this point up, so other brewers will not copy this mistake after having listened to the podcast.
Other than that, I really love the shows and think that they are a tremendous help to other brewers apart from being very entertaining.
So keep up the good work, guys.
Saying PROST from Germany
skookum

I'm glad you posted this. Of course, I would like to hear the opinions of other brewers here, as well.

Since I've been filtering, I have noticed a particular flavor that seems to be in the beer. Not offensive, just not necessarily what I want.

I switched from dipping my pads in Iodophore to loading them dry after I heard Tasty say he did the same thing. I did not notice any shift in flavor from that change. I also generally filter 2x5 gallons of the same type of beer in sequence and have not noticed any difference between the first keg and the second.

Next time I have 10 gallons of identical beer ready to filter I will muster the troops and do a triangle tasting and see if there is a consistent difference between the first keg and the second.

High,
You don`t have to go through all that trouble.
Simlpy read the filter-medium manufacturers instructions.
If you don`t believe, what they have to say, do this before filtering your next batch of beer:
Just insert some new dry filter pads into the filter and pump a glass of water through.
Drink that and report back.
It is much easier to detect any off-flavours in water than in beer.
If you do detect any off-flavours, keep pushing water through until they are gone.
This way, your beer will not pick up these flavours.
Plate filters have been used in the wine industry for decades.
They are always watered first to make them ready to filter wine (weingrün).
And one gallon of water is nowhere near enough.
They are sterilized by steaming the complete assembled unit for 15 min.
In this case, steam is pushed through from the outflow.
I do not know, if these plastic filter cases and hoses could survive such treatment, though.
C YA
skookum