I’m taking a slightly different approach with the storage of this brew, so I thought I’d keep you updated.
The reason is clarity, and the sticky issue of finings. Now, here’s the rub – I like to keep my brews vegetarian if at all possible. I never use gelatine or isinglass and prefer to use copper finings and a lengthy conditioning period to ensure clarity. This is fine, and makes for clear beers in time, with good preservative qualities. The problem comes when the weather gets warmer and we don’t really want beers hanging around in kegs in the Boxshed for a month or more before tapping. The beer is warmer and any yeast in suspension takes longer to drop. Until now I have got around this problem by extending secondary fermentation and being extremely careful with the way my beer is handled at each stage, but I think it’s now time to investigate finings options once again.
The central problem here is that I am somewhat of a hypocrite when it comes to vegetarianism and beer. Now, any beer loving veggie will tell you that there isn’t actually any fish swimbladder (or cow bits) in a pint of beer. The very way in which finings work means that the animal products drop out of the beer to the bottom of the keg and aren’t passed into the pint glass in normal circumstances. So is a pint vegetarian or not? Is a carrot vegetarian if it was grown in blood and bone? Ack, who knows. What I do know is that my opinion is tainted and blinded by my love of beer, and that although I would conside Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce to contain fish, I wouldn’t pass over a pint of Adnams. It’s laughable, whichever way I look at it, and needs to be reconciled in time. Aaaanyway…
I don’t need to deal with this larger quandry for the next few brews anyway. I bought a half dozen two-stage finings called Condessa in 2008 that are ultra-clear veggie finings, They cost an arm and a leg, the company seems to have now gone out of business, but they did work very well the only other time I used them. If you know what they’re made of or where to source more, please tell me.
So today I have filled eight pint bottles with unfined Landlubber together with glucose solution by syringe. These will go in my Summer bottle stock. The remaining 19L or so is being fined as I type. Essentially the process involves stirring in one sachet of milky liquid, waiting an hour, stirring in a second and different looking sachet of milky gunk, then waiting 24 – 48hrs before kegging. Because I’m doing this in secondary most of the yeast has already been left behind in the primary bucket, but a significant amount will fluff up and fall out of suspension anyway, from memory. I’m hoping this will make Landlubber ready for drinking in just three weeks and clear as a bell to boot. I’ll obviously let you know. The second sachet is going in soon.
As far as finings go, I will probably have to bite the bullet one day and do it for real. My most likely choice will be a chitosan-based solution, which is derived from the shells of crustaceans and is found in pretty much any fertiliser used in home gardens (including the Boxshed, I’ve just discovered – it just gets worse – will my peas be veggie friendly?) Hey ho, a concern for another day.
Here are some rather mirky photos of the Little Bottler, the already rather bright unfined Landlubber, and some more bottles making friends with the bottled Thinking Bitter from last week. It tasted very nice by the way, but with less hops on the finish than we’d hoped for.
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- The wonderfully simple and cheap Little Bottler
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- Very clear, and more blonde than expected, even without finings
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- Yey, more swingtops for cool summer supping. Must label these…
