What went wrong....help!!!

Greetings fellow brewers and brewettes! I recently brewed a batch of kolsch that I will be entering into my first comp. 7lbs german pils and 2lbs dark wheat. Kolsch wlp 029 yeast. I hit all my numbers and fermented at 59deg in a ferm chamber.

Wanting the clearest beer possible, I did the following.
After four days in primary, racked to secondary @ 59deg.
10 days after that, I racked to a tertiary @ 59deg.
10 days after that, cold crashed to about 37 for 3 days.
Added gelatin and cold crashed for 3 more days.
Added my corn sugar mix to bottling bucket and racked on top of that.
Bottled.

2 weeks later I popped a bottle for test and I couldnt believe the amount of stuff floating around. I was wicked careful to not pull any trub and was super clear when I bottled. The stuff still in suspension is tiny white dots. What are they? I dont wanna be a noob and jump to the "infection" thought. The beer tastes good and has good head retention but this stuff is driving me crazy! Also, the beer is really cloudy. I know I have a lot of wheat but like I said, when I bottled, it was crystal clear.

It should be noted to that my tasters were at room temp.

Any thoughts would be greatly appriciated. Still kinda new at this and will take all opinions.

Cheers!!

If it's hazy at cold temps it could be chill haze. How quickly did you chill your wort to pitching temps after flameout? I'm not sure about the white dots although based on your description I would not guess infection. Perhaps posting a pic would be helpful. My best guess without a pic would be that it has something to do with the gelatin? I've never used gelatin myself so I'm unfamiliar with the process but perhaps some of it was left behind in solution at warmer temps but as it chilled it came out of solution.


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I chilled in about 15 min. With an ic.

Also I have not chilled in the bottle yet so as I understand chill haze only happens when u chill in the bottle. Again, bottles are still at room/ conditioning temp.

I will post a pic asap.

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Stick one in the fridge and see what happens. If you're bottle conditioning it could just be yeast still in suspension

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I've had small yeast rafts form in bottles that were bottle conditioning. So I'll throw my 2¢ as its yeast, if it clears more when chilled makes me think yeast even more.

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Possibly some chill haze, but sounds more like it's the yeast. If you chill you bottles long enough (weeks) and pour very carefully while leaving the last ounce or so in the bottle, you'll get a clearer pour.

A bigger concern I'd have is racking off the yeast after only 4 days. You really want to let your primary sit a bit longer. I wouldn't even begin to think about racking to secondary for at least a week. I'm sure others will say you can rack sooner, but 4 days is very early.

dobe12 said:

A bigger concern I'd have is racking off the yeast after only 4 days. You really want to let your primary sit a bit longer. I wouldn't even begin to think about racking to secondary for at least a week. I'm sure others will say you can rack sooner, but 4 days is very early.

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I have had low gravity beers ferment out and be clean tasting in four days or less. If there is any flavor you want the yeast to clean up though you should leave it on the cake until that happens but that is highly style and strain dependent.

I probably would have let a kolsch go a week or two and then rack to cold crash.

I appriciate all the relpys. I was hoping for a crystal clear beer after secondary, terciary, cold crash, and gelitan. I have had clearer beers with no secondary.
You all mentioned yeast. This is the first beer I used a starter with. Do starters tend to leave more sediment in the bottle? Even after cold crash and gelitan?
Again thanks for the replies!

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moving the beer all those times does absolutely nothing for the clarity that wouldn't happen in the first fermentor besides introduce more O2 (unless done under a CO2 blanket) and more chances for some wild bug to land in your beer.

2 weeks bottled is on the short side. Wait another week or two, then chill one for a couple of days and check it. Anything in suspension should settle out with a little more time.

Next leave in your primary longer. I'm sure that has a lot to do with it. Try three weeks or so next time.


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Your tying too hard. Let the beer do the work. You could have done all that in the primary and the beer would have come out cleaner. I use buckets for primary so if clarity is important I do rack to a secondary. Only because it allows me to see what's going on better when crashing and racking.

Have you used gelatin before? Did you borok it properly?

Probably just yeast. All that moving around can be counter productive because it kicks up the flocculant stuff.

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I deff will. Thanks!

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Cold crash some bottles for at least a week. See if it Flocculates out.

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eastoak said:

moving the beer all those times does absolutely nothing for the clarity that wouldn't happen in the first fermentor besides introduce more O2 (unless done under a CO2 blanket) and more chances for some wild bug to land in your beer.

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This^^^^

I consistently make beer that you can read a newspaper through - I don't use a secondary, I don't use a tertiary, I don't cold crash.

I ferment in primary for 10-14 days. About 3-4 days before I plan to keg or bottle, I move my fermenter up on a counter so that it can settle and I won't need to move it when I want to keg or bottle. Drain into keg, Put in fridge and leave it alone. force carb and it will drop crystal clear on its own. I would do the same with bottles.

It seems to me that you are moving your beer a lot. In particular, moving it after 4 days of primary is really early in my opinion.

Did you get a gravity reading before bottling? Just wondering if it fermented completely out having moved it so quickly.

The single best way to clear beer is let it sit still for 2-4 weeks.