Cloudy beer when dry hopping? Any way around it?

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Jayhem

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My most recent American Pale Ale was dry hopped with 1oz of Cascade pelletized hops.

The beer is fairly clear other than a mist of visible white particles floating around when held up to the light. Could this be from the dry hopping? Is there anyway to have clear beer when using dry hop additions? Will cold crashing help? Will Irish Moss in the boil make any difference? I'm about to make an American IPA and I'd prefer it to be more clear.
 
White particles? I've noticed my heavily hopped beers can be a little more hazy than others, but I've never noticed any actual particles in said beers.
 
Yeah, cold crashing will help. But like others have said, they always seem to look a bit cloudy. Irish moss in the boil won't help.
 
You can use some finings to clear up a cloudy dryhopped IPA. All of my favorite california IPA's are dryhopped to the extreme and are brilliantly clear for the most part.
 
Cold crash before bottling and put in the fridge for two weeks before drinking. I also find that the first half of the beer is crystal clear.
 
Dry hopping will add poly-phenols to your beer that will add to haze, cold crashing at 30-31ºF for 24hr will help or the use of finings, but some of these haze producing elements you get from dry hopping are what can give you the flavors you are looking for, so by working to clear the beer up you will be negating some of the benefits of dry hopping. Some haze is acceptable for dry hop beers like IPA's and APA's.
 
White particles? I've noticed my heavily hopped beers can be a little more hazy than others, but I've never noticed any actual particles in said beers.
I have 20/20 vision so the particles I can see with my naked eye would just look like haze to most people but I can clearly see particles smaller than dust floating around in there. :D

Yeah, cold crashing will help. But like others have said, they always seem to look a bit cloudy. Irish moss in the boil won't help.
Glad you said that, saves wasting my Irish moss.

agree, dry-hopped beer is supposed to have some cloudiness, a crystal-clear dry-hopped beer would not be "to style"
Good info, I learn something every day. I thought most pale ales were supposed to be "clear" :mug:

Cold crash before bottling and put in the fridge for two weeks before drinking. I also find that the first half of the beer is crystal clear.
I have noticed that as well, the more I pour into the glass the more hazy it becomes, even if I go slow and careful not to pour the last teaspoon of yeasty slurry.

Dry hopping will add poly-phenols to your beer that will add to haze, cold crashing at 30-31ºF for 24hr will help or the use of finings, but some of these haze producing elements you get from dry hopping are what can give you the flavors you are looking for, so by working to clear the beer up you will be negating some of the benefits of dry hopping. Some haze is acceptable for dry hop beers like IPA's and APA's.
Thanks. I want those poly-phenols, they are healthy! :tank:
 
Poly Clar is one of the most effective fining agents for the hop derived polyphenols that the OP is experiencing. That will significantly improve the clarity.

Be ready, the flavor is likely to change due to the reduction in hop polyphenols. Usually its for the better, but it can also result in a reduction in the hop flavors that the OP dry hopped for in the first place.
 
If you're seeing white particles it is likely yeast. Given time it will drop out and your beer will be much clearer. I'm impatient as hell so most of my beers don't get clear till I'm half done with the keg.
 
If you're seeing white particles it is likely yeast. Given time it will drop out and your beer will be much clearer. I'm impatient as hell so most of my beers don't get clear till I'm half done with the keg.

Could be...it clings to the sides of the bottles some and still in suspension even after a week at 36F in the fridge. More time in fridge?
 
Could be...it clings to the sides of the bottles some and still in suspension even after a week at 36F in the fridge. More time in fridge?

Time solves 99% of post fermentation homebrewing problems. It may never get clear but chances are that it will in time. If not rdwhahb.

With your next batch cold crash for a few days when you know fermentation is done and be extra careful when transferring from primary.
 
With your next batch cold crash for a few days when you know fermentation is done and be extra careful when transferring from primary.

I think that's my issue...I usually try to suck up every last drop out of the primary just until I see the yeast cake starting to get sucked up but that might be too much for clear beer especially since I've never cold crashed a beer but I guess now that I have a beer fridge I can!
 
I expect my dry hopped beers to be a little cloudy, but my most recent IPA looks almost like a Weizen! Otherwise it tastes and smells great. I don't think it's the yeast- I used WYeast American II, which usually gives me pretty clear beers. Nor should it be the Lallemand CBC-1 yeast I used for bottle conditioning- it's flocculent and generally reliable. I'm wondering if the 3 oz of dry hop pellets (Wisconsin Gorst Valley) contributed an unusually large amount of fines. Milling of hops must create some hop dust, and I see fines production mentioned online as a technical problem in hop pelletization. Is anyone in the forum aware of this as a quality control problem with hop pellets?

Of course I could switch to whole hops, but some interesting varieties are hard to find that way, and I've occasionally found packaged whole hops to be stale.
 

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