Cloudy/muddy beer from keg

I was wondering what I did wrong here. I did an All-grain clone of Newcastle Brown Ale using Nottingham yeast. Also used Irish Moss in the last 15 minutes. I reached a F.G. of 1.010 & let it sit for another week prior to kegging.
While racking to the keg, I was careful not to disturb the yeast on the bottom of the primary (although I did get a little bit of gray). I put the keg in the cooler & left it alone for 3 weeks before I tapped it. The beer was very cloudy, grey, muddy, yeasty. Kinda like the first draw off the keg until it clears. I thought that this would clear after a few pours but the keg is half gone & it hasn't gotten any better.
I have been drinking this and I haven't died yet. I just want to make sure that I don't screw up again.

Odd. Generally a brown would clear up fine, especially with Notty and Irish Moss. Does it have an off-flavor? Sometimes infections can keep a beer cloudy, but it's pretty rare.

The Big Rapids Area Master Mashers is holding a club meeting on the 11th. Maybe you could bring a couple of bottles to the meeting and see what the members think about it? Without seeing and tasting, I don't know what advice I can give.

What temp is your cooler that the beer sits in?
If clarity is an important factor to you, then i suggest a gel fining agent such as "K.C.-SUPER KLEER" (keisiol & chitosan)
It works overnight for ciders, not as fast for beer but it does work.
Try it sometime.

That's a tough one. As far as I know, three things cause beer to be cloudy: yeast/bugs, protein and starches. Usually yeast will settle at the bottom first within a day or two of being cold (unless it's one of those super low flocculating kinds used in german wheat beers) and you'll siphon it out with the first couple of pints poured.

That leaves protein and starches. Here's a couple of questions. Is this the first beer where you've had clarity issues? Anything unusual happened during the mash? Do you happen to know if your water has a pretty high pH?

Homercidal said:

Odd. Generally a brown would clear up fine, especially with Notty and Irish Moss. Does it have an off-flavor? Sometimes infections can keep a beer cloudy, but it's pretty rare.

The Big Rapids Area Master Mashers is holding a club meeting on the 11th. Maybe you could bring a couple of bottles to the meeting and see what the members think about it? Without seeing and tasting, I don't know what advice I can give.

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The only off-flavor that I can taste is the "muddy" or "yeasty" taste that I normally get on the first draw of a fresh keg.
I think that I may be able to make the meeting next week. Do you still meet @ Cranker's?

beerhappy said:

That's a tough one. As far as I know, three things cause beer to be cloudy: yeast/bugs, protein and starches. Usually yeast will settle at the bottom first within a day or two of being cold (unless it's one of those super low flocculating kinds used in german wheat beers) and you'll siphon it out with the first couple of pints poured.

That leaves protein and starches. Here's a couple of questions. Is this the first beer where you've had clarity issues? Anything unusual happened during the mash? Do you happen to know if your water has a pretty high pH?

Click to expand...

I'm kinda a noob when it comes to all grain brewing. This was my 4th all grain batch and the previous batches did not have clarity issues. As far as anything unusual happening during the mash: everything seemed to go the same as it always does, but if there were a "hiccup" I probably wouldn't recognize it.
I tested my water (from a well) w/ a test strip from the LHBS which only goes to 6.2 . My pH shows slightly higher than the 6.2 on the color chart. The test strips that I use on my hot tub show a pH of 8.2. I'm not sure how accurate the hot tub strips would be for testing tap water without all the chemicals.

Well here's a couple things I can thing of. A yeasty flavor would be indicative of exactly that, yeast. But I'm just surprised it hasn't settled down after a few weeks in the keg. A muddy character could be due to the ph of your beer being high. Without going into details, high ph results in more protein remaining in the beer. The higher protein content can affect the character of the malt and make it seem muddy or even soapy. The higher protein also would cause chill haze when you cool the beer making the beer cloudy. Without being able to taste the beer I'd have to go with the later of these two scenarios as a guess.

parrothead600 said:

The only off-flavor that I can taste is the "muddy" or "yeasty" taste that I normally get on the first draw of a fresh keg.
I think that I may be able to make the meeting next week. Do you still meet @ Cranker's?

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We've been meeting at The Raven for a while now, but next meeting will be at Crankers. Trying to spread the love around a bit.

Sorry I missed you at the club meeting. Got a head cold on Saturday and didn't feel quit up to hanging out drinking beers and infecting everyone else.

Wish I had gotten a taste of your beer, but from what a guy at work said, it wasn't that bad at all. Looking forward to meeting you at our next event!

And I wonder who won the club competition...