BeerBorg

I just filtered a Galaxy IPA using MoreBeer's plate filter, and have to say that the initial taste was amazing. My other recent BIAB batches took a while to taste good. The plate filter, takes away all the harsh tannins (hop/yeast sediment), and made it drinkable from the start. It's kind of like going from Slayer to "good" Metallica. I'd actually prefer to drink this one as soon as it's carbonated rather than wait it out (to see if conditions more).

From now on, I'm going to filter those beers that deserved to be filtered. Also, I hope the GB packers suck this year!

Is it expensive? I've seen plate filters that are in the $100's.
But, personally, I like homebrew like it is and am not sure if I want to take away that homebrew taste. When I open a bottle of beer, I can always smell that something that's markedly different. Not bad in any way, I just know its not homebrew.

Beer-lord wrote:Is it expensive? I've seen plate filters that are in the $100's.
But, personally, I like homebrew like it is and am not sure if I want to take away that homebrew taste. When I open a bottle of beer, I can always smell that something that's markedly different. Not bad in any way, I just know its not homebrew.

You probably already know this, but filtering only works when kegging. You can bottle filtered beer, but only after force-carbing in a keg first (preferably using a beer gun).

I've never filtered, as I am strictly a bottler. I don't have the equipment to keg, nor the inclination to get it (yet). The idea of filtering, though, does sound very appealing!

IMHO, filtering removes a good bit of what makes homebrew better for you to drink then commercial brew. It turns it from "food" into something only slightly better for you then soda pop (edit: except for the potential alcohol benefits if you drink in moderation). Even when I buy commercial brew, I tend to only buy bottle conditioned stuff. But this is because to me my beer is a nutritional supplement, like it was back in the middle ages for the working people. I need the calories to not vaporize, and I want all of my calories to have as much nutritional value as possible.

So I will likely never filter, even if I keg. I could care less if it's cloudy as long as it tastes good. And I'm apparently nowhere near as picky as losman26 about my beers, I think almost all of my homebrew tastes as good or better then commercial beers as is.

Beer-lord wrote:Is it expensive? I've seen plate filters that are in the $100's.
But, personally, I like homebrew like it is and am not sure if I want to take away that homebrew taste. When I open a bottle of beer, I can always smell that something that's markedly different. Not bad in any way, I just know its not homebrew.

$50 and set of pads is about $2 each.

mashani wrote:IMHO, filtering removes a good bit of what makes homebrew better for you to drink then commercial brew. It turns it from "food" into something only slightly better for you then soda pop (edit: except for the potential alcohol benefits if you drink in moderation). Even when I buy commercial brew, I tend to only buy bottle conditioned stuff. But this is because to me my beer is a nutritional supplement, like it was back in the middle ages for the working people. I need the calories to not vaporize, and I want all of my calories to have as much nutritional value as possible.

So I will likely never filter, even if I keg. I could care less if it's cloudy as long as it tastes good. And I'm apparently nowhere near as picky as losman26 about my beers, I think almost all of my homebrew tastes as good or better then commercial beers as is.

I don't filter every batch, as it is a PITA. For this last batch, I wasn't going to filter it, but realized that I forgot to put my keg dip-tube screen which does a great job keeping particles out. I needed to get this beer ready for a party tomorrow, and couldn't really take the chance of having a lot of hop sediment, trub floating around. This got the beer done faster, and I have to say that it tastes way better than a couple of days ago. I also feel that Biab beers in the keg seem to vary from glass to glass. You only seem to get consistency when keg is about 1/2 full. I get a lot more sediment/trub from a BIAB batch than an what I used to doing extract. Also, I'm going to filter beers that I enter in competitions. The cloudiness, IMO was probably the difference between first and second place.

Have you ever tried any Firestone walker or Lagunitas beers? The double Jack is an amazing IPA, which I believe is filtered. Lagunitas probably filters everything as well, and they put out a solid product. I'd probably never filter a Belgian beer, although I'm tempted to filter a Tripel that I'm thinking of brewing.

I wouldn't argue that filtered beer or brite tanked beer can taste awesome. Of course it can. If it made it taste bad nobody would do it.

For competition, in theory some cloudiness or chill haze should not be a defining point for scoring, unless the style itself warrants it, or unless the judge is a twerp. IE if you enter a beer as a Krystalweizen but it looks like a hefe, then yeah, that would likely matter...

Here it is.

mashani wrote:I wouldn't argue that filtered beer or brite tanked beer can taste awesome. Of course it can. If it made it taste bad nobody would do it.

For competition, in theory some cloudiness or chill haze should not be a defining point for scoring, unless the style itself warrants it, or unless the judge is a twerp. IE if you enter a beer as a Krystalweizen but it looks like a hefe, then yeah, that would likely matter...

Well, what happened with me on the last competition was this.

1. I did a Citra double IPA which had been in the bottle at least two months. While it was a great beer, it wasn't the same as it was drinking straight out of the keg.

2. All the judges commented about the cloudiness. Not really complaining.

if I had had a fresh bottle of the same, and possibly filtered, I'm sure that it would have given me the points to put me over the edge. I'm guessing that it was about 1-2 pts that I lost by. I didn't plan for the contest, and didn't expect to get second place or place for that matter. Any future competitions, I'm out to win, but who knows, maybe I won't even place. I will try to do something entirely different for the next competition.