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Why filter beer or wine? Filtering is mostly for looks, but can affect taste
and shelf life as well. Filtered beer has a sparkling commercial appearance, and
looks great in a glass. Filtered beer with little or no yeast content will also
age differently, and will not pick up yeast flavors from the sediment in the
bottle or keg. On the other hand, if you plan on adding priming sugar and
bottling your beer, you must add more yeast (we prefer 5 grams of Y04 dry
Champagne Yeast) before you mix in the priming solution and bottle.
We have chosen a plate filter because the large surface area of the plates
catch more yeast than cartridge-type filters, and remove more haze causing
particles. Unlike cartridges that may cost $30.00 each, a pair of disposable
filter pads (to do 5 - 7 gallons) cost under $4.00. In addition, pads are
available in more than one rating, so you can adjust your filter easily and
inexpensively to different beer conditions. For example, use fine filter pads
when you want to really polish the beer or wine for kegging or counter pressure
filling (and you have fined with Instant Isinglass to remove excessive yeast),
or use medium pads for most filtering jobs, when there is visible yeast in
suspension before filtering.
Unlike other plate wine filters designed for lower pressures that leak, our
Plate Filter features twin sealing O rings specifically designed to hold the 5
psi pressure needed to push beer through a plate filter. Our Plate Filter is
easy to clean and sanitize, and uses readily available round 8 3/4” diameter
cellulose filter pads (commonly available for other brands of round plate wine
filters, such as Vinamat). Our Plate Filter works with any Beverage System that
has two ball or pin-lock kegs, a regulator, and C02 bottle.
To use for beer, assemble filter and pads. Attach ball or pin-lock threaded flare
fittings (not included) to the inlet and outlet hoses, and fill one keg with beer to be
filtered. Seal the keg lid and attach a gas line from your regulator to the IN
side, and adjust the regulator pressure to 5 PSI to push the beer through the
filter plates and into the beer side of the second keg, which is not sealed.
C02 pressure is required to push the beer through the filter, it
will not work with gravity and a siphon. It will take 45 minutes to
an hour to filter 5 gallons of beer at 5 psi. When done, discard filter pads (which
will be covered with yeast) and rinse all filter parts before putting
away to dry. You mayl lose about 12 ounces of beer or
wine, which will be in the filter at the end of the filtering run.
NEEDED BUT NOT INCLUDED FOR BEER: Besides a Beverage System with two kegs, you will also need to
order Filter Pads (2 required per batch, see below), as well as two beer
ball-lock or beer
pin- lock
threaded flare Keg Connectors (depending on the type
of kegs you have). In addition, you will need two D08 Stainless
Steel Hose Barbs
to convert your
keg connectors into fittings that will accept the filter tubing.
NEEDED BUT NOT INCLUDED FOR WINE: For wine, all you will need additional is our Pressure
Tank (not included) and two 3
micron Seitz filter pads
per
5 gallon batch (order separately).
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