Help with my very cloudy Pale Ale

I need some help on determining why my beer is so cloudy. I changed my process a little bit and my beer turned cloudy. Here is a little background. I am doing partial mash, partial boil, 5 gallon batches. It was a pretty plain pale ale recipe using Wyeast 1272 (american ale II), supposedly high floculating. Usually I dump the whole kettle into the fermenter and fill with water. This time I tried to whirlpool for a little bit and let everything settle and then siphon out the wort leaving everything on the bottom. I pitched a little warm, upper 70's, and it fermented about 75 degrees or so. Fermentation was very quick and went from 1.050 to 1.008. I then dry hopped in the same vessel once primary fermentation was complete. Once that was finished I put it in the keg. It has been 4 days and I have not noticed any reduction in cloudiness. Any help, thoughts or suggestions would be helpful. The beer tastes good, just cloudy. I know cloudy is ok if it tastes ok, but I would have liked it to have been a lot clearer; i threw in 1 whirlfloc tablet as well.

Was it cloudy when you bottled it? Or is that new?

The thing that strikes me is if you pitched so warm, I wonder if you got a good cold break?

Seemed to be cloudy when it was going into the keg.

How long did it take to get to pitching temps? did ya use a wort chiller or another method? Cold crashing helps if you have the means to do so...

This is what i do and get a pretty clear beer...

Chill to pitching temp as quick as possible. (wort chiller, plate chiller)
Whirlfloc (which ya used, thats a good thing)
Cold crash for 3-4 days at 37 degrees

it took about an hour or so to get to that pitching temp using an ice bath in the kitchen sink; a plate chiller is definitely in the works.

my past beers have been pretty clear for the most part it was just this one. I would have thought that with the high floccing yeast that it would help as well to clear up.

Hot break & cold break, already addressed above.

What is your procedure like for mashing/sparging in the partial mash? Are you vorlaufing? What temperature are you mashing and sparging at? How about mash pH?

How long total was it in the fermenter before you packaged? Did you cold crash at all? Also, how clear was it before you dry hopped?

bmhalula said:

it took about an hour or so to get to that pitching temp using an ice bath in the kitchen sink; a plate chiller is definitely in the works.

my past beers have been pretty clear for the most part it was just this one. I would have thought that with the high floccing yeast that it would help as well to clear up.

Click to expand...

A good cold break, especially if you use whirlfloc in the kettle, will cause proteins to coagulate and precipitate out of the beer. The yeast can cause haze, too, but this sounds like a protein issue and not a yeast issue. Extended cold aging may help the clarity a little.

mashing in pot on the stove. mashed about 152 for 75 min and sparged for 15 with sparge temp of 170. no vorlaufing and i don't know mash pH. it was in fermenter for 2 weeks before kegging. 1 week for primary and 1 week for dry hop.

so it seems like this is caused by pitching too high is that correct?

bmhalula said:

mashing in pot on the stove. mashed about 152 for 75 min and sparged for 15 with sparge temp of 170. no vorlaufing and i don't know mash pH. it was in fermenter for 2 weeks before kegging. 1 week for primary and 1 week for dry hop.

so it seems like this is caused by pitching too high is that correct?

Click to expand...

Only indirectly! I think the wort didn't get cool enough to give you a good cold break. The "cold break" is apparent when it happens- big goobers of gunk coagulate and look like thick egg drop soup. If you didn't chill the wort low enough, fast enough, you would have missed that stage before pitching. I usually see cold break when the wort gets between 70 and 80 degrees.

Ok. thanks guys for the help. always looking for ways to improve my brew. hoping to get the chiller for christmas.