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This WilliamsWarn clarifier...


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#1 Big Nake

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Posted 23 June 2017 - 08:43 AM

I'm making a new thread so we don't have multiple conversations in the M76 thread. Chils, when you try this stuff for the first time, let me know what you did and how it worked. I know that WW makes a piece of equipment to brew, transfer and serve beer so I'm wondering if this stuff was specially formulated to work with that equipment. The amber ale where I just poured some clarifier into the cold keg (no agitation) came out clear-ish. The pilsner where I added the clarifier to the keg and then racked the cellar-temp beer on top is still sludgy. Last night I placed the Crystal Pale Ale that I have into the lager primary fridge which is set to 48°. I can't fit it into my on-deck fridge (set to about 35°) but I could just adjust the lager primary fridge down so that the beer is cold when I go to transfer it. The sludgy pilsner is unusual because a gel solution would have been maybe 2 sludgy glasses and then it would be clear. I have now dumped/drank 6 pints of this pilsner and it's all sludge all the time.

#2 HVB

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Posted 23 June 2017 - 08:45 AM

I know I am using a different product but your results are much different than mine and I am sorry to read that. 2-3 pints into a non-hoppy lager and I would be clear.  I have posted pics of mine and explained how I use it so that is out there.  I am starting to wonder if they are not the same.



#3 Big Nake

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Posted 23 June 2017 - 09:05 AM

I know I am using a different product but your results are much different than mine and I am sorry to read that. 2-3 pints into a non-hoppy lager and I would be clear.  I have posted pics of mine and explained how I use it so that is out there.  I am starting to wonder if they are not the same.

I'm willing to try different methods to get it to work but I have to remind myself that I am working with very little wiggle-room if I'm trying to get clear beer with less effort than I expend using a gel solution. If the Biofine gets clearer beer without having to mix and heat gel but I have to do 50 handstands, run around my house 200 times and light my neighbor's deck on fire then I need to go back to gel. The truth is that gel solution was working for me as a 95 (I'm making this up) on a scale of 1 to 100 so the biofine didn't have a lot of room to work with. What I was hoping for was to be able to just pour this stuff into a cold keg and go. One thing that I did not attempt (yet) is to pour it into a cold, flat keg, seal up the hatch, hit it with some CO2 and then swirl/jostle the keg a little bit to agitate it. Even if I disturb the yeast layer on the bottom, the Biofine should drop everything anyway. If I did that on an upcoming batch of American Lager, that would be *FOUR* different methods I have tried.

Ps. Last night after tapping 2 glasses of that sludgy pilsner, I hit it with a gel solution.  :blush:



#4 HVB

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Posted 23 June 2017 - 09:22 AM

I'm willing to try different methods to get it to work but I have to remind myself that I am working with very little wiggle-room if I'm trying to get clear beer with less effort than I expend using a gel solution. If the Biofine gets clearer beer without having to mix and heat gel but I have to do 50 handstands, run around my house 200 times and light my neighbor's deck on fire then I need to go back to gel. The truth is that gel solution was working for me as a 95 (I'm making this up) on a scale of 1 to 100 so the biofine didn't have a lot of room to work with. What I was hoping for was to be able to just pour this stuff into a cold keg and go. One thing that I did not attempt (yet) is to pour it into a cold, flat keg, seal up the hatch, hit it with some CO2 and then swirl/jostle the keg a little bit to agitate it. Even if I disturb the yeast layer on the bottom, the Biofine should drop everything anyway. If I did that on an upcoming batch of American Lager, that would be *FOUR* different methods I have tried.

Ps. Last night after tapping 2 glasses of that sludgy pilsner, I hit it with a gel solution.  :blush:

You keep saying biofine but you are not using biofine you are using WillimasWarn Clarifier :)  While the ingredients may be the same the make up may be different.  The only things I go through is add it to the keg rack and go. 



#5 MyaCullen

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Posted 23 June 2017 - 09:49 AM

You keep saying biofine but you are not using biofine you are using WillimasWarn Clarifier :)  While the ingredients may be the same the make up may be different.  The only things I go through is add it to the keg rack and go. 

WilliiamWarn Ingredint is Silicon Dioxide

 

Biofine is Colloidal Silic Acid, Same? Similar?

 

not sure



#6 HVB

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Posted 23 June 2017 - 10:01 AM

WilliiamWarn Ingredint is Silicon Dioxide

 

Biofine is Colloidal Silic Acid, Same? Similar?

 

not sure

Biofine MSDS indicates

Chemical name Silicon dioxide
Chemical nature Colloidal silica sol / silicic acid hydrosol

 

Williamarn bottle shows the same.  We have no idea what the actual composition of the solution is though.

 

818hkFM9R6L._SL1500_.jpg



#7 Big Nake

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Posted 23 June 2017 - 10:05 AM

You keep saying biofine but you are not using biofine you are using WillimasWarn Clarifier :)  While the ingredients may be the same the make up may be different.  The only things I go through is add it to the keg rack and go.

You're right... I keep saying Biofine because we discussed the ingredients being the same but maybe they're not. It's possible that this is just a crappy product and there's no other explanation and I'm not saying to myself "DAMN THAT DREZ!"... I have heard many people say that Biofine works well. This may just not be good stuff and if that's the case, I'll use gel. If I find a way to use it where it works... I'll do that until the bottle is gone and then go back to gel.

#8 Big Nake

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Posted 24 June 2017 - 12:07 PM

The pilsner with the WW clarifier after about one week...
2wgi4pt.jpg

And after one day treated with gel... Most of that is condensation.

20s7o2b.jpg

I have no doubt that the next pints tapped from this keg will be very clear. Also, the beer is delicious and still very young... less than 3 weeks since I brewed it. I placed the next beer to be kegged (Crystal Pale Ale) in the lager primary fridge and it will sit there until next weekend (probably) and then I will send it to the keg and chill it the rest of the way down to 35° or so. Then I'll add 2 tbsp. of the WW clarifier and agitate the keg and then carb it. We'll see if "cold + agitated" does anything different.

#9 Steve Urquell

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Posted 24 June 2017 - 03:44 PM

Ken I'm sorry if I led you astray with that stuff. I searched the web for silicon dioxide clarifier after finding out that's the active ingredient in Biofine. I haven't bought any yet and just kegged a batch today using gel.

I wasnt able to keg my last CZ beer for a couple weeks due to an injury and it sat at 32F for 2 weeks. I then kegged it with gel about a week ago. That crashed the MJ yeast out of it and it was clear when I tapped it today.

My SOP is to crash a beer to 32F and let it sit at least 10 days then add gel to a keg and rack the beer on top of it then Carb while it sits at 32F. Usually clear after a week or so.

#10 Big Nake

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Posted 24 June 2017 - 08:20 PM

Ken I'm sorry if I led you astray with that stuff. I searched the web for silicon dioxide clarifier after finding out that's the active ingredient in Biofine. I haven't bought any yet and just kegged a batch today using gel.

I wasnt able to keg my last CZ beer for a couple weeks due to an injury and it sat at 32F for 2 weeks. I then kegged it with gel about a week ago. That crashed the MJ yeast out of it and it was clear when I tapped it today.

My SOP is to crash a beer to 32F and let it sit at least 10 days then add gel to a keg and rack the beer on top of it then Carb while it sits at 32F. Usually clear after a week or so.

Don't be sorry... I'm a student of this hobby and will probably always be. It's a $21 bottle of stuff that may or may not work depending on how it's used and maybe I didn't use it right. I typically gel a beer after it's sat overnight at about 35° and that's usually enough to get me some very clear beer relatively quick. If I were to add the WW clarifier to cold beer and either agitate or stir (maybe with a racking cane), I might get really good results. The jury is still out but eventually I will exhaust all methods and if it doesn't clear as well as gel then I will just continue to use gel. There is more experimentation to do.

#11 Big Nake

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Posted 25 June 2017 - 08:29 AM

The funny thing is that if you read the reviews on Amazon for this product, many people seem to have good luck with it. There are a few people saying things like, "How does this stuff have such good reviews? It doesn't work!"... which tells me that it MUST come down to process more than product. The positive reviews far outweigh the negative so there is something specific about the way it must be used and I'll be honest... both ways I have used it go against the directions. One was not mixed and one was not cold (enough) so the next batch will have BOTH done to it.

#12 Steve Urquell

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Posted 25 June 2017 - 08:51 AM

SOunds like my method is what they recommend?


Edited by Steve Urquell, 25 June 2017 - 08:51 AM.


#13 Big Nake

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Posted 27 June 2017 - 02:37 PM

I have a brewday planned for tomorrow evening (hoppy blonde with 1056) so this afternoon I'm moving this Crystal Pale Ale (which has been sitting in the 48° lager fridge) to a keg and then into the on-deck fridge where it should drop to 35° overnight. I will save the 1056 for tomorrow's brewday. After cleaning the keg right now I'm going to send the Starsan solution to a sparge keg and hang onto it. Tomorrow morning I will add 2 tbsp. of this WW clarifier and then mix it with my racking cane which will be sanitized by sitting in the keg full of Starsan. Then I'll start to force carb it. It will carb from Wednesday morning until Friday morning and on Friday night I will pull a few pints from it to see how it looks. The sludgy first one will get dumped and I'll watch to see how pints 2, 3, 4 look. If they look clear, then that's the key... cold & mixed. If they don't look clear then I may be giving up on this stuff... in which case I'll send it to Chils so he can try it himself and see if it works better under different circumstances. This would be batch 3 (and process 3) working with this stuff. Also, if it doesn't work then I'll gel the pale ale and just stick with gel for the foreseeable future. More later.

#14 Big Nake

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Posted 27 June 2017 - 03:56 PM

Here's the amber ale that I first used the WW clarifier on. This one had the clarifier added to the keg when the beer was cold (35° or so) but the keg was not agitated or stirred. I would call this "clear-ish". I don't know if the clarifier helped or if it's just been cold enough long enough to drop out or what.

2u5eznk.jpg

#15 Steve Urquell

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Posted 27 June 2017 - 03:59 PM

Not crystal gelled clear but clearing. Was it added to a full keg or was the beer racked on it?



#16 Big Nake

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Posted 27 June 2017 - 05:17 PM

Not crystal gelled clear but clearing. Was it added to a full keg or was the beer racked on it?

This one was added to a full keg of 35° beer and not agitated. The pils was added to the keg first and the beer was racked on top but the beer was only cellar temp. That worked poorly so the beer being cold seems to be more important that the clarifier being mixed properly with the beer. I will use it again tomorrow and it will be added to a COLD keg of beer and slightly stirred into the beer. If that doesn't work, I'm done with it. :D

#17 Big Nake

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Posted 28 June 2017 - 06:31 AM

Okay, pale ale chilled overnight, 2 tbsp. of the clarifier added to the keg and then my SS racking cane (which stood in a keg full of Starsan) used to gently stir the keg. Carb process started and will end at 8am on Friday morning. I'll tap a few of these on Friday night and report back. I don't really see a difference between what I just did and something like racking the 35° beer to a keg with the clarifier already in it but if anyone thinks that may be the answer, let me know. My on-deck fridge is very tight so I can't fit a primary in there... so I would have to put the beer into a keg, chill it and then add the clarifier to a different clean & sanitized keg and rack it to that keg... which would really defeat the purpose of this "easier-to-use" clarifier. More on Friday.

#18 Big Nake

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Posted 30 June 2017 - 03:51 PM

Okay, moment of truth for this pale ale that finished carbing this morning. I chilled the beer in the keg overnight, added the WW clarifier and stirred it with a sanitized SS racking cane. Pint #1...

35i3vnn.jpg

That pint was dumped and the haze would be expected no matter what.

But wait. Oh, oh, oh... what's this? Pint #2...
t9ejqu.jpg

What do you know. It turns out that the damn directions were right! Dammit! I hate when the directions are right. The beer must be cold (COLD) and the clarifier must be stirred. So it could be REALLY cold beer transferred to a keg that already had the clarifier in it or it could be cellar temp beer sent to a keg, chilled, clarifier added and stirred. It seems very good. Also, the beer came out great.

#19 Steve Urquell

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Posted 30 June 2017 - 03:56 PM

Glad its working for you Ken. My latest with gel is very clear now and it was the stubborn MJ yeast. I'm gonna do the MJ Bavarian yeast batch and gel it. If that doesn't clear it I may buy some of this stuff.

#20 Big Nake

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Posted 03 July 2017 - 07:27 AM

A couple of other random thoughts: I had a few glasses of this pale ale yeatserday. As I looked at it, I noticed that it was indeed clearer than any of the other beers I tried the clarifier on but it's not really as clear as the beers I've made with gel. I wonder if it's possible that this stuff just takes longer to drop out and what happened was that more schputz fell to the bottom of the keg and ended up in my glasses of beer yesterday. I'm going to watch it and see. By the time I get to the last 50-75% of a keg, it usually starts to pour VERY clear. If I don't see that happen here, then I'm still doing something wrong. Also, I noticed that the head on the beer seemed very weak. I was grilling and ran downstairs to tap a beer and I had a nice head on it. I set the glass outside on the table, came back into the kitchen for a minute or two and went back outside and there was NO HEAD. Nothing. I realize it could be a dirty glass or something but that is REALLY out of the ordinary for me. Has anyone heard that a clarifier like this could strip out a beer's head formation/stability capacity? Lastly, after this pale ale carbed up I had a keg of the American Lager to carb. For that one, I took no chances... I went straight to a gel solution. I haven't tapped anything from that keg yet but I expect it to be clear. Cheers.


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