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.
Click 
to download detailed instructions on how to use this filter with a kegging system. Click on the More Info link above to see a picture of this filter attached to a kegging system.
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), as well as two beer ball lock or two beer pin lock threaded flare Keg Connectors (depending on the type of kegs you have). In addition, you will need two 5/16" stainless hose barbs.
NEEDED BUT NOT INCLUDED FOR WINE: For wine, all you will need additional is our Q77 Pressure Tank (not included) and two 3 micron filter pads per 5 gallon batch (order separately).
Jul 20, 2019 by rod
Q: where can i buy the black carbon filters for this unit
A: This does not take carbon filters, it takes plate filter media. We sell this, see our items Q17 (7 micron grade), Q19 (4 micron grade), and Q20 (1 micron grade) filter pads.
Sep 14, 2017 by Dan
Q: I'm curious if anyone has used this for transfer from kettle to fermentor to reduce trub prior to fermentation by means of pumps instead of Co2.
A: Trub has too much particulate matter, and will clog this filter almost immediately, so this is not recommended.
Dec 27, 2016 by Ste ditchfield
Q: Would this be ok for removing haze and small particles after distilling gin and put it inline with my bottle filling machine,can regulate the output of pump.
A: We have not tested this with hard alcohol and are not sure if it would react well with the plastic, gasket or filter pads themselves.
Don't waste your money
Should have listened to all the reviews I read. Most were negative. But, I went for it. Bad decision. Simply a piece of crap. Been brewing for decades. Have never filtered. Really wanted to try it. Not an idiot . . followed instructions to a tee. 5 p.s.i. All bolts fastened to same torque . . . just didn't work . . leaked like a sieve . . . clogged to beyond use half way into the process . . . cloudy beer . . . just an absolute disaster. Sticking with gelatin . . . . maybe someday I might try the cartridge method. William's Brewing Responds: Sorry to hear of your problem, we have sent a prepaid return label so you can return this and get a refund. We find that the filter works but may drip occasionally. It is important to seat the filter pads securely in the two plates before assembling, and tighten all the screws very evenly, sort of like when a mechanic tightens a cylinder head. It is not designed for filtering 5 gallons of really yeasty beer, but works fine on 5 gallons of moderately yeasty beer with the 7 micron filter pads (you used the correct pads). Do not use pads finer than 7 microns when filtering beer. Our 1 and 3 micron pads are designed for filtering wine which has fallen bright.
Should have bought this a while ago...
The filter assembles, cleans, sanitizes and works great. I can get it sanitized and set up in less than 5 min. No leaks, not a drop, even when I pushed the pressure up way past the recommended limits. I *was* careful to read the instructions and make sure it was good and tight. I used the Polish (2micron) pad after crashing and fining for a few days (like instructions said). Beer passed through quickly and easily (faster than the instructions said it would) and the results are just .... stunning. I really thought this would be a pain in the *ss but since I push between carboy and keg, it was really easy to just put in line. Should have bought this a long time ago. Note: I love crystal clear beer -- it might not be as important to you Note2: cheers to Matt (review below) who pushed w/ gravity down a flight of stairs! Nice.
Plate filter
I was satisfied with the performance of the filter but like someone else, I had some leak issues that came to light as I had to turn the CO2 pressure up to 12psi at about 2.5 gallons. It took nearly 2 hours to filter just over 5 gal. Due to the amount of yeast and small pieces of these stinking no good pellet hops.
Terrible
Wish I had a better experience. First of all I cold crash my beers before kegging and thought it would be nice to have my beer sparkling clear hence my purchase of this filter. The first two batches tasted awful and were cloudy. Not hazy, CLOUDY!!!! Next batch I decide to taste what was left in the first keg that did not go into the filter. Tastes pretty good and decent clarity . After carbonation, same thing crappy taste and cloudy. I did not filter my next batch back and the beer is back to normal. Oh, and the beer filter has a new home. The county landfill.
filters great, but a bit of a pain to setup
i've used this product now to filter about 15 beers, including some yeasty beers (e.g. Belgians) and some very hoppy dry-hopped ones (e.g., IPA). to date, i've not a problem with the filter handling the entire load of beer i've pushed through it, including an 8-gallon batch of Belgian IPA, which it handled without problem. i've used exclusively the 5 micron filter pads, and the beer comes out looking sparkly and great. the one drawback i've found to this product is that it's a bit of a pain to get setup. this is because it takes several minutes to attach and tighten each of the 6 bolts and screws. the screws also need to be tightened pretty tightly or else the filter will slowly leak out of the sides while running (at 3-5 psi of pressure), and sometimes i find that it leaks a small amount regardless. perhaps a different locking mechanism, like some sort of a flip lock, would be a better design.