Red IPA Attempt

Hey guys, so this is what my recipe looks like bottled.... Nothing like I pictured in my head.

Chris7687 said:

Hey guys, so this is what my recipe looks like bottled.... Nothing like I pictured in my head.

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Hahaha. I think it is going to need some conditioning time...

dbsmith said:

Hahaha. I think it is going to need some conditioning time...

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Dbsmith - thank you for the kind note of encouragement. Glad you are utilizing the full purpose of these threads by trouble shooting and providing helpful guidance on the awesome hobby of Homebrewing.

As I last noted I cold crashed the beer for a week and it still wasn't clearing. Assumed that in the bottle it would clear a lot faster, as there is less volume to clear down. Since being in the bottle for 3 weeks and cooler temps that it would have cleared by now, clearly it hasn't. I was showing that the beer, even if clear, wasn't the hue I had anticipated. Still back to my most recent concern, how long do most notice clarity from the oils in dry hopped beers?

Chris7687 said:

Dbsmith - thank you for the kind note of encouragement. Glad you are utilizing the full purpose of these threads by trouble shooting and providing helpful guidance on the awesome hobby of Homebrewing.

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Thank you, I try every day.

I don't usually dry hop, so I don't remember how long it takes my beers.

Some easy tips on how to achieve better clarity for most Ales (not all are mandatory):

-Perform a complete mash at the appropriate temp. to convert all starches to sugars. This may occur in as little as 40 minutes, all the way to 2 hours, depending on your grist.
-Use either whirlfloc or irish moss at 15 minutes left in the boil.
-Rack carefully at every step... even kettle to primary.
-Wrap a 5 gallon nylon mesh paint strainer bag (available at the hardware store) around your auto-siphon when racking.
-Pitch enough cells of high flocculating yeast, like WLP007.
-Ferment at 62-64 F for the first 3-4 days, then bump it up to 65-68 F for the remainder. Actual wort/beer temp. - Not air temp.
-Give the beer 3-4 weeks from kettle to bottle. Time and gravity work wonders.
-Cold crash during the last 7-10 days in the 32-38 (F).
-Rack to secondary after a 10-14 day primary. Avoid oxygenation at all costs.
-Learn how to use gelatin finings to help clear your beer.
-Avoid agitating and moving the primary/secondary as to not stir up the trub.

Thank you for the recommendations bob. As of recently, I have been practicing a lot of what you just listed. Just started using whirlfloc again and going to use geltain on a Pale Ale here soon, hoping it doesn't strip away a lot of the dry hop aromas. In regards to the starch conversion, can you provide a further explanation? I have read before that you just take a sample of the mash and do an iodine test, am I correct in saying this? How will this help with clarity? I asssumed it was more for helping your efficiency

I have never seen a beer look like that before. It's not dark, but super opaque. How long did you bottle condition (temp?) and how long did you chill before pouring?

Sadly, a decent amount of my beers have this opaque look to them. Of the majority of these beers I'd say 90% have been dry hopped and have not cleared by the time I have finished the keg. The beer was only in the bottle for 3 weeks, which most likely 2 weeks were spent fermenting the bottling sugar. The beer was put in the freezer to chill the night before. I have had the same problem though in beers that I have let cold crash for a month, kegged and let condition for another month, to pour and it still have this opaqueness or even cloudier.

I have done a thorough cleaning of all my fermentation equipment, so I know it isn't some type of bacteria. I always do cold crashes before I bottle or keg. I honestly think it is just the oils from the hops (pellets). It could be my fermentation temps, after researching further into it, as I do not have temp control but I would assume the cold crash for 4-7 days would cause the haze protiens from stressed yeast to drop out. I just made a Belgian IPA which I used whirfloc, gave a quick cool down, made a strong starter, and am fermenting in a swamp cooler at 65*. I am going to dry hop with whole leaf pellets to see if this may resolve the problem. A Belgian Dubbel I made, I let sit for 3 months in secondary is crystal clear, wasn't dry hopped and no late additions.

I am open to any other suggestions, this problem has been haunting me! I do BIAB batches, but many other BIABers do not have this same problem I have!

Chris7687 said:

In regards to the starch conversion, can you provide a further explanation? I have read before that you just take a sample of the mash and do an iodine test, am I correct in saying this? How will this help with clarity?

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Because if you're not converting the starches to sugars when you mash, you will be left with some starch still contained within your wort. Starch is cloudy and residual amounts will definitely cloud up your beer. An iodine test tells you if there is an residual starch after the mash. But I would begin much more simple than this. That is, knowing the different diastatic power %'s of the grain you're using and how that plays a role in starch conversion. And why some grists require a longer mash than others. It's also important to stay within the beta/alpha amylase range when mashing. If you mash too high too early on, then you just ended enzymatic activity and there is no more starch to sugar conversion going on. There's a guy on youtube, a fellow HBT'er, who explains it rather well. I believe his handle on here is Bobby_M

Thanks Bob - I will have to look into this. Currently I only do a single mash temp for an hour and ramp it up to boil. With the new electric brewery I am in the process of building, I should be able to mash at different temps for different intervals a lot easier.

what's in that mug looks strangely like the wort I am boiling now.

what did it look like going into the ferment vessel and what did it look like at bottling? would give a good indication where it went wrong, if it were red at either of these points

Did you rack to secondary after only 4 days in primary? That seems fast to me, especially given big OG.

GrogNerd - it does almost look like wort. It looks pretty rough, but drinks like a great IPA. When the beer was done with fermentation, it looked pretty clear which would have been finished up with a cold crash. After it was dry hopped it just wouldn't clear, much like a lot of dry hopped beers I make. I put this picture up in an earlier post, but see below what the beer looked like after a week of cold crashing which was right before I bottled it. You can see a seperation, which appeared after the first day of the weeklong cold crash, but it never dropped any further.



eric - I am not sure where I mentioned I only fermented for 4 days, but if I did please assume that was done in error.

Chris7687 said:

eric - I am not sure where I mentioned I only fermented for 4 days, but if I did please assume that was done in error.

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My bad
Was looking at TampaTony's recipe

I liked my red coloring in the cleared beer of the secondary, cold crashed picture. I moved most of the bottles into the kegerator to cool down and hopefully clear. I will repost a picture of the beer in a week.

I get lots of haze from dry-hopping since I squeeze the mesh bag to get all the hoppy goodness I can, but I've never had a beer be that opaque. Mine are mostly clear with a slight haze, not milky-looking. I'm really curious why yours turn out that way. Maybe a water issue?

I get RO water from the Glacier water machines, which is kind of a pain in the ass. I add 1 tsp of Calcium Chlorida and 1 tsp of Gypsum.

I am thinking maybe underpitching, as this still looks like wort as mentioned. I can't remember what I pitched for this beer.

Wanted to add this picture to show that even a beer that has been bottled for 2 months, of which 1 month has been spent in my fridge to condition, still is left hazy...



This is supposed to be a crystal clear beer, followed BierMuncher's recipe for Kone Pale Ale. Just didn't turn out like it!

This is a side note from this beer recipe and the problems I am facing with it....


So I think I am cursed; cloudy beers to nasty infections! The first infected beer I ever had, I kept for experimental purposes. I pulled a sample from it today. Read about it here if you want to see something nasty....

The cloudy beer...


What does it taste like?

Taste great. Very citrusy, from all the late Cascade additions and dry hopping with Centennial. No off flavors that I am aware of that are present. I have served my beer like this at my home brew club events and have had nothing but praise for the taste. The visual is something I am embarassed of, but don't know how to fix it. Trying to trouble shoot here. I have 10 gallons that will be served here for the Tampa Bay Beer Week coming up in three weeks. I am going to transfer them to kegs once dry hopping is done come Sunday, add some geltain, and keep them nice and cold until the event. Hopefully that will fix some of my clarity issue, but not strip out to much of the hop aroma and flavors.

Chris7687 said:

Taste great. Very citrusy, from all the late Cascade additions and dry hopping with Centennial. No off flavors that I am aware of that are present. I have served my beer like this at my home brew club events and have had nothing but praise for the taste. The visual is something I am embarassed of, but don't know how to fix it. Trying to trouble shoot here. I have 10 gallons that will be served here for the Tampa Bay Beer Week coming up in three weeks. I am going to transfer them to kegs once dry hopping is done come Sunday, add some geltain, and keep them nice and cold until the event. Hopefully that will fix some of my clarity issue, but not strip out to much of the hop aroma and flavors.

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Are you serving this at Hunupu's release party? If so I would like to try some...what club are you with?

Is that the same as the brown beer pictured above. The last picture looks normal (though cloudy), the other one looks like chocolate milk.

TampaTony - I will be pouring at Cold Storage on March 6th with my HMC Special Hoperations. $10 gets you a Florida Ave pour, I believe a glass, and samples of our homebrews. I believe we have 6 total members pouring at this event. I might be attending the release party, which my club will be pouring at, but I will not. Just drinking and bouncing around.

tennesseean - No, the second picture is of a Pale Ale I made that still has haze to it even after being 2 months in the bottle.

Not a great answer but since it tastes good, and you are kegging already, why not try filtering?

Just one more thing that I'm not interested in buying. There has to be a way to resolve this issue without extra equipment. I am brewing as we speak and trying to take everyones advice. Did 1.5 hour long mash (don't have idonie to test with), doing an 1.5 long boil, using whirfloc, using yeast nutrient and olive oil, did a 2L yeast starter, not going to dry hop, and going to add geltain when kegging. Hope one of these things or the combination of all will help resolve my problem. If it does, I will be revisiting this Red IPA recipe very soon. Have a lot of cloudy great tasting Cloudy Brown IPA's for the time being!

don't think I recall if you ever posted your dry hop procedures.

pellets? whole? bagged? weighted?