Cloudy beer

[Simongoodall]

Hey any one know what it means when the beer is cloudy in the primary fermentation. It's brewing at 16 degrees C and it's a Mexican cevarza. Due to low temp it's been fermenting for around a week now.

 

[Zgreens]

Extract or grain?

 

[Simongoodall]

What do you mean lol yeast? I'm only kinda new to this

 

[Zgreens]

No, the brewing technique. Was this a recipe kit with syrup/powders, or did you do a mash with all grain?

 

[Simongoodall]

Ah right it came in a can from the coopers range I just followed the instructions lol

 

[kh54s10]

All beers will be cloudy during primary fermentation. If you are doing primary only you can just give it enough time for the sediment to settle. If you do a secondary, most of the sediment should fall in primary, if you left it long enough to reach final gravity, the rest should fall during the secondary conditioning.

Chill haze is a different thing though and takes different steps to lessen.

Just wait longer, it should clear up.

 

[Zgreens]

Ok, well... Beer in primary fermentation has tons of yeast suspended in it. Without seeing it, I would say that you are just seeing yeast. If you wait until primary is over, then rack to secondary, you should see it clear out. If you want it to clear faster you could crash chill it in secondary (by bringing it to ~10C for a day), or add a tsp of unflavored gelatin dissolved in a cup of water. If you have cloudiness problems in secondary, repost and I'll help ya

 

[Simongoodall]

Awesome cheers guys. With the secondary ferm it says to bottle and add carbonation drops do u reckon that would be ok for this? Or should I wait and bottle when it clears up?

 

[Zgreens]

Wait for it to clear, or else all of that junk is going to settle out in your bottles, and they will have a ton of sediment in them

 

[kh54s10]

Instructions with kits are notoriously crappy. Don't go by time. Get and learn how to use a hydrometer if you don't already have one. Use gravity readings and clarity of the beer to tell you when to make the next step.

I ferment with primary only, in most cases, and go at least 2 weeks and often 3 or more before doing anything to the beer.

Most problems beginners have are related to trying to rush the beer to the finish. Beer finishes at it's own schedule, not yours.

 

[Simongoodall]

Yea cool man. I'm very familiar with the hydrometer as I use them a lot for work. I'm in no rush anyways just want a good tasting beer and to have made it myself ya know the last brew I did turned out crap coz my dad thought it was ready to bottle when it had only been ferm for a week or so. He bottled it when I was away and man that batch was nasty :-/ oh well see how we go with this lot he's not allowed to touch it this time lol

 

[Zgreens]

Best of luck! As previously stated, beer is ready when it decides to be. It's a lot better to bottle past when it's ready by a couple of days (or a week) then before. Let us know how it turns out!

 

[Simongoodall]

Yea sweet mate. Will do thanks for the advice

 

[Simongoodall]

Finally bottled brew today cleare up nicely she ended up being 1.007 for three days in a row tasted good too