Here's a beer of mine (IPA- Two Hearted clone recipe from eschatz) from a couple of weeks ago:
As you can see, it's not cloudy. There are several things that will help you have clear beer. One is to make sure you get a nice rolling boil in the kettle, and use a fining like Irish moss. I prefer Whirlfloc. It's Irish moss in tablet form, and goes into the boil with 15 minutes left. After the the boil, cool the brewpot as fast as you can, to get a good "cold break". Big fat globs of protein will congeal and fall to the bottom of the brewpot. Try to cool the wort from boiling to under 70 degrees in 20 minutes by using an ice/water bath and gently stirring the water bath to elimate hot spots, adding more cold water and ice when the water warms.
Next, use a yeast that has good flocculation. A quality dry yeast like nottingham is cheap and easy to use. Keep the fermenter at the ideal range of the yeast strain's temperature. For nottingham, I like to ferment in the low 60s, but it can go from like 59-70 or something like that. Wait at least two weeks for fermentation to finish up, longer if you can stand it- and then rack carefully to the bottling bucket or secondary. I like to start my siphon near the middle of the fermenter, and gently lower it as the beer lowers, so that the tip stays submerged but always above the trub layer.
If you're lagering, you can rack to the secondary carboy, and then chill the lager down to 34 degrees. That cold spell will make a big difference! I usually lager my lagers for 8-12 weeks, but don't really do that with my ales. If you have an ale that won't clear, though, a 3 day cold crash will help clear it up.
I know others use gelatin and other finings, but I never have. I've had good luck with doing what I outlined above.
cloudy
Im sure it will clear up some during the "conditioning" phase but...
will a plastic fermenting bucket do the trick? Will gelatine make it clearer then it would otherwise be? I can hear dontman coming to tell me to chill
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