Clearing beer before bottling

I forgot to add Whirfloc to my an AG APA I made about a month ago. It sat in the primary for a little over a week and then I moved it to the secondary. It has now been sitting in there for about 3 weeks and although there is a good deal of yeast on the bottom the beer is still completely cloudy. I moved the beer onto my covered porch (no bright light) hoping the cool night air would help settle any remaining yeast and it would clear up. Has not really helped.

Any ideas of how I could get this to clarify a bit? I have some gelatin I was thinking about adding. How long would I need to let it sit before bottling? I assume I would need to add more yeast at bottling time since the gelatin might pull too much of it out?

Any other ideas would be great. Not really that big of a deal to me if it is cloudy as long as it tastes good, but if I can still make it look good I would like to.

Any beer is fermented in 2 weeks unless something has gone wrong. Take a gravity reading and if it is around 1.010 then it has gone through fermentation and conditioning being that it is a month old. Take a taste and unless it has off flavors it is OK. It's time to keg or bottle. You might have haze because of extra protein and no clarifier at end of boil or it could be an infection if there is an off taste. It should/may clear up when cooled to 40F or below.

Crash cooling for a couple of days should clear it up nicely. From what I understand crash cooling ales is a nice way of getting haze to clear up. Should try to get it as cold as possible without freezing it so the yeast will go dormant and drop to the bottom If I had a mini-fridge I'd be crashing mine too!

it is quite a good way to clear any brews.....hunt on craigslist for cheap fridges, You should be able to pick up whatever your looking for for no more than 40 bucks

Many people use unflavored gelatin (available at any local grocery store) and crash cooling to clear their beer.

Dissolve a pack of gelatin in 170F water. Cool the mixture to ~90F (if you go too low, the gelatin will begin to solidify) and gently pour it in your fermented beer. (Optional) Crash cool to ~45F. After 3 days, bottle/keg your beer as usual.

You can get very close to commercial beer clarity using this approach.

Count me in for both Gelatin and Crash Cooling.
2 days of geletan...then into the fridge fo a while.

I'm on the fence about this, but I used to always secondary after about a week to ten days and my beers were always clearer. Nothing but irish moss in the boil, no later additives. i've recently started the 'primary for 2 weeks the to keg and crash cool and carbonate' and I seem to have chill haze issues. In the latter approach, I'm transferring less and reducing problems there and don't really mind the clarity but a secondary really worked for me in that department and if you're careful about racking (i never had any issues, it's just a 'what if') it should be fine.
cb

It shouldn't be "completely cloudy" after a month. Something's wrong. Even beers that develop chill haze should be absolutely bright and clear after a month at or around room temps.

I'm not sure how much secondary helps to clear beers but I always primary 7-10 days and secondary 2-3 weeks and my beers don't have chill haze. But I think the best way to prevent chill haze is to get a good hot and cold break, use irish ,moss, secondary condition at the lower temps (>65F).

mandoman said:

I've recently started the 'primary for 2 weeks then to keg and crash cool and carbonate' and I seem to have chill haze issues.

Click to expand...

My approach is very similar to yours (I don't use a secondary vessel for 99% of my brews). If you continue to use irish moss, add the gelatin before you keg, and crash cool, I believe you'll see your chill haze issues disappear.

I find that Chill Haze goes away after 3 or 4 months in the bottle, or around 2 or 3 in the keg. And Really...that's about when I'd prefer to drink most of my beer anyway.

If it is completely cloudy you probably did not get complete conversion due to temp problems in mash, dough balls, etc.

Gelatin may clear it up. I'd give it a try. If it doesn't oh well. Unless you are kegging heavy artillery like KC finings will cause more of a headache than it's worth since they would drop out all of your yeast.

This is only my 2nd AG batch and because of inaccurate thermometers it converted at a lower temperature than I wanted..not sure what (because thermometers sucked) but probably in the mid to upper 140s. My first batch that also converted at the same temp cleared up very nicely, not sure why this one is different. I am a bit worried since it has not cleared up like my other batches. I'll do a gravity check and taste for off flavors tonight. I am super anal about sanitizing everything so I don't think I could have gotten an infection unless it was from the hops I used in secondary.

I'll try the gelatin and then set up my fermentation chamber and see how cool I can get it...40 will probably be difficult with just ice and a fan. Perhaps I'll try to procure some fridge in our second refrigerator.

Thanks for the tips!

Since I know everyone is just waiting around for updates on this Friday night...

The gravity is 1.008 and the beer tasted good, no off flavors. I could see through the beer in the cylinder I use for the hydrometer readings but it was definitely hazy. I actually have Biofine beer fining, not gelatin. I'll give it a shot...I'll probably add a little yeast to the bottling bucket just to make sure I can still carbonate in the bottle.

steelerguy said:

Since I know everyone is just waiting around for updates on this Friday night...

The gravity is 1.008 and the beer tasted good, no off flavors. I could see through the beer in the cylinder I use for the hydrometer readings but it was definitely hazy. I actually have Biofine beer fining, not gelatin. I'll give it a shot...I'll probably add a little yeast to the bottling bucket just to make sure I can still carbonate in the bottle.

Click to expand...

If it tastes fine I wouldn't do anything. Maybe try some finings but really it doesn't matter. It probably most definitely came from the mash...You know at beer comps the score sheet for 'appearance' is a wopping 3 points total just to give you an idea of how unimportant looks are. Don't get me wrong I strive for clear beers but in the end it doesn't really matter.

Has anyone tried filtering through a nylon paint strainer into the bottling bucket to help clarify before bottling. I thought it might take some of the proteins and hop sentiment out of the beer. Does this sound right?

BlueRibbonBob said:

Has anyone tried filtering through a nylon paint strainer into the bottling bucket to help clarify before bottling. I thought it might take some of the proteins and hop sentiment out of the beer. Does this sound right?

Click to expand...

Not even close. You need to get down to the 5 micron or tighter pore range to do anything useful with filtering if haze is the issue...

Cheers!