Cloudy Amber

I brewed an amber and all went well. It tastes great but I noticed when I refrigerate the bottles the beer becomes cloudy. Is this normal or is something wrong? I've kept some bottles in the fridge for a few days but it stays cloudy.


6 lbs. Light dry malt
3/4 lbs. Vienna malt
1/3 lb. Crystal 80L
2 tsp. Gypsum
3/4 oz. Tettnang (60 min boil)
1 1/2 oz Tettnang (last 10 min boil)
1/2 oz. Tettnang (End of boil)
1 pack Safeale US-05 dry yeast

O.G. 1.055
F.G. 1.013

Look into "Chill Haze".

Bottom line: proteins and tannins in your beer combine when the beer is chilled and cause the hazy look. It should have no effect on the taste of the beer.

You can either remove the proteins or the tannins in your later batches to keep it from happening.

The cap beat me too it...do a search for chill haze, and you'll understand, and see what can be done about it.

Since I have been brewing lighter colored beers, chill haze has been an issue.

Hopefully, the whirfloc I used in my new amber ale will fix that.

Sounds like it's strictly cosmetic. It might not look all that pretty but it tastes great. I can live with that.

Yeah it is pretty much cosmetic...though I think if you were brewing for a contest and had some UBER ANAL judge you'd get dinged for it...

I just got a wort chiller for xmas and have brewed 4 batches with it, they're all still in primary but I cant wait to see if beign able to cool rapidly really does help it.

Revvy said:

Yeah it is pretty much cosmetic...though I think if you were brewing for a contest and had some UBER ANAL judge you'd get dinged for it...

I just got a wort chiller for xmas and have brewed 4 batches with it, they're all still in primary but I cant wait to see if beign able to cool rapidly really does help it.

Click to expand...

Rapid cool is supposed to help this? I used a wort chiller and got the temps down in about five minutes so I don't know how to get any faster than that.

It's one of the recommended solutions. So is LONG chilling of the bottles before drinking them...like a week.

If you google outside of here, there is some interesting info, and there is some product that is supposed to reduce it...The website has great technical info describing chill haze...but I can't vouch either way for the product...

If you decide to try whatever that product is, let us know..I honestly don't even know if it available to homebrewers or just for commercial breweries...I just remember a years or so ago stumbling upon the site.