Beer Settling post fermentaion

Hi Guys...

I've completed a Timothy Taylor Landlord (British Brew) about a week ago. The FG was 1.011..started cooling to as low as poss in my brew fridge on am of 24th April. Temp bottomed out at 1.4C - 1.5C and has been at this temp for about 4 days. Total 6 days chilling from completion of fermentation to today. I took a sample from the bottom of my FV today and its still a bit cloudy. I haven't added any finings (didn't think I had to as I was cooling to quite low temps...lesson learnt I guess?) how long should I wait until I keg off, how long have u left beers to settle? I am intending to keg the beer into "corny" kegs.

Cheers
ian

How long it takes a beer to drop clear is dependent on several factors. The floculation characteristics of the yeast strain (I find US-05 to be particularly slow in clearing.), what kind of hot and cold breaks you had, the protein level of the grist and calcium level in the boil are some of the primary factors. Another factor is whether the beer was allowed enough fementation time before cold crashing.

When you say that you took a sample from the bottom of your fermenter and it was cloudy, I am assuming that your fermentor isn't clear enough to see through. It is normal for the beer to clear from the top down. In a clear plastic or glass fermenter you can watch the cloudy part gradually shrink down until it reaches the trub layer. Certain strains are much slower than others.

Either way, if you keg it and allow it to carbonate at serving pressure, it should clear by the time carbonation is complete. If you're in a hurry, fine it with gelatin and allow to settle out for a couple of days and then quick carbonate. The sediment should all come out in the first couple of pints.

thanks for the reply Bob.

I used liquid Wyeast Activator - London Ale III. It says it had a high flocculation. Cold break took about 20 mins from boil to 22C, there were some insolubles but not a huge amount. I didn't see too much frothing (protein) in the hot break I will extend the time on this in my next brew. I used about 1/2 a tablet of Britewort (kind of prorofloc) in the last 10 min of the boil but may use 1 tablet next time, I didn't see a large amount of "proteins" coming of solution at this stage. Calcium level was about 183 ppm which is within the range for this type of brew. I had 3 identical gravity readings on 3 consecutive days at the end of fermentation. Yeah my FV is plastic so can't see through it. I have hardly any trub at the bottom of the FV...its about 2 or 3 mm.

I will keg it off later today and see how it goes....as you say the sediment should be gone after a few pints 

So I have a few things I can try in my next brew.

Cheers
Ian