Hey all,
I have been recently trying to get better clarity out of my beer and it seems like nothing we do is working. The beer itself is pretty clear but seem to always end up with chill haze. Beer tastes great, but am looking to refine the look some more.
We use a hop basket to contain most of the hop debris, a mesh screen on the outlet of the kettle, Add 2 whirfloc tablets (10 gal batches) with 15 min left in the boil, use a SS conical fermenter in a temp controlled freezer, cold crash for 2-3 days at 40 deg F at end of Fermentation, pressure feed the beer from the fermenter, through a 1 micron filter and into kegs where the beer is force carbonated with CO2 and served. We are meticulus about cleaning and sanitizing, and even kegerator lines are cleaned and sanitized every time keg is changed out. Was hoping someone may have some more insight on possible causes.
I did read that sparge temp could cause chill haze which brought me to another question. When batch sparging, if the sparge temp is say 168 deg, should the water be heated to 168, or should the water after it is poured into the mash be 168? If water is heated to 168, it will be more like 154 while sitting in the mash for 15 min. If I want it to be 168 in the mash I have to heat to about 190 which scares me about tannins and possibly causing the chill haze. Thoughts?
I have been recently trying to get better clarity out of my beer and it seems like nothing we do is working. The beer itself is pretty clear but seem to always end up with chill haze. Beer tastes great, but am looking to refine the look some more.
We use a hop basket to contain most of the hop debris, a mesh screen on the outlet of the kettle, Add 2 whirfloc tablets (10 gal batches) with 15 min left in the boil, use a SS conical fermenter in a temp controlled freezer, cold crash for 2-3 days at 40 deg F at end of Fermentation, pressure feed the beer from the fermenter, through a 1 micron filter and into kegs where the beer is force carbonated with CO2 and served. We are meticulus about cleaning and sanitizing, and even kegerator lines are cleaned and sanitized every time keg is changed out. Was hoping someone may have some more insight on possible causes.
I did read that sparge temp could cause chill haze which brought me to another question. When batch sparging, if the sparge temp is say 168 deg, should the water be heated to 168, or should the water after it is poured into the mash be 168? If water is heated to 168, it will be more like 154 while sitting in the mash for 15 min. If I want it to be 168 in the mash I have to heat to about 190 which scares me about tannins and possibly causing the chill haze. Thoughts?