Isinglass Isinglass Isinglass () is a substance obtained from the dried swim bladders of fish. It is a form of collagen used mainly for the clarification or fining of some beer and wine. It can also be cooked into a paste for specialised gluing purposes. Its origin is from the obsolete Dutch "huizenblaas" – "huizen" is a kind of sturgeon, and "blaas" is a bladder, or German "hausen blas", meaning essentially the same. Although originally made exclusively from sturgeon, especially beluga, in 1795 an invention by William Murdoch facilitated a cheap substitute using cod. This was extensively used in Britain in
Swim bladder duct, allowing the fish to fill up the swim bladder by "gulping" air. Excess gas can be removed in a similar manner. In more derived varieties of fish (the physoclisti) the connection to the digestive tract is lost. In early life stages, these fish must rise to the surface to fill up their swim bladders; in later stages, the pneumatic duct disappears, and the gas gland has to introduce gas (usually oxygen) to the bladder to increase its volume and thus increase buoyancy. In order to introduce gas into the bladder, the gas gland excretes lactic acid and produces carbon