my beer never gets crystal clear

I have been brewing for almost a year now and I have noticed that the beer is free of sediment but not see through clear like commercial craft beer.
Even beers like rouge and sierra nevada that bottle condition.
Do these companies filter and then use a conditioning yeast or use a bright tank for an extended amount of time.
I'm wondering because I have an ancho chile pale ale I made awhile back that is really good and I may consider entering into the state fair next year and I know clarity is an issue with judges. If not that beer possibly one in the future.
I already primary everything for 4 weeks as a rule so I'm not sure secondary would make much of a difference.
On a side note I made a batch of mapfelwien months ago that I left in primary for 8 weeks and it was clear enough to read through. I just wasn't sure if 8 weeks was too long for beer.
You know that old autolysis paranoia.
Any info would be appreciated.

I have been brewing for about a year also, I'm extract brewing at this time but will be moving to AG shortly. I also had cloudy or hazy finished product. I made a couple of changes, and now both my botteled and kegged beers clarity has improved quite dramatically.

1. Full boils
2. Filtered water
3. Immersion chiller
4. Irish Moss last 15 minutes of the boil

Cheer...

Try leaving one for a couple weeks in the fridge and see if that helps. Could just be chill haze.

To bad67z
I do use filtered drinking water from the grocery store since I live in Phoenix AZ and our water is so full of chlorine I rarely drink it myself.
Also the brew store I go to automatically gives you brew salt and irish moss if you buy grain.
Full boil is not an option because I use a gas stove that could not handle that.
Also I don't think an immersion chiller would help. I use a dual ice bath method for cooling and I always get a good cold break.
To ChshreCat
I should try leaving a bottle in the fridge for a awhile and see what happens but what do the judges do in a state fair competition? As far as prepping a beer for judging. Do they let it sit for 48 in a fridge like most homebrewers do?

+1 to ChshreCat ,I forgot to add that I also "Cold Crash"

And I understand you water woes my father has lived in the valley for 25 years your water is pretty bad!

If it turns out to be chill haze, you can use a clearing agent like gelatin on the batches you want to use for comps. I haven't done it myself, but I see lots of posts recommending it to help with haze. Irish moss in the boil helps as well.

Thanks for the input.
I should use gelatin as an experiment on the next batch and see how is goes.
Maybe I'll try a blond and see just how clear it gets.

I have used gelatin in several batches, all of them have come out crystal clear, I have a batch of orange coriander pale that I did not use gelatin in, it is fairly clear, but a touch of haze, I also rushed this one to the keg to have it ready for some friends visiting, tastes great, just not uber-clear.

Dracula, try Wyeast London ESB Ale (1968) yeast. It’s just extremely clean yeast. Read the description on their website: http://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_yeaststrain_detail.cfm?ID=22. I’ve just gotten to see the results of a batch I used with that yeast and I’m very impressed. It’s “crystal clear,” like you said. No finings.

I am a kit brewer, but I do have a couple of opinions Feel free to ignore them or point out the error in my ways...

I think that a secondary might be a good idea. Even if you cut the time of the primary. I find that no matter how careful I am when racking there is always just a little bit of sediment that I end up with...

I also use isinglass in the secondary and I find that it clears my beer well. I am pretty sure that the Irish Moss serves the same purpose though... so really not an expert on that.

Out of curiosity, how long do you usually leave them in the fridge before drinking them? And are they on their sides? Are you just getting the normal sediment clouding them?

I think two things will really help you that you are not doing. A full boil is a big improvement. An immersion chiller will help you cool faster. I can go from 210 to 62 in about 15mins with the whirlpool chiller. No need for secondary I make crystal clear beer not using one. Time it take me about a month in the keg under cold conditions to have clear beer. I know you said you cannot to full boils or immersion chiller but it is what a larger group of us brewers do.

An immersion chiller - or any technology that will chill the bitter wort more quickly - will be a definite help. I guarantee it.

A more flocculant yeast will also help. Strains like 1056 aren't very flocculant, as compared to 1968 and 1187.

Keep using kettle finings to promote break formation.

Try secondary finings, too. Isinglass works, but only works a couple of times before it's exhausted - and if the temperature rises over 70F it's denatured. Gelatin works just as well, is less fiddly to deal with, and is less expensive than Isinglass.

Chill haze is a separate issue that no fining agent will ever solve completely. There's a simple way to tell if it's chill haze: Pour a bottle of room-temperature beer into a Pilsner glass. Pour a well-chilled (48 hours in the fridge) bottle of the same beer into another glass. Compare side-by-side. If the beer in the warm glass is clear and the chilled beer hazy, chances are it's chill haze. That requires a different set of solutions that are more process-oriented than additive-oriented.

Good luck!

Bob

Just an observation from me about full boils. I had two different recipes, but they used the same yeast (Wyeast 1968). I was very excited to get an extremely clear beer, but the first one didn't turn out that way. However, the second one did. One of the differences between the two was a full boil. It could have been something else, but my thought is that it was the partial boil.

Use whirlfloc in the boil, try to leave as much trub as possible in the kettle and gelatin in the secondary. That should give you extremely clear beer unless you have an unconventional haze problem.

To answer the OPs question...Yes, virtually all commercial brewers use finings and many filter as well.

All of the above suggestions are good. I use both Irish Moss and gelatin. Also, some extra time will help. I strikes me that most of the cloudiness you are describing sounds like chill haze. If you use gelatin -- chill your beer first, then add the gelatin. You cannot clear chill haze without creating it first.

Another trick is to chill your fermented beer as fast as possible. The quicker the haze is created, the quicker it will drop out. See Dave Miller's book on homebrewing for a clear understanding.

Lastly, you can purchase filters for homebrew or wine that can render your beer quite clear.

If you guys lived in Az like the OP you wouldn't be reccomending an immersion chiller to cool the wort quickly. Immersion chillers work on the principal that the "cold" tap water running through them is significantly colder than the wort, which is not always the case here. If you're trying to get the wort down to 75F, pumping 90-95F water through it isn't much help.

JuanMoore said:

If you guys lived in Az like the OP you wouldn't be reccomending an immersion chiller to cool the wort quickly. Immersion chillers work on the principal that the "cold" tap water running through them is significantly colder than the wort, which is not always the case here. If you're trying to get the wort down to 75F, pumping 90-95F water through it isn't much help.

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Buy a submersible pump and recirculate ice water from a reservoir through the chiller. Problem solved.

Agree 100% with the other suggestions. One other that I don't think has been mentioned: if you are extract brewing, try a different extract brand if possible for your next batch and see if that helps. It could be that the extract company isn't fully converting the sugars and you're getting a starch or protein issue.

I use gelatin finnings and i still get chill haze.After carbonation develops(2-3 weeks),throw them in the fridge for a week or 2.That clears em up.

I brew AG, and consistently get beautifully clear beers. Here's what I do:

1. Full boil. I bought a turkey fryer, and it was a great investment.
2. Really good hot break. I boil the f*ck out of that wort, until I get a good hot break and it stops foaming up so much.
3. Long primary fermentation. Minimum 2 weeks. Sometimes 4. Usually 3-ish.
4. No secondary. Don't need it. Usually at this point it's crystal clear beer. I'll cold crash if I really need it.
5. Bottle, stick away, forget about it for a week or three.
6. Minimum 2-3 days in the fridge if I'm going for clarity. At a week it's crystal clear.

GOOCHY said:

Buy a submersible pump and recirculate ice water from a reservoir through the chiller. Problem solved.

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that is exactly what I do out here, I get great cold break, and super clear beer...unless I rush.. like an orange coriander pale dryhopped in the keg. I went from grain to glass in 9 days. That had some haze, but it has cleared up over the course of a month. gelatin would likely cleared it up perfectly if I would have bothered.

mr_clean said:

I use gelatin finnings and i still get chill haze.After carbonation develops(2-3 weeks),throw them in the fridge for a week or 2.That clears em up.

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Do you add the gelatin when the beer is cold? Like <35°F?

Wow. I've been quoted. I don't even remember that conversation.

After I switched to AG, clarity seemed to be more of an issue than with extract batches. With the extracts, a full 5-gallon boil and use of an immersion chiller (we have 55F well water) seemed to take care of it. Maybe the fact that I usually use a secondary helps.
Since switching to AG, I started using Whirlfloc, which works well. Somebody gave me a jar of 5-Star's "Super Moss" carageenan (the "active ingredient" in Irish moss), and 1/4 tsp. of that works like a whiz.

Also, I use only RO water to brew.