Clearing out the beer

So I made this calypso IPA kit and for the most part I'm happy with it. During the brew process I followed the directions and did the same when it came to adding the Irish moss for clarity. Now this is a clearer beer but does have a haze to it. Also I'm upset bc I'm seeing particles in my beer when poured in a glass. I use cheesecloth when racking as a filter yet still got particles. Is there anything I can use other than Irish moss? Or anything I can do differently to help keep the particles out? Next time I may just leave more liquid in the carboy above the sediment bc I hate not having perfectly clean looking beer or wine. Not concerned with a hazy look but don't wanna see particles in a finished product

How long did you leave the beer in primary? Did you do a secondary? How careful were you when you siphoned. I don't use any strainer and don't get any particles in my beer. Did you pour from a bottle into a glass? If so did you pour carefully leaving the last 1/4 inch of beer and yeast in the bottle.

You are most likely going to have some haze in an IPA, but you shouldn't have any particles getting to the glass.

About 4 days before you bottle, cold crash down to 36F for 48 hours. Then add gelatin dissolved in hot water and leave for another 48 hours. Then bottle. Cold crashing alone will settle out most sediment. Using gelatin will settle out even more particles.

I probably left in primary two week and secondary for 2 weeks. I was careful when I syphoned however I think that bc I don't want to lose out on some I go too far with it. Trying to get every possible bit yet finding a balance with the sediment. I used cheesecloth as a filter when I racked to secondary then again when I racked to bottling bucket. I would like to try cold crashing but I don't have that kind of space in the fridge to accommodate either a carboy or bucket. The gelatin is an idea but would it work in a 65 degree basement? That's during summer it's more like 55 to 60 in winter.

There are several products you can use. You aren't limited to just gelatin. You can use insinglass, gelatin, or products like biofine clear. The cold crashing will help.
I don't really think a cheese cloth is the greatest idea. You are just adding another risky variable.

You can use gelatin at that temp, it will just be much less effective.

I would be afraid cold crashing an IPA anyway though. First as the temperature of your fermenter decreased, you are pulling air into the airlock that will oxidize your hop aroma, and second when everything drops from the beer, it can take aroma with it as well.

It sounds like you are just pulling too much into the bottling bucket. Also, make sure that when you are going to transfer from your secondary you don't move your secondary for a few hours before you transfer.

Regardless, it should all settle in the fridge in a few days, just make sure you leave the last 1/2 inch or so in the bottle and pour carefully.

Also, you mentioned twice using cheesecloth when transferring. You want to be careful to not introduce o2 in transfer, it may not be as impactful in an IPA or the like, but in a beer kept longer it could be an issue.

PTS_35 said:

So I made this calypso IPA kit and for the most part I'm happy with it. During the brew process I followed the directions and did the same when it came to adding the Irish moss for clarity. Now this is a clearer beer but does have a haze to it. Also I'm upset bc I'm seeing particles in my beer when poured in a glass. I use cheesecloth when racking as a filter yet still got particles. Is there anything I can use other than Irish moss? Or anything I can do differently to help keep the particles out? Next time I may just leave more liquid in the carboy above the sediment bc I hate not having perfectly clean looking beer or wine. Not concerned with a hazy look but don't wanna see particles in a finished product

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cheesecloth will only help with 500 micron to 1mm particles. Like hop bits.
If you let the beer settle it will be more clear. Not sure if you are using kegging or bottling but just waiting, at low temperatures, will settle it. Same is for haziness.

PTS_35 said:

So I made this calypso IPA kit and for the most part I'm happy with it. During the brew process I followed the directions and did the same when it came to adding the Irish moss for clarity. Now this is a clearer beer but does have a haze to it. Also I'm upset bc I'm seeing particles in my beer when poured in a glass. I use cheesecloth when racking as a filter yet still got particles. Is there anything I can use other than Irish moss? Or anything I can do differently to help keep the particles out? Next time I may just leave more liquid in the carboy above the sediment bc I hate not having perfectly clean looking beer or wine. Not concerned with a hazy look but don't wanna see particles in a finished product

Click to expand...

cheesecloth will only help with maybe ~ 500 micron to 1 mm particles. Like hop bits.
If you let the beer settle it will be more clear. Not sure if you are using kegging or bottling but just waiting, at low temperatures, will settle it. Same is for haziness.

I work at getting clear beer. I do not filter or use gelatin. There are several things that I have found to be effective and also some pitfalls that I have learned from. Good sanitation - one step sanitizers aren't as effective, clean then sanitize with a five star product. Anything that touches your beer with the exception of hops must be sanitized. Cheesecloth has too many crevices and I think it would be hard to sanitize it properly. Racking to a secondary adds risk of contamination, I have never done it myself though and since my reply is based on experience...

Get a good hard boil as fast as possible and cool the wort as fast as possible without disturbing the hot and cold break at the bottom of your brew pot. Rack the wort into your fermentor leaving the break behind.

Don't use too much crystal malt. Crystal malt causes chill haze which in my experience never clears.

Consider making a lager. The last lager I made was crystal clear. My understanding is that lager yeast can eat some of the stuff that causes haze. Here is a picture. The beer is sparkly clean. I considered take a picture of it warm to show how clear it is without condensation on the glass, but didn't want to have a warm beer or flat beer.

AZCoolerBrewer said:

I work at getting clear beer. I do not filter or use gelatin. There are several things that I have found to be effective and also some pitfalls that I have learned from. Good sanitation - one step sanitizers aren't as effective, clean then sanitize with a five star product. Anything that touches your beer with the exception of hops must be sanitized. Cheesecloth has too many crevices and I think it would be hard to sanitize it properly. Racking to a secondary adds risk of contamination, I have never done it myself though and since my reply is based on experience...

Get a good hard boil as fast as possible and cool the wort as fast as possible without disturbing the hot and cold break at the bottom of your brew pot. Rack the wort into your fermentor leaving the break behind.

Don't use too much crystal malt. Crystal malt causes chill haze which in my experience never clears.

Consider making a lager. The last lager I made was crystal clear. My understanding is that lager yeast can eat some of the stuff that causes haze. Here is a picture. The beer is sparkly clean. I considered take a picture of it warm to show how clear it is without condensation on the glass, but didn't want to have a warm beer or flat beer.

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Chill Haze is a cloudy residue of protein precipitation. Common especially for wheat, oat, barley and 6-raw malts, but not for crystal malts.

A lot of other things you mention are good advice in general - but sterilizing your equipment, filtering with cheese-cloth, skipping using secondary and "hard" boil - are not directly related to clarity of the beer. And even adding substantial amounts of hot break material/kettle trub has been shown to actually result in *clearer* beer, counter-intuitively. (see for example http://brulosophy.com/2014/06/02/the-great-trub-exbeeriment-results-are-in/)

Dry-hopping, use of protein-containing malts (especially without protein rest during mashing), duration and other details of cold conditioning/cold crashing/transfer, use of gelatin and other clearing agents have a huge effect on beer clarity.

TIME IS YOUR FRIEND. I've had very clear beers w/o cold crashing. Of course I usually wait 4 weeks before I think about bottling.

im a huge fan of gelatin and cold crashing, ive compared 2 exact same brews with and without gelatin and its night and day. if your bottling your always gonna get some crap on the bottom of the bottle, solution is pour your beer into a glass in 1 pour like a civilized person.

I'll leave a bit in bottle next time and post a pic...See what you all think. Also gonna try leaving more in carboy when I rack to bottling bucket.

In talking about cold crashing, gelatin, filtering, and sanitization, I think this thread has veered off in scope from the OP's original post, which said:

PTS_35 said:

Not concerned with a hazy look but don't wanna see particles in a finished product

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If the main gripe is "particles in the glass" as distinct from "haze," then we're talking about chunks of grain husk and/or hop debris, which in my experience is 90% about racking technique.

My $0.02 to the OP:

- be careful moving your buckets/fermentors around; if you lug them up stairs and slosh them around (for example), then you stir up stuff that has sunk to the bottom

- sacrificing a bit of beer in the kettle or in the fermentor can make it a lot easier for even a newbie to ensure the transfer of particle matter during racking is minimized if not eliminated. Whether or not that trade-off is worth it is up to you, as those "wasted" beers will still taste fine

- filtering, cheesecloth, and all that type of stuff is unnecessary if you're careful

- refrigerate bottles for as long as you can possibly stand it before drinking. Even if you're ridiculously sloppy in your process, enough fridge time will easily take all particles out of solution and will then start dropping out some haze-causing stuff as well. I know not everyone can do this, but the best option is to have a dedicated beer fridge and fill it up with your bottles as soon as they're done carbonating rather than doing a "chill as you go" with 5-6 bottles at a time in your kitchen fridge. When doing the latter, your beers are never getting more than a few hours or days of fridge time before you enjoy them, which means they're never going to be as clear as they could be. Anecdotally, I can say I see a profound difference in clarity of my beer that has been chilled for a few days and beer that has been chilled for 4+ weeks; night and day.

- store bottles upright in the fridge to ensure that stuff drops to the bottom of the bottle, making it easy to leave behind when you pour. If you lay them on their side, then all of the gunk piles up on the side and then pours right out into your glass

- pour carefully and practice leaving the undesirable gunk in the bottle; this becomes second nature rather quickly

Mattdee1, I hear you. In fact I do lug the carboy upstairs usually the day I rack. Thank the misses for that. Every time I've done that I've thought, man I should leave it for a day at least to settle. But she'd have a hard time with that. Will do that next time and see. And I usually leave bottles out only to refrigerate them days before though there are ones that have been there for a few weeks but not the whole batch.

khannon said:

Also, you mentioned twice using cheesecloth when transferring. You want to be careful to not introduce o2 in transfer, it may not be as impactful in an IPA or the like, but in a beer kept longer it could be an issue.

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It will be more noticeable in an IPA than anything else. Hops oxidize very easily and very rapidly. To be safe, the only time you want to introduce oxygen into any beer is during wort aeration. Any other time is a no-no.

If you don't care at all about haze, then don't use any fining. To keep participate out, cold crash and be careful a about disturbing the fermenter before bottling.

I've found that using a fermenter with a spigot makes all the difference. Cold crash it above whatever you're transferring to and just use the spigot. Then you don't have to move the fermenter around. Huge difference.