What made my Beer so Clear?

Not sure where I should post this. I am six batches deep in this homebrewing experiment and I have been very pleased with my results so far. Every batch has had cloudiness or sediment or floaties, whatever you want to call it? This was to be expected.

I brew Partial Mash Extract based beers with specialty grains steeped in.
I have not brewed the same recipe twice and other than the recipe itself, I have used the same source for ingredients etc... nothing was changed...

I recently took a stab at a recipe I found posted here called Orange Pale Ale. I did a few things differently this time and this beer has turned out to be the clearest I have ever done. I bottled it last night and did not see one imperfection pass through the siphon and when I poured a glass of the flat warm stuff, it was perfect. I don't know what i did differently for this to happen, and I want to do it again by isolating the cause for this clarity.

Here is what I did different:
1)used Nottingham Yeast - all previous batches used a Mauri Ale Yeast bought from local HBS.
2) used irish moss in a tablet form rather than the real dried stuff.
3) fermented 10 days primary and 10 days secondary - previous batches were all 7 and 7.

Or could it have something to do with the orange zest or the coriander that this recipe calls for?

I would like to have some input as to what the experienced brewers on here think before going back to square one and making one change at a time per batch to isolate the cause of this beautifully clear beer.

Thanks.

I think all three steps helped.

Nottingham is a notably flocculant yeast, so you shouldn't have any yeast haze.

Whirlfloc is the best kettle fining I've ever found.

Time clears most beers, but with #1 and #2 helping, it can clear very well as you can see!

so those tablets are called whirlfloc? I think I will stock up!

I also found the Nottingham got down to 1010 where I was usually stuck at 1012 - 1014 with the Mauri. It was very crazy and had to build a blow off.

It's hard to get ingredients up here at a decent price.

Agreed #1 & #2 would help the most IMHO. If you want to clear it even more you could try leaving it in the primary a little longer, or even cold crashing. I sometimes use Knox Gelatine for clearing some stubborn beers and non-flocculant yeast strains.

CarbonatedColon said:

so those tablets are called whirlfloc? I think I will stock up!

I also found the Nottingham got down to 1010 where I was usually stuck at 1012 - 1014 with the Mauri. It was very crazy and had to build a blow off.

It's hard to get ingredients up here at a decent price.

Click to expand...

Yup, Whirfloc is great stuff. I recently switched from irish moss and it made a HUGE difference. Just the cold break alone was worth the switch.