Turbid beer: is the extract or the malt the culprit?

[javert]

Hi brewers. I've recently changed a barleywine recipe from Great Western Malting's Premium Two Row malt to Avangard's Pilsen Malt and from brown sugar addition at boil to Briess's Pilsen Light DME (I use a bit of Crystal 120 malt to add color just as before). To my dismay, the last two batches I've brewed keep a hazy look that doesn't go away even after cold crashing, giving the beer a dreaded dirty look.

The pH at the end of the mash was 5,40 the second time upon finding out I need more acid to neutralize this malt (measured at about 35 °C) and that value I think it is fine. When measuring the pH at late boil, I found out it had risen to 5,7 which was quite high indeed and shocked me since pH is supposed to decrease as the boil goes on. The mash temperature is held at about 63-67 °C.

Since two factors were changed from before (the malt was a forced choice sine the shop ran out of GW, the extract I thought would lead to a more neutral flavor), I'm baffled at which could be the cause of the turbidity that never fades out. Are malt extracts known to increase turbidity and wort pH at boil?

Has anyone here had any experience with Avangard's Pilsen malt? I've done some experiments and so far I'm starting to hate this malt. The mash is super turbid at first and even when the solids start to floc they are very voluminous and leave a big layer of precipitates and a not so clear supernatant.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Has anyone here had any experience with Avangard's Pilsen malt? I've done some experiments and so far I'm starting to hate this malt. The mash is super turbid at first and even when the solids start to floc they are very voluminous and leave a big layer of precipitates and a not so clear supernatant.

I'll suggest finding a different base malt, then adjusting the original recipe with just that change.

 

[dwhite60]

Just my two cents....

I think Pilsen type malt in general is less well converted than pale malt leaving more starch in the grain. As pilsner style beers are made with decoction mashing and protein rests which will break this down, I'm not surprised with the results you're getting.

How much of this pilsen malt did you buy? What made you choose it for a barley wine?

 

[MaxStout]

I once made a barleywine that tasted ok, but looked like river water. I narrowed down the culprit to polyphenols, likely from the grain (Maris/Vienna and a little crystal) and the large amount of lo-alpha hops (Fuggles).