Clear Beer

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
V

VAShooter

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 6, 2011
Messages
203
Reaction score
0
Location
Chesterfield
All my brews are cloudy and its starting to bug me. They taste great but the clarity is something I want to work on.

I normally do IPA's - All grain (just switched from extract 2 batches ago) - Whirfloc tabs the last 10-15. I use an IC and get from 212* to 70* in 12-15 minutes. Primary only for 3-4 week. Sometimes 5 weeks. What is confusing is that when I rack to bottling bucket and bottle me beer is very very clear. Only after I put them in the fridge do they get cloudy. I've got some in the fridge that have been there for a month so the whole chill haze going away with time does not seem to be working for me.

Any suggestions or thoughts?
 
Sounds like chill haze. Some have had success trying Poly-Clar (sp?). Me I dont worry much about haze. If my beer ends up clear, its just a plus for me.
 
Back when I bottled exclusively, everything came out cloudy. Then when I took some beers to my mother's house up near Chicago, she just sorta left them in the back of her fridge all year. I cracked those open a year later and they were crystal clear.

Moral of the story is low temps + long times = clear beer.
 
bernerbrau said:
Back when I bottled exclusively, everything came out cloudy. Then when I took some beers to my mother's house up near Chicago, she just sorta left them in the back of her fridge all year. I cracked those open a year later and they were crystal clear.

Moral of the story is low temps + long times = clear beer.
Click to expand...

Might be a fun experiment to try.
 
I always got chill haze (which is definitely what you have). It did not matter how long bottles were in the frig - they never cleared. I could be wrong but it is my understanding that clearing in the refrigerator is the result of settling of yeast and different from chill chaze. I'm happy to be wrong about this but I don't think chill haze clears with cold conditioning.

At any rate, my last batch had no chill haze. Not sure what made the difference. The things I did differently were:

1. I used BRITA filtered tap instead of boiled/campden tap water.
2. I did an 80 minute mash instead of 60.
3. I did a 90 minute boil instead of 60.
 
I was just wondering if a weak hot break would leave too many proteins in solution? My wife got a crazy hot break last Saturday that took both of us using both arms to stir down. We'll see how well that works.
Even with the extract batch I brewed Sunday,I added all 3lbs of the DME to the boil for hop additions. I got a mini hot break from that. Hoping that helps reduce the time it takes to clear the chill haze,or eliminate it.
 
VAShooter said:
All my brews are cloudy and its starting to bug me. They taste great but the clarity is something I want to work on.

I normally do IPA's - All grain (just switched from extract 2 batches ago) - Whirfloc tabs the last 10-15. I use an IC and get from 212* to 70* in 12-15 minutes. Primary only for 3-4 week. Sometimes 5 weeks. What is confusing is that when I rack to bottling bucket and bottle me beer is very very clear. Only after I put them in the fridge do they get cloudy. I've got some in the fridge that have been there for a month so the whole chill haze going away with time does not seem to be working for me.

Any suggestions or thoughts?
Click to expand...

My only suggestion would be to drop all of those beers off at my house and I will study each one of them individually. Some I will give a short chill, some a quick chill in the freezer, some a medium chill in the fridge and others a long chill in the fridge. Then I will report back results with a recommendation.

:D
 
JLW said:
My only suggestion would be to drop all of those beers off at my house and I will study each one of them individually. Some I will give a short chill, some a quick chill in the freezer, some a medium chill in the fridge and others a long chill in the fridge. Then I will report back results with a recommendation.

:D
Click to expand...

"Inconclusive. Further study required."
 
bernerbrau said:
Chill haze is from proteins. A long enough rest in the refrigerator and they will drop out too.
Click to expand...

Agreed about proteins.

You could be right about clearing but I have had beer in the frig for 3 weeks or more and still had chill haze. Perfectly clear when at room temp in every case.

At any rate, long cold conditioning is addressing the symptom, not the cure.

The best way to treat chill haze is to avoid it. That means better break formation. Any of the things I mentioned could have done it. I'm just not sure which one. Probably length of boil.
 
ayoungrad said:
Agreed about proteins.

You could be right about clearing but I have had beer in the frig for 3 weeks or more and still had chill haze. Perfectly clear when at room temp in every case.

At any rate, long cold conditioning is addressing the symptom, not the cure.

The best way to treat chill haze is to avoid it. That means better break formation. Any of the things I mentioned could have done it. I'm just not sure which one. Probably length of boil.
Click to expand...

How do I go about getting a better break formation? Is 12-15 minutes too long to bring the wort down to low 70's?

I need to do some research on cold and hot breaks I guess.
 
Bottled a Kolsch in January, no matter how long they sat in the fridge they just wouldn't seem to clear completely (in the month it took me to drink them). Just found one hiding in the back of GF's fridge last night.....clearest beer I have ever seen!

Moral of the story? Chill haze WILL clear given enough time. ;)
 
Won't a protein rest help with chill haze? Though I'm unsure of the appropriate time and temperature to accomplish this.

Even though cold storage works, it's rather impractical to store cases of beer in a fridge for months at a time.
 
Even though cold storage works said:
Agreed: No chance at my place. My only hope is that I find one that I forgot about a year down the road. And then - It'll happen when no one else is around to wittness it. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
 
Use Irish Moss. I put in 1 tsp at 15 minutes (i.e., 45 minutes into boil stopping at 60) and I get crystal clear beer every time.
 
badmajon said:
Use Irish Moss. I put in 1 tsp at 15 minutes (i.e., 45 minutes into boil stopping at 60) and I get crystal clear beer every time.
Click to expand...

Let's say I don't want to fine my beers? What to do then?

FWIW, I've used gelatin after primary and still had chill haze. I'm not sure of it's effectiveness vs IM.

No one's going to bite on the protein rests??
 
you can get some haze from lots of hop oils as well although i'd think that would be present with room temp beer as well as chilled
 
I don't know about protein rests.

But, in a nut shell... good brewing practices will encourage good break formation. Starting with good ingredients, having a complete conversion at good temps, appropritate sparging practices, collecting clear wort, using proper ph throughout, good clean appropriate water, good rolling boil, whirlfloc, and quick cool down. Several other things as well which I'm sure I missed. Do EVERYTHING correctly and you won't need the whirlfloc.
 
ayoungrad said:
Agreed about proteins.

You could be right about clearing but I have had beer in the frig for 3 weeks or more and still had chill haze. Perfectly clear when at room temp in every case.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm talking several months to a year in the fridge. Proteins are stubborn little buggers.
 
What would happen if I placed in the fridge for a few weeks, took them out of the fridge to room temp for a week in order to clear up and then back in the fridge for the duration until I drank them. Would the protiens come back once in the fridge the second time?
 
VAShooter said:
What would happen if I placed in the fridge for a few weeks, took them out of the fridge to room temp for a week in order to clear up and then back in the fridge for the duration until I drank them. Would the protiens come back once in the fridge the second time?
Click to expand...

Won't work. The proteins are still there when you warm it up. The haze is due to the shape of the proteins, which changes with temperature. You'll either have to chill them for an extended period of time or live with cloudy beer.
 
I "discovered" that cold crashing for a few days helped to clear my beers alot. I then "discovered" that when circumstances left a bucket of amber ale in my chest freezer at 33* for about 3 weeks I had essentially lagered an ale and it was and is to this date the clearest beer I have every made.

I will second the time + low temp equals clear beer theory. Especially useful before you bottle or keg.

Another thing to note - someone mentioned poly clar - I have used it once and it worked pretty well - but not as well as just letting the fermenter sit for a few weeks at temps in the mid thirties. Also you can't bottle beer that has been cleared with poly clar - it takes out the yeast so there is nothing to make any carbonation.
 
Patirck said:
I "discovered" that cold crashing for a few days helped to clear my beers alot. I then "discovered" that when circumstances left a bucket of amber ale in my chest freezer at 33* for about 3 weeks I had essentially lagered an ale and it was and is to this date the clearest beer I have every made.

I will second the time + low temp equals clear beer theory. Especially useful before you bottle or keg.

Another thing to note - someone mentioned poly clar - I have used it once and it worked pretty well - but not as well as just letting the fermenter sit for a few weeks at temps in the mid thirties. Also you can't bottle beer that has been cleared with poly clar - it takes out the yeast so there is nothing to make any carbonation.
Click to expand...

At what point do you cold crash? After its been in the primary for a few weeks and just before bottling?
 
Cold crashing really helped clear up my beer as well. That plus cold storage of bottles. Although switching to kegging has made it perfect.
 
VAShooter said:
At what point do you cold crash? After its been in the primary for a few weeks and just before bottling?
Click to expand...

Both! I rarely secondary stuff anymore so once gravity stabilizes, into the fridge it goes for as long as I can stand it. Usually no more than three - five days but I am about to brew my first real lager (german pils) so we'll see how that goes.
 
Dry hopping creates hop haze hot chill haze. The haze typically doesn't fade even if its warm. The only way to absolutely avoid chill haze with out fining or filtering is by lagering temps. You need to condition the beer at 32-35F to get the proteins to precipitate out and drop. I hear isinglass is pretty good for getting clearer beers though. I don't care how good of a break you form when getting to boil and or chilling you'll still get chill haze.

To me it's common sense to say that if you chill wort down to 65f in 5 min or do it over 18 hours (I'm a no chiller) you still form the same break it's just in your fermentor at that point. I seriously question the conventional wisdom that chilling to 65F fast helps with chill haze at fridge temps. You didn't chill to 35 so why would the proteins that form at 35 fall out at 65? Hell my saison is a perfect example. After primary I let it sit in my garage at 40 for 3-4 weeks. It looked nice and clear. My fridge was set to closer to 40 at the time and the saison was pouring clear. When I lowered the fridge temp the saison was chill hazed again.
 

Similar threads

S
Trying to figure out why my beers haze during fermentation and don't clear during crash
Replies
16
Views
712
sleev-les
S
S
All about clarification…
Replies
7
Views
1K
kevin58
kevin58
F
my beer wont clear in the fermenter
Replies
11
Views
791
FloppyKnockers
FloppyKnockers
Brooothru
Flotit
2 3
Replies
109
Views
4K
mrcastellino
M
T
Potential infection?
Replies
10
Views
508
day_trippr
day_trippr
CornyKegs 300

Latest posts

Back
Top