Naturally Clarifying A Pale Ale

It's amazing what can be achieved with patience.

Pale ale freshly racked to my secondary:



After about a week and a half in the little room under my stairs:



After another week or so under the stairs and getting ready to be bottled:



Crud soon to be left behind:

I had a cream ale in secondary. I thought it was pretty clear, then the top couple inches looked darker. Then half looked darker. Then all. Just like in your pictures! It freaked me out initially, so thanks for sharing.

looks great

Nice picture documentation. How cool is it in your basement? And just out of curiousity what yeast?

You can get the same, or even better, clarity by simply leaving the brew in the primary vessel for the entire time. I typically go 2-12 weeks in primary and then either keg or move to an aging vessel (aging bigger brews with oak/wood mostly, I dry hop in serving keg now). There's zero negative impact from leaving in the primary for the duration, compared with the potential harm from racking it (oxidation for one thing).

Congratulations on being patient! You will be handsomely rewarded

This was my second batch of beer ever. It was a mini-mash kit I bought and it had Munton's brewer's yeast in it which is what I used. This is on the ground level (not many basements in Vegas) and I keep my A/C at 73 degrees. It wasn't a bad beer but it could've been better. I did learn a lot from it though.

no harm in moving it to secondary.

clear beer was made, I don't see why people need to jump in with the primary only hammer. but I guess it's cool to try to be the first one to post it in a thread.

amandabab said:

no harm in moving it to secondary.

clear beer was made, I don't see why people need to jump in with the primary only hammer. but I guess it's cool to try to be the first one to post it in a thread.

Click to expand...

Agreed. Do what works for you. If someone does it differently then so be it.

I don't worry about primary vs secondary. I just think the pics are cool. I'm thinking of getting another glass carboy to use as a primary just so I can watch the fermentation process.

I brew my beer my like I drink it, without worries.

Cant help but notice all the ammo! WOW!

Empties waiting for reloading. Kinda like all the bottles I have laying around.

Nothing wrong with the way the OP does this, but I'm impatient and want to be drinking a hoppy beer by week 3 or 4. I simply primary (usually for 5-10 days - 14 is pretty much my max and that's if I'm doing a couple doses of dry hops), add pellet dry hops to primary or secondary (depending on the recipe) and 3 days before kegging cold crash in my 35F freezer. With careful racking you'll leave 99% of the hop/trub material behind. I'll usually let the keg sit for 1-2 weeks, carb over the course of a couple of days and then start drinking. After a week you might end up with a small amount of hop material in your glass if you dry hopped, but By week 2 in the keg I find them to be quite clear, brilliant by week 5 or 6. I've used this method with WLP002 and WLP001 with similar results (WLP002 clears a little faster).