Chill Haze Prevention

OK. So, mostly I do not care about chill haze, but sometimes I wish I could have a clearer beer. I do not want to get into post-boil fining or filtration. I do wonder if there's something I can do in the mash. From what I understand, chil-haze is suspended protein that somehow becomes more apparent when the beer is chilled, right?

My brewing set up: single infusion in a cooler mash tun, batch sparge, and I usually like to mash low to ensure dry beers-- 148-150 ish range. My last beer was an APA, two row base, Wyeast 1272, American Ale II. Clear in the fermenter, hazy once chilled down in bottles.

I've read that a protein rest can cut down chill haze-- can anyone back that up with their mashing schedules?

I don't ever use a protein rest in my beers, so I can't vouch for that method. My beers do sparkle, though. Are you already using a kettle fining?

One thing that helped me was upping my regulator to get a faster boil, and thus a better hot break, as well as chilling extremely rapidly for a great cold break. How are you cooling now?

You can either prechill your IC water, or use a CFC or plate chiller for a more rapid cold break. The colder your chill water the better.

I'll try boiling a bit more vigorously. I use an immersion chiller, and for 5 gallon batches it takes about 30-40 minutes to get to pitching temp. If that's a factor, I can turn up the volume there as well, stir more often, and then give extra time after chilling to let the trub settle.

I do use sometimes use Irish moss for kettle finings, but now that you mention it, my bottle is about two years old, and I'm not positive they were in there for my recently bottled APA. I know they were added for a mild that I packaged just last night.

Is Whirlflock or something else better?

Clarity-Ferm. Proteolytic enzyme ( end proline?) added to cool wort before yeast. Available at ur LHBS

anicola said:

Clarity-Ferm. Proteolytic enzyme ( end proline?) added to cool wort before yeast. Available at ur LHBS

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I have tried to stay away from putting additives in my beer... I may try it though, if the rapid boil + rapid chill doesn't work.

you want clear beer, but it sounds like you don't want to do any of the techniques every uses to clarify their beers?

Try whirfloc, that's all I ever use and I get good results.

matt08wrx said:

Try whirfloc, that's all I ever use and I get good results.

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I'll give it a shot. Def remembered the Irish Moss in my recently packaged mild, and upon pouring the first one last night, no chill haze.

jbsg02 said:

you want clear beer, but it sounds like you don't want to do any of the techniques every uses to clarify their beers?

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Hands down the best help yet on solving this problem.

"I've read that a protein rest can cut down chill haze-- can anyone back that up with their mashing schedules?"

I've tried it recently, and I think it can provide some improvement. I used a rest in the 130's for 15 min. The higher range is supposed to target the larger proteins.

However, that was a pretty marginal improvement to pretty clear beer. I was trying to get to "sparkling" from "clear". If you aren't using a kettle fining like whirfloc or irish moss, that would be the #1 thing to try. You'll see a huge, gloppy mess of protein drop out immediately and the improvement should be pretty dramatic.

I've tried a few batches with a protein rest using 2-row pale malt and some specialty grains. I would say I noticed an improvement in clarity, but it resulted in thin, watery beer. Maybe using a less modified base grain would have been a better idea, or maybe I did the protein rest wrong.

The only way I have been able to get sparkling clear beer, and I'm talking about it looking like filtered commercial beer, is by vorlaufing when collecting the wort, vigorously boiling, adding Whirfloc in the last 15 minutes of the boil, quickly chilling the wort below 80F, cold crashing after FG is reached, adding gelatin when the beer is near freezing and letting it settle for a couple of days before bottling. Skipping one of those steps leaves some haze. From my observations, adding the gelatin to cold crashed beer contributes most to clearing it, but that's something you don't want to try. So I say, vorlauf, strong boil, Whirfloc, quick chill after the boil, and cold crash after fermentation is complete if you can. Do the protein rest if you won't get or don't mind thin beer. Some people claim a long period of cold conditioning, which is basically lagering, helps settle out particles that cause chill haze. I have left beer with chill haze in the fridge for weeks and maybe even months, and it still had chill haze. But then I put that same beer in my fermenting fridge and kept it at a proper serving temperature and there was no chill haze. The serving temperature also contributes to chill haze. I have some beer that at <38F have chill haze, but won't when served at 45F or above.

My technique is pretty simple and I do it for most all my beers -

1. Vigorous, 90 minute boil.
2. SuperHB Moss at 10 minutes left in the boil (follow the directions on the jar).
3. Get a nice whirlpool going before chilling.
4. Cold crash after fermentation for a few days before kegging.

The first week or two the beer might have a little chill haze, but after that it is perfectly clear with no other finings.

Cold conditioning a beer at 30-31ºF for 24hr or 32ºF for several days will help to precipitate the polyphenols that cause chill haze, 30-31º is close to the freezing temp of beer so it helps to have accurate temperature control if you want to try it at this temp. This is the easiest to do in a keg. After conditioning you can remove one pint from the keg then rack the beer into a second keg.

If you are using a very hop intensive recipe, it can be much more difficult to reduce chill haze.

+1 ^^. Chill haze is not a defect unless you want it to be.

Ever hear Bud/Miller/Coors advertise about "cold filtering"? All they are doing is chilling to precipitate chill haze, filtering it out (and the yeast), then pressure carbing completely clear beer.

Chilling a few weeks in the fridge will make your beer clear, as will the enzyme.But beauty is in the eye of the beer drinker, and their goggles might be thicker than you think.

Read this - I found it pretty informative: http://www.brewerssupplygroup.com/FileCabinet/TheNatureBeer_Hazes[1].pdf

Do you use a MegaPot, or some other pot that's significantly wider than your immersion chiller? If so, then try stirring the wort with the chiller itself during cooling. I just upgraded to one of these pots a few months ago, and I've found that my post-boil cooling times have dropped drastically since I started stirring with the chiller. I get to 70° within about 7 minutes with regular cold tap water (not pre-chilled) using this method.

Protip: Use an oven mitt to grip the IC when stirring. The outgoing tube will be very hot near the beginning of the cooling.

Irish moss in the last 15 minutes of boiling, rapid chilling of the wort, and cold crash/gelatin finings after fermentation are very easy things you can do to get clear beer (I do all three with all of my beers).

I sometimes use a plate filter, but I'm starting to find that it's rarely necessary and so much more work.

Cold-crash and time will clear any beer. Gelatin can speed it up. The gelatin doesn't end up in your beer, it preciptates out (along with haze-causing proteins).

Do a 20 minute rest at 120F (thick mash), then do a second infusion to get up to your sacc temp.

If you ever move to kegging, get a plate chiller and you can have very very clear beer.

I use gelatin and cold crash every beer.

I am totally with the OP, I don't want to add anything to my beer that I don't need to. No cattle and horse bones (gelatin), seaweed (whirl-floc), fish guts (Isinglas), and certainly no petroleum-based plastic polymer (polyclar), etc.

My process follows gbarron's pretty closely, minus the whirl floc. Used it on my first two brews then stopped and I've never looked back. Get it cold and let it settle. In the time in between, either put up with it or drink something else.

Here's an IPA I made with hops all over the place, and even a bit of wheat in the grist. This is with 3 week primary, and probably 4-5 weeks in the bottle including 1.5 weeks in the refrigerator. Not perfect, but certainly good enough for me, and good enough to not add anything else.

Thanks for the brilliant (get it?) advice guys. I'm going to pay more attention to my chilling and try to remember the Irish moss or whirlfloc each time. I don't know if I have the energy to do a protein rest, ha, since I love my single infusion, batch sparge, easy peasy brew days. I have one in the fermenter which I chilled faster and Irish Mossed. I'll see if it did the trick.