Haze Issue

The picture below is of my latest IPA. Typical grain bill, but incorporating some Belma hops into my hopping regime.

The question here is: what is causing this fairly extreme haze? This isn’t a yeast haze as it does not settle out/flocculate (left a pint in the fridge, in a glass, for 3 weeks with no change in turbidity and no settlement at the bottom of the glass) and it does not taste yeasty (a flavor that I am personally a bit sensitive to). It is not a chill haze (remains hazy at room temperature). Finally, this haze formed post-ferment, as it was quite clear (notably brilliant, in fact) during the brewday and into the carboy.

Any thoughts? This is not a common problem for me with this recipe, it’s always hazy with yeast as I like to drink the IPAs quite fresh, but gelatin fixes that without trouble.

Copious notes to follow:

GRAIN BILL
16 lbs. Pale 2-Row
0.5 lb. Munich
0.5 lb. Victory
0.5 lb. Carastan (30-35L)

MASH
1.6 qts/lb. single-infusion, resting at 150F for 140 min. (just out of convenience, not an uncommon practice for me)
Mash water was 5 gallons of distilled water + 2 gallons of Long Beach tap water with campden tablets to remove chloramines. Added 10g of CaSO4, 6g of CaCl, 4g of MgSO4, and 0.5 tsp of lactic acid at 88%.
First runnings had a gravity of approx. 18% brix (1.074), collected at approximately 2 quarts per minute.
Single batch sparge with 157F water (normally shoot for 165F but I’d rather go low than high)
Sparge water was all Long Beach municipal with campden tablets for de-chloraminization. Second runnings were collected at the same rate, gravity of approximately 7% brix (1.028).\
I collected about 9.5 gallons for this boil at a measured gravity of about 1.055. Boiled for 90 min. at varying levels to reach a gravity of 1.065 at flameout.

HOPS (times are T-minus)
FWH: 1-1/8 oz. Belma at 11.3% AA
60 min.: 1 oz. Chinook at 12.8% AA
30 min.: 1 oz. Centennial at 9.9% AA
15 min.: 1 oz. Belma at 11.3% AA
10 min.: 1 oz. Centennial at 9.9% AA
5 min.: 1 oz. Amarillo at 8.9 % AA
1 min.: 1 oz. Belma at 11.3% AA
Dry hops: 1 oz. Belma, 1 oz. Citra for 4 days.

This is actually a reduced quantity of hops for my single IPA, so I don’t think this is a polyphenol haze from just way too much hops in a standard strength beer.

Yeast used was WLP001 from a 1L starter with Oxygen and 2 vials of fresh yeast. Fermentation proceeded at 67F for 5 days, 70F for the next 3, then dry hops at 68F. Crash cooled to 38F, kegged to a clean and sanitized keg. It was quite turbid at racking.

OG = 1.065
FG = 1.010
IBU = 94
77% Efficiency

Tastes delicious, but I do favor at least SOME clarity in an IPA. A haze is fine by me but this is ridiculous.

Any ideas as to what has caused this??

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: brewed on 12/9/12

Is that beer or milk? Must be the belma

Seriously though, I have no idea. My IPA's are usually a bit coudy, but that's just crazy.

BBL_Brewer said:

Is that beer or milk?

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Seriously! At least it tastes great to me. By the way, my father was born in Kokomo... random!

Anybody else have any thoughts?

So, this beer was drinkable approx. 12 days after brewing? Lack of additional conditioning time may have something to do with it, but it should not be the main cause.

1) What clarification agents did you use? You mentioned that you typically use Gelatin, but did you use it for this beer?
2) Were the ferm. temps actual wort temp. or air temp.?
3) What were your brewing water ratios, i.e. Ca/Mg/Cl/Sul/Na/Alk?
4) Why the lactic acid for an IPA?

Perhaps the haze is due to an overuse of campden tablets, undissolved minerals, or somehow yet related to a low Gravity : high IBU ratio. It would not be your grain or hops that caused this. But I wouldn't rule out the yeast... not the strain, but rather the time/temps/amounts/lack of conditioning/etc.

bobbrews said:

So, this beer was drinkable approx. 12 days after brewing? Lack of additional conditioning time may have something to do with it, but it should not be the main cause.

1) What clarification agents did you use? You mentioned that you typically use Gelatin, but did you use it for this beer?
2) Were the ferm. temps actual wort temp. or air temp.?
3) What were your brewing water ratios, i.e. Ca/Mg/Cl/Sul/Na/Alk?
4) Why the lactic acid for an IPA?

Perhaps the haze is due to an overuse of campden tablets, undissolved minerals, or somehow yet related to a low Gravity : high IBU ratio. It would not be your grain or hops that caused this. But I wouldn't rule out the yeast... not the strain, but rather the time/temps/amounts/lack of conditioning/etc.

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I use healthy starters and precise temperature control, so 12 days is not unusual for my IPAs where the dry hop time is short. As I mentioned, a glass that I left in the fridge to settle showed no signs of settlement after a couple weeks so additional conditioning time doesn't seem to do anything in terms of clarifying.

1) No gelatin, but I did use whirlfloc in the boil at 10 minutes before flameout.
2) Ferm temps were based on the temp controller reading when taped to the side of the fermenter with three layers of bubble wrap over the probe location.
3) The mineral content was exactly as always for my IPAs. Never had this problem before.
4) 88% lactic acid for pH adjustment to about 5.3. This is a pale beer.

Campden tablets were used at a rate of 1 tablet to 15 gallons of water. I don't believe this is the issue and has not been an issue before. Undissolved minerals seems unlikely since my water was clear before I added it to the mash, and this IBU:gravity ratio is well within my normal recipes for IPAs.

As far as yeast goes, I did use WLP001 this time whereas I normally go for S-05. I wouldn't expect that to be the issue, especially since it does not appear to be a yeast haze.

I bet it's the tap water. Did you check the profile? Also did you use hot tap or cold?

Sounds like this isn't your first rodeo, so my assumption would be that there was some work performed on the city water lines and caused this to happen? Wow, is all I can say, wow.

coosabrew said:

Sounds like this isn't your first rodeo, so my assumption would be that there was some work performed on the city water lines and caused this to happen? Wow, is all I can say, wow.

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Haha... I looked into it and there wasn't any local work being performed at the time of brewing... but the phase of the moon was "waning crescent" if that helps us get to the bottom of this.

I am quite familiar with my local water report and adjust with distilled/RO water and mineral additions based on my experience and taste. Never had an issue before.

I do, however, think that this HAS to be water/mineral content related, but I don't think we're ever going to be able to prove it. Hopefully it doesn't become a recurring issue for me as I do enjoy the appearance of an IPA that doesn't look like I'm drinking a glass of orange paint.

Thanks everyone for the responses/thoughts. I'll post up again if I manage to repeat this issue.

Thanks again, everyone, for the responses. Here's my latest IPA, same everything except Mosaic instead of Belma, and an extra ounce of dry hops. Brewed on 1/13/13. Back to normal!

Nice! Great thread.. Lots of info and nice pics. Did you drink the cloudy IPA or dump it?

Oh I definitely drank it all! It was very ugly but very tasty!

My pale ales have been clear without any fining agents until....I dry hopped one with Galena hops. That one stayed cloudy, not as bad as the one above, but cloudy. It also didn't taste as good as I had hoped but that's a different problem. I won't use Galena for dry hopping again.

LAbrewer said:

I bet it's the tap water. Did you check the profile? Also did you use hot tap or cold?

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Curious, do this make a difference? I've always used hot water to speed up the process

cladinshadows said:

Oh I definitely drank it all! It was very ugly but very tasty!

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Call it a hopped up wheat beer!
Pat

RUNningonbrew said:

Curious, do this make a difference? I've always used hot water to speed up the process

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I've read that hot water tanks can have excess mineral deposits and other nasties, but aside from some weird scenario where it forced a bunch of deposits into only this batch, I don't know if that was the issue here. Anything is possible i guess..

ilikeguns said:

I've read that hot water tanks can have excess mineral deposits and other nasties, but aside from some weird scenario where it forced a bunch of deposits into only this batch, I don't know if that was the issue here. Anything is possible i guess..

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Some people also treat only their hot water with a softening system so that you don't have extremely hard water in the dishwasher or shower... Softeners add a ton of extra salts to the water. We use one, so only use cold water to brew....until I buy an RO system at least...

That second beer looks delicious... any idea why one variety of hops would cause that over another?

Bumping this thread to show that cladinshadows was clearly on the cutting edge of the super hazy pale ale / IPA trend, and Belma hops should be the way to go for people looking for opaque beers.

dtwhite said:

Bumping this thread to show that cladinshadows was clearly on the cutting edge of the super hazy pale ale / IPA trend, and Belma hops should be the way to go for people looking for opaque beers.

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Agreed. That hazy batch looked delicious and I would have drank the f*** out of it.
I'm thinking of picking up some Belma for dry hopping now.

VagueSkunk said:

Agreed. That hazy batch looked delicious and I would have drank the f*** out of it.

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Oh, I did - I remember that batch well. There's a descriptor that's just on the tip of my tongue to describe its flavor, but I can't seem to place it...

In all seriousness that batch actually accidentally prepared me for the "juicy" IPA ... thing. Living in Southern CA I had never tasted a beer like that and I enjoyed it. My standard set of guinea pigs claimed to enjoy it, too. It won't be straight-up replacing my love for bracingly bitter beers anytime soon, but if you really like hops you probably enjoy experiencing all the different interpretations.

Also, based on my now well-documented accidental beer trend clairvoyance, prepare yourselves for the taste transcendence that is: Acetaldehyde Kolsch!