StarSan suck-back during cold crash, beer cloudy. Worth waiting to Bottle?

[aartdouglass]

I have a cream ale in a 3 gal glass carboy that had been in primary for almost three weeks before I thought that I would cold crash it (my first time ever doing so) in my garage (40 F) over the weekend. The cream had settled nicely and was already very clear, but I usually have a problem with chill haze so I figured I'd give the cold crash a shot. Well, I forgot to switch out the three piece airlock and a few mL of diluted StarSan got sucked into the carboy. The cream ale is very cloudy after several days cold crashing, so I'm guessing that the StarSan is the cause of the cloudiness.

My question: Should I give the beer additional time to settle, or is cloudiness that results from StarSan getting into the beer never going to go away? I'm also guessing that fining agents won't work since the source of the haziness is probably not proteins any more, right?

 

[Homercidal]

Starsan won't cause cloudiness, at least not in that amount. I'd try one of the post fermentation clarifiers like Gelatine or whathaveyou. Or maybe just some more time. Chill haze can be a problem with certain ingredients/processes, but most of the fining agents in use today work pretty good on it.

 

[aartdouglass]

Thanks for the advice. I added some gelatin finings last evening and by tonight the beer is noticeably clearer. I'll leave it to sit a few more days and see if it clears up completely.

 

[aartdouglass]

I bottled last night; the beer was very clear. Thanks again for the advice.

 

[aartdouglass]

By the way, I looked back through my notes and realized that my cold crash was probably the problem with the chill haze:

During that brew day, I decided to try and put all 7 lbs of my spent grains down the food disposal in my sink. It clogged, as SWMBO told me it would. I ended up having to take it apart during the boil, and ended up having to get a new one. So my sink was out of commission during the chill step and I couldn't use my wort chiller. It sat in a sink with cold water for a few hours since we had a dinner date that night.