Ongoing clarity issue

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masha

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Have been doing all grain for 12 years now and have an ongoing clarity issue. Does not seem to matter what I do with my system, I always have cloudy beer! About the only thing I have not tried is filtering, but I'd rather avoid this due to the hassle and the fact that people out there brew and don't have my issue, so it has to be something to do with my system. And before anyone asks, no, there is no infection, have entered multiple competitions with different judges and never had them come back with comments about infection, just clarity!!!

I run a HERMS set up with a march pump and a stainless false bottom, the PID program is 50C for 20 minutes, raise from 61C to 63C over 60 minutes, 72C for 10 minutes, 76C for mashout.

I use a hop sock for hopping, whirlpool in the kettle (leaving behind quite a bit of hot break).

Counter flow chill the boiling wort, dump cold break out the bottom of my conical fermenter four hours after chiller.

Fully oxygenate the wort with pure O2 before pitching proper yeast amounts.

I have tried whirlfloc in kettle, brewbrite in kettle, crash chilling, gelatin post ferment, polyclar post ferment, low floc yeast, high floc yeast, coarse crush, fine crush, stirring mash, not stirring mash.

Faaaaark.....

Any thoughts?
 
Is it an infection? Just kidding... Yeah I do all grain, I vorlauf very poorly, let alot of my hop trub and cold break go into the fermenter, I either cold crash, or a few days before bottling I fine with gelatin and BAM! Crystal clear beer. I'd say your rig might be haunted or something... Does it stay cloudy permanently, have you let any bottles age for a few months to a year? (not saying that you need to, just a scientific question)
 
I keg, so hard to tell on aged bottles :)

If I am lucky, the last four pints out of a keg will be clear, sometimes crystal clear. But that is the rare brew.
 
Leave the beer in the keg longer and do not move it at all. We get crystal clear normally from leaving it alone. We do use Irish Moss and quickly chill the wort. Our clearest beer comes from doing a secondary in a corney keg and then transferring cold beer (33 degrees) to our final keg. We carbonate and then leave alone for at least a month where we are going to serve it. If you move it, it may cloud up and need to resettle. We always have gunk at the bottom of the corney even if the beer is clear. We tried filtering but it makes not difference that we can see.
 
Have you checked your water chemistry? While I haven't personally seen this happen, I understand that low levels of calcium can lead to clarity issues. Might be worth a look.
 
Cold crashing and time IMHO are the cure. I don't secondary but leave the beer alone for a month to three weeks in a primary, move it to a nearly freezing deep freezer for about a week. Probably not necessary to leave for an entire week but I usually do brewing stuff on weekends. Then rack to a keg, let it sit a week or three pressure carbing and the beer is clear. The longer it sits the clearer it gets in my experience.
 
Have you checked your water chemistry? While I haven't personally seen this happen, I understand that low levels of calcium can lead to clarity issues. Might be worth a look.

Oh yeah, I should have included that in my original post, all water chemistry is fully adjusted to have between 80-150ppm of calcium. My water is very calcium deficient at 9ppm! I adjust using the full variety of salts to get a balance of ions as close as possible for the style I am brewing.
 
Ok, calcium checked off the list... hmmm...

Can you post a pic or two of some of your beers? back-lit if possible... would like to see exactly how cloudy we're talking about
 
Have you tried letting ALL the hops, hot, and cold break into the fermenter? It seems weird but I get clearer beer with everything into the fermentor. I don't use any finnings. Try a smash. Let it all flow into fermentor And see what happens
 
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