How and when to use gelatin for clearing homebrew

Whenever I think of gelatin, I think of horse hooves.

That's right horse hooves.

From the knacker's yard. Gross right?

Well I say jelly is jelly, food is food, and if I need to use the foot of a horse to clear my beer and reduce sediment in the bottle I will!

So, here's the guts of using gelatin to clear your beer.

Basically gelatin acts a fining agent. It combines with the 'leftovers' of the beer brewing process and they fall to the bottom of the fermenter thus clearing the beer.

So how much gelatin should I add to my beer?

Many beer brewers have found that between half and a whole teaspoon per 23 litres or 5 gallons will be a sufficient amount. You will probably get diminishing returns if you use much more.

When do I add the gelatin?

You can add it any time after fermentation and word on the street that it actually works best when the beer is quite cool.

A common timing is to add it a couple of days before you intend to bottle your beer.

How do I add the gelatin?

A good trick is to dissolve it in a half a glass of hot water. You then open up the fermenter or carboy, add the liquid and then shut the fermenter back up.

Do I need to use gelatin if I'm making an ale?

For many people, clarity of beer is important to them. If you are making a dark ale, clarity may not be so important to you.

However, finings do remove leftovers that can impinge on the taste of the beer too. The gelatin helps remove the unneeded proteins and polyphenols from the beer.

Where do I get gelatin from?

Most specialist beer shops will stock fining agents such as gelatin. You can also try your local supermarket as it's used in many cooking recipes. You can totally order it online from Amazon for speedy delivery too.

Gelatin can come in powdered form and sheets.

As Robby the Robot would say 'Beware Will Robinson!'

Make sure you buy unflavoured gelatin.

If you use Jello because you know it has gelatin in it, you might be in for quite the taste surprise. That said, we've been known to use gelatin jelly beans from time to time...

Of course, if you don't wish to use gelatin (maybe because you're trying to make vegan beer?) you can try to use other kinds of finings to clear your beer.

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What is the best beer brewing kit for beginners?

Did you ever hear your dad tell the story about how he tried to make homebrew in his glory days at university and it was just rubbish?

It was probably because the beer kits in his day were not really up to scratch. There was this strange stigma about making beer at home and there seemed to a 'turn your nose up' attitude to it.

Don't let this 30 year old stigma concern you.

Thankfully, the standard of beer kits is pretty good in this modern era and there's a massive range to choose from. We've been brewing with beer kits for a few years now, and frankly we've yet to have a dud kit.

So with that in mind, what is the best beer kit for beginning beer brewers?

There's a couple of things to think about.

The first is what kind of beer you may want to make. Our judgement is that if this is your first beer, you will want to get in there and just make beer.

Which is the point, we get that.

However you might not know that lagers are harder to get right that ales due to temperature and storage issues. For this reason (so to avoid any disappointment) we would recommend you do try an ale. 

That said, the difference in ale from lager quality isn't something to worry about too much. 

Ales are good tasting beers and there are plenty of beer kits that you can choose from. 

We are personally really into brewing nut brown ales. This is an old English style beer that originates from the dank and dirty pubs of London and beyond. 

Arguably one of the original working man's beers, a well brewed nut brown ale is a worthy beer for anyone that appreciates a cold beer after a hard day's yakka.

We recommend the Black Rock Nut Brown Ale kit for the beginner's choice beer kit. We've used this kit many times and it always produces a handy drinking beer.

You could also try out the Munton's Connoisseur Nut Brown Kit. Its reviews on Amazon suggest that it is an ideal brewing kit for beginners if prepared with some DME or dry malt.

So, maybe you're still of the mind to try your hand at brewing a lager?

In our view, lagers are what the make the world go round. 

There's not much better than after a hot day in the sun mowing the lawns that raising a glass of cold lager to your mouth and emptying its contents down one's throat. 

It's even better if it's your own beer!

So what's a good first lager to brew?

Lagers can be a challenge to make as they need lower temperatures during fermentation to achieve the desired result. 

Since lagers are light in body it is very easy to tell a lager that has been fermented at too warm a temperature as they may taste too fruit or spicy due to too much ester production. This is why we suggested early that you may wish to try your hand at an ale first. 

But whatever, we say learn lagers by brewing lagers.

The very first lager I ever made was a Black Rock Lager with beer enhancer and Dr Rudi Hops. I have no idea who Doctor Rudi is but he sure helped make a good beer! 

You could think of this kit as being your 'standard brewing' kit - nothing too fancy or ambitious but you can be confident they will help you produce good beer.

You’ll also find that Cooper’s DIY Lager is well worth a crack – we do recommend you add some hops of course! We did a great brew of a Cooper's larger with the combination of both Moteuka and Saaz hops. 

Here's our review of a Coopers' lager kit.

If you want to try a beer kit that could be perceived as having a bit more quality, you could consider brewing with the Williams Warn Bohemian Pilsner beer kit. 

This kit is described as having “a rich, complex maltiness and a crisp finish”. Our brew largely lived up to this claim so we would be happy to recommend this kit to the learner brewer.

A handy thing about this kit is that if comes with a yeast that is tailored for the beer (being the Fermentis Saflager W34/70 lager yeast) whereas some of the kits like the Black Rock range have the same yeast across their whole range. 

The choice is of course yours. 

And the end of the day, you just need to start brewing. We all need to start somewhere and grabbing a quality beer kit for your first batch of beer will help give you a great insight into the beer making process. 

Our brewing guide has plenty of tips and tricks to keep you on the right path to brewing delicious beer. 

We offer you one piece of advice that you would be very wise to heed, always, always sterilize your fermenter and beer equipment. 

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