Cold crash, floccing yeast, & chill haze

So I have an Alaskan Amber clone from BYO that I used German Ale (Wyeast 1007) on. Its a really low flocculating yeast. After 3 weeks in the secondary there was still little to no clarity. I figured this is from the yeast in suspension and I would make use of all the snow in my backyard and designed a ice bath for the carboy. Its been between 1-7 degrees Celcius (~34-42 F) for 8 days now with little to no improvement in clarity.

Could I have knocked the yeast out of suspension and then induced a chill haze?

After some searching I also became a bit confused on the purpose of cold crashing. Is it supposed to clarify yeast, or chill haze, or both?

Just for reference I repitched ontop of the wyeast 1007 yeast cake, and treated that brew with gelatin when I transferred to the secondary and it was crystal clear (....as clear as a dark scottish ale can be) within 3 days. So I will probably do that to the alaskan amber clone if this cold crash thing doesn't work.

- Cold crashing causes the yeast go dormant and flocculate. Cold crashing will only effect the yeast in suspension, not chill haze.
- Chill haze is the cause of not cooling your wort fast enough. You have to chill rapidly to get the cold break proteins to permantely precepitate. Otherwise, when you chill your beer (cold crash) the proteins being precepiating again, creating chill haze.

How long did it take for you to cool the wort on the Alaskan Amber and was there cold break?
If so, was there a large amount?
Did you use irish moss or any other type of finings?

I did use Irish moss, but I don't remember there being a large amount of cold break. It took probably 40-50 minutes. I used a cold water bath with a bit of ice. I didn't have much.
On the other hand, the scottish ale did have a significant cold break, but I forgot the irish moss (I used a lot more ice when cooling the wort), which is why I used the gelatin.

So it is likely that my alaskan amber has a chill haze. If I bring it back up to room temp, the protein should go back into solution right? So if the yeast have dropped out the beer should be pretty clear when warm?

blue800 said:

So it is likely that my alaskan amber has a chill haze. If I bring it back up to room temp, the protein should go back into solution right? So if the yeast have dropped out the beer should be pretty clear when warm?

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I have made lots of beers that are crystal clear at 70*F, then cloudy after being in the fridge for a while. Its chill haze.

I use an immersion chiller to cool the wort. Lately, I have been in the habit of taking my thermometer over to the sink and putting it in the wort while chilling. What I thought used to be a cool wort termperature was actually about 90*F. Now I keep the chiller in the wort longer and get the temperature down to 70*F and have had good success with a cold break. Try measuring temperature while chilling your wort if you don't already.