Issue with beer color

So, I make an AG ipa. Mash temps at a constant 152 from start to finish and everything looked good. Before I pitched the yeast, I decided to try something different and "dry hop" before pitching yeast. 3 weeks later I go to bottle and the beer looks like a muddy brown color. Any ideas what it can be? I did dry hop again week 2 but the color wasn't an issue until bottling time. It tests good as far as gravity etc and tastes perfect but it looks like dirty water.

 

This is it

 

Wow that is cloudy! My guess is yeast still in suspension. Did it stay in primary for the whole 3 weeks? Did you cold crash first? Was the ferment temp high enough so it could finish and have the yeasties start dropping out?

Not sure what effect "dry hopping" before yeast pitch would do. Adding them at flameout or during chilling would not cause that, I've done that lots. I've never added them after the wort is chilled prior to pitch though. I would guess in that case they would just settle out in the trub post fermentation. You didn't wait a long time in between "dry hopping" and yeast pitch did you?

 

I did not cold crash. Kept it between 64-66 before priming/bottling. I did dry hop as the wort cooled and about 15 mins before pitching yeast.

 

I've never seen a beer that color before? What yeast did you use? Did you use wheat?

 

Looks like a **** ton of yeast still in suspension. How long did you leave it in primary? What was your bottling procedure?

Dryhopping has nothing to do with this issue. It looks like a yeast thing. What strain was it?

(edit: I see you said 3 weeks before bottling...that should be plenty of time for the yeast to settle out unless it is a very low flocculating strain...or you sloshed things around a lot while moving it and bottlling?)

 

Does leaving a bottle in the fridge for a few days help clarify it any? If so then it's likely a flocculation problem (or you shook it up before bottling, as JLem said). How well did you vorlauf? There should be an astrigency if you left enough grain material in the wort to cause this heavy of clouding, but you never know. How was your hot/ cold break? Kyle

 

That figures. My son actually did shake it up. I saw him playing around in there and didn't even think of that. I never had this problem before. Can I salvage this batch?

 

I'm going to check other buckets in a week and hope he only got to this one

 

Damn kids

Leaving the bottles in the fridge for a while will help, but you're going to have a ton of sediment in your bottles. You'll just have to decant very carefully when pouring and will likely have to leave as much as 1/3-1/2 of the beer in the bottle. On the brighter side, you'll still have 1/2-2/3s of a beer in your glass!

As far as the other buckets...just leave them alone for a while longer...even if shaken up by your son, the yeast will settle again.

 

He's a clown. He was playing with the bubbler not to long ago and says "daddy, why is your beer soup bubbling"? Anyways, is that ideal for conditioning? It's inly been about a week In The bottles.

 

Let the bottles condition/carb normally - 3ish weeks at 70ish degrees. Then stick them/some in the fridge for a while. The longer they sit in the fridge, the more compact the sediment will be.

 

Thank you. Hopefully they will look good then. Appreciate your help guys. Thanks

 

Update: put a bottle in the fridge couple days and although it isn't anywhere near as cloudy (thank god) it lost a lot of hops somewhere along the line. It's really refreshing and taste like a regular pale ale. I'm going to let the rest condition for a few weeks and put them in the fridge so the yeast doesn't help over carb and explode the bottles. I still can't get over how refreshing it this beer is. I don't know whether to be upset or happy with my son. Him shaking it up may have made me a really refreshing beer. Either that or I simply didn't do a good job at hopping.