Troubleshooting - White IPA

I brewed an AG White IPA that was intended to resemble the Deschutes-Boulevard Conflux/Collaboration. 5 Gallon, AG, with about 50% two row and 50% combo of wheat/flaked wheat.

The beer tastes fines, but it's not a typical "hazy" wheat beer--it's milky and opaque. My wife describes as resembling pear juice. I didn't use any kettle finings during the boil, thinking that I wanted it to be hazy.

I wouldn't care so much other than the color is somewhat off-putting. Any ideas on the cause?

Was that the entire grain bill and what yeast did you use? How did you mash this? 2 row and wheat are pretty bland in color and the typical haze you see in wheat beers is derived from the low flocculating yeast and sediment of the bottle. I n addition, what hops and what were the additions.

Also, how conditioned is this beer, primary time, bottle time, etc? Just need some more information from you.

7.25 lb - Belgian Pils
0.25 lb - Belgian Munich
1.90 lb - Wheat Flaked
3.50 lb - Wheat Malt
0.75 lb - Rice Hulls
0.25 lb - Oats Flaked

1.0 oz Bravo - 60 minuutes
2.5 oz Citra - 5.0 m
4.0 oz Cascade - 5.0 m
2.0 oz Centennial - added during boil, boiled 5.0 m
.5 oz Corriander crushed - added during boil, boiled 5.0 m
1.5 oz Orange zest - added during boil, boiled 5.0 m

0.25 oz - Centennial - flameout
0.25 oz - Cascade - " "
0.25 oz - Citra - " "

1.0 oz - Cascade - dry hop
0.75 oz - Centennial - " "
.75 oz - Citra - " "
1.0 oz Lemongrass - " "
.25 oz Sage - " "

Mashed around 152. Had pretty lousy efficiency for some reason (58%).

Used White Labs Saison/Belgian Ale blend. Started at 66 degrees for 2-3 days, then let it get up to about 77-78 for the remainder of fermentation (14 total days of primary).

Kegged.

mclamb6 said:

7.25 lb - Belgian Pils
0.25 lb - Belgian Munich
1.90 lb - Wheat Flaked
3.50 lb - Wheat Malt
0.75 lb - Rice Hulls
0.25 lb - Oats Flaked

1.0 oz Bravo - 60 minuutes
2.5 oz Citra - 5.0 m
4.0 oz Cascade - 5.0 m
2.0 oz Centennial - added during boil, boiled 5.0 m
.5 oz Corriander crushed - added during boil, boiled 5.0 m
1.5 oz Orange zest - added during boil, boiled 5.0 m

0.25 oz - Centennial - flameout
0.25 oz - Cascade - " "
0.25 oz - Citra - " "

1.0 oz - Cascade - dry hop
0.75 oz - Centennial - " "
.75 oz - Citra - " "
1.0 oz Lemongrass - " "
.25 oz Sage - " "

Mashed around 152. Had pretty lousy efficiency for some reason (58%).

Used White Labs Saison/Belgian Ale blend. Started at 66 degrees for 2-3 days, then let it get up to about 77-78 for the remainder of fermentation (14 total days of primary).

Kegged.

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The Munich should have given you a bit of color but the rest is pretty bland and everything else looks okay.

For efficiency if you did a single infusion with all the wheat and pils I would suggest a step mash to get more out of it and also the crush to up your efficiency.

As for the rest you didn't mention how long this has been conditioned, I'll assume you legged and force carbed it which would lead me to believe that it really needs some more conditioning time to improve. Perhaps someone else might chime in if they see something else I've missed

For kegging--I didn't force carb. Just hooked it up to the CO2. Sampled every few days, but it basically took about 10 days to carb properly. It's been at around 40 degrees for about 2 weeks now.

And it's not the color itself--it's the clarity. The color is a nice light caramel. But it has the clarity of milk.

That saison yeast could be a factor, I've read a lot about saison yeast being finicky. I see that strain has a medium flocc rate. I would suspect these two unusual variables to be a major factor in the behavior of that beer.
Check your FG. If it's where it's supposed to be, lager it for a week or two. If your FG is too high, I say bring it back to a hot temp and let it finish. I'm working on a similar recipe right now, I don't think that is a huge amount of wheat so while I would expect hearty cloudiness I wouldn't expect it to be murky.
Another thought that crossed my mind is with such poor efficiency I wonder if you didn't fully convert the starches or something like that and ended up with a bunch of unfermentables in the finished beer.

I think you might be on to something with unfermentables/starch conversion. I mashed for 60 minutes. Not sure of the wheat needs more time or not.

The FG was fine. Actually lower than anticipated.

Thundercougarfalconbird said:

That saison yeast could be a factor, I've read a lot about saison yeast being finicky. I see that strain has a medium flocc rate. I would suspect these two unusual variables to be a major factor in the behavior of that beer.
Check your FG. If it's where it's supposed to be, lager it for a week or two. If your FG is too high, I say bring it back to a hot temp and let it finish. I'm working on a similar recipe right now, I don't think that is a huge amount of wheat so while I would expect hearty cloudiness I wouldn't expect it to be murky.
Another thought that crossed my mind is with such poor efficiency I wonder if you didn't fully convert the starches or something like that and ended up with a bunch of unfermentables in the finished beer.

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+1 to ^^this^^, with the further explanation and your description of the murky color I agree that it may not have fully converted and fermented out, that yeast drops slow and it may have been rushed at 14 days. If you hit the FG try cd crashing it for a week and see if you can get it to drop out.

But I think my unconverted hunch may be the ticket then. I would definitely check the accuracy of your thermometer, be sure you are stirring enough, and be sure you used pregelatanized/germinated malts and not raw stuff. I don't know much about enzymatic power, but it could be a culprit. But I doubt that was the issue if you were using exactly what your recipe says.

You may want to try a step mash for the recipe or a simple longer and/or lower mash temp. I don't know much about wheats' behaviors (yet), but I suspect this adjustment coupled with checking your techniques will solve this problem.

You could always blend this beer into a second batch that is more dry than it is supposed to be and I would expect a beer closer to what you were shooting for.

That is a ton of late addition hops and dry hops, I tend to get a swampy-grassy-gritty feel to my dry hopped beers when I over do it. You may want to consider decreasing the amount of each dry hop addition or doing it in phases (big additions @ 14 days and a small addition @ 5 days) Idk, I'm just throwing ideas out there, I'd needa taste it to tell you for sure.

duboman said:

+1 to ^^this^^, with the further explanation and your description of the murky color I agree that it may not have fully converted and fermented out, that yeast drops slow and it may have been rushed at 14 days. If you hit the FG try cd crashing it for a week and see if you can get it to drop out.

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Colder than the 40 degrees it's at? Like 33?

If it's unfermentables it won't come out of suspension for the most part.

But I lager around 36*, but with lagering it seems time is as important as temp.