Finicky Finings

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bwhite3

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I'm hit or miss with clear beer lately. I'm trying to brew beer and serve it as quickly as possible. I know this is contrary to the homebrewing philosophy but I'm considering my recipes involved in a commercial setting where time is money.

This beer I used US-05 dry yeast. Whirlfloc in the kettle - and after a Diacetyl rest (temp controlled fermentation) I add gelatin and then dial my temp to crash cool to 35. I use cooled, pre-boiled water and mix the gelatin (1 packet) well. I the add to the top of my fermenter. I don't mix at all, I'm worried about disturbing cake or contamination or oxygenation. I'm hoping the 140f plus degree gelatin mixes well on its own in 69f beer. (Maybe?)

The next day - the beer is now crashed to 35. I then added Polyclar (same fashion as Gelatin). 2 days of more cooling and the beer looks like this. What gives?

image.jpg
 
I addition, consider that I do the standard brewing practices correctly. I do a hard 60 min boil with whirlfloc at 15 - I use a whirlpool chiller and chill my entire quantity in around 10 min. The wort looks clear going in the ferm. Which leaves me with stubborn US-05. It's there a better finning? Do I need to start messing with PH and water additions? I currently do nothing to my water.
 
Do you soak the gelatin first? The instructions on mine say to soak in cold water for an hour and then add boiling water directly to it to dissolve the gelatin. Maybe the gelatin isn't entirely dissolved when you add it? I rarely bother with it but the last couple of times I used it I put the dissolved gelatin into a sanitized secondary bucket and racked the beer on top of it. This worked well for me and I was also using US-05.
 
I'd like to resurrect this one...I love US-05's clean ferment but it's a devil to clear out. Seems to me that time and patience is the best remedy for cloudy US-05. Any one have any tricks to speed it up?
 

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