Does DME require full boil/hot break?

Hi,

Made my 3rd batch with DME a while ago and the beer stays hazy even after a month of standing still in the bottle. My first two batches with LME got clear after only a few days in the bottle. I only have small pot and had to do partioal boils in all three batches, adding half of the extract 5 minutes before the end of boil.

Also, in my 3rd batch I dry hopped with pellets as opposed to whole hops in the first two lme batches.

What could cause the haze?

The one thing that comes to mind is that that the DME needs a full boil to have a hot break, unlike the LME. The other - could the pellets at dry hops be causing the haze?

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Recipe (10 liter batch):

1,2kg Muntons Light DME
5g Columbus 60 min
5g Centennial 30 min
5g Citra 5 min
1,2kg Muntons Light DME at knock out
Safale 04
5g of each Columbus/Citra/Centennial in secondary for 4 or 5 days.
Primed with 45g of beet sugar.
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Thanks in advance.

Chill haze is usually caused by one or more aesthetic issues in your beer: Tannin, Proteins and/or yeast. It's easy to tell which source you're having an issue with if you pour a beer at room temperature. If it's hazy at room temperature, it's likely a yeast in suspension issue and your beer will eventually clear on it's own if you just let it sit. The yeasts will eventually drop out of suspension and settle to the bottom (be careful when you pour).

The other two issues are tannins from grain husks and proteins from the grains themselves. DME is essentially spray dried wort and still has those tannins and proteins in it that any normal all grain mash would. Your beer might look crystal clear at room temperature, but once chilled, those tannins and proteins bind together to form a cloudy haze in your beer. Again, this is aesthetic and causes no harm to your beer other than how it looks.

To combat it, you can use a few techniques to get rid of the haze. The easiest methods are to do a protein rest before you boil. This works best when you are using a partial mash where you're adding a little bit of 2 row grain to the beer for fresher flavor. Hold the temperature at 113-140f for about 15-20 minutes before the boil and enzymes from the base malt grains will break down a lot of haze proteins.

If you are going all extract, there are other routes to a clear beer. The first is to use fining agents in your beer. A common one is to add a teaspoon of irish moss (carrageenan) to your beer at 10 minutes left in the boil. The carrageenan binds and clumps to those tannins/proteins and drops them out of solution. Other fining agents are available at your LHBS as well. I like to use whirlfloc tablets as they're convenient, pre-measured and you just pop it into the boil pot.

Another strong technique to use for getting proteins to clump up and settle out are to boil the wort vigorously so that it foams up and forms a hot break. You have to watch your brew pot when you first get it boiling to make sure you don't have a boil over, but a good vigorous boil will foam up for a few minutes until the proteins break down and start clumping. Then, the foam disappears and all you're left with is clumpy protein falling out and a small scum layer on the surface which you can either skim out or just let fall.

After boiling, a fast wort cooling will encourage a cold break. A cold break is when the wort cools so fast, the remaining haze proteins clump together and fall out of solution faster. A wort chiller such as an immersion chiller or a plate chiller can really cool down a pot of wort rapidly, causing a very strong cold break.

If you keg your beer exclusively, you might also consider doing what the pros do and chilling your beer down to about 33 degrees, then filtering the beer. Filters for beer are expensive but they work.

Sinse I do pb/pm biab,I use Fivestar Super Moss 10 minutes from the end of the boil. Then chill the wort as rapidly as possible. I top off after straining the wort onto the fermenter with local spring water that's chilled in the fridge a day or two before brewday. This gives a nice cold break as well. Then after carb/conditioning time,at least a week in the fridge for any chill haze to form & settle out.

This is from Coopers' FAQ:
Should I boil the kit to remove break?
We brew beer, malt extract and beer kit wort in the same way. All worts are boiled and produce hot break, which is then removed in the whirlpool. Rather than being cooled down for fermentation, the malt extract and beer kit worts are centrifuged and transferred to evaporators where all but around 20% of the water is removed. At this stage the malt extract or beer kit wort is packaged then it cools down but does not throw cold break material because the extract is too dense for it to precipitate. Once you add water, the wort becomes thin enough for the break material to precipitate. This break material is completely harmless to the brew and will settle out during fermentation. If boiled the break material may clump together giving the impression, incorrectly, that it is hot break. Boiling a beer kit (hopped malt extract) will only darken the brew and drive off hop aroma. However, if you are following a specific recipe and using additional hops, you may like to boil some of the malt extract to achieve the expected hop utilisation for correct aroma, flavour and bitterness in the finished beer.

Like uniondr and aiptasia I would also suspect chilling time. In addition primary time may have been to short for suspended particles to settle out.

Chill haze forms as the bottles cool down & take a few days to settle out,like a fog. Some proteins from mashing can be more stubborn,requiring a protein rest &/or fining agent. I use super moss. I give my beers another 3-7 days in primary after FG is reached to clean up & settle out clear or slightly misty. The bottled beers usually clear up a couple days after bottling. But a week fridge time is a good average to get clear beer & good carbonation.

Thanks for your replies.

It stays hazy at room temperature (19°C to be precise) - so it is not chill haze.
It won't settle after a month of standing still - so it is not yeast.

That leaves tannins and proteins. The thing I don't understand is, since I did not get the haze with LME, how is DME different from LME?

Will have to try some finings next time.

I was thinking the problem could possibly be with how the beet sugar was processed and still contained some fiber.
I could not find any labeling for beet sugar on-line. Does your package label say it is pure beet sugar or is there some percentage of non-sugar ingredient?

flars said:

I was thinking the problem could possibly be with how the beet sugar was processed and still contained some fiber.
I could not find any labeling for beet sugar on-line. Does your package label say it is pure beet sugar or is there some percentage of non-sugar ingredient?

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Definite red herring. Plant fiber would settle out easily.

I noticed boil finings were mentioned, but not gelatin. That stuff is magic for clarity and firms up your yeast cake to reduce in-bottle sediment. I highly recommend it.

fearwig said:

Definite red herring. Plant fiber would settle out easily.

I noticed boil finings were mentioned, but not gelatin. That stuff is magic for clarity and firms up your yeast cake to reduce in-bottle sediment. I highly recommend it.

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I have never used gelatin. Do I just boil some up and add it when I add priming sugar for bottling or when I keg? Is grocery store regular gelatin fine?

no, don't boil gelatin. you have to heat it slowly in the microwave and not go over a certain temp. i think there is a sticky post on this somewhere


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"Bloom" 1-3tsp in room temp water for 30ish minutes, then warm to about 150 (don't boil). Cool and add a day or two before bottling and swirl gently if practical, with your beer the colder the better. It's still worth it at room temp but beer cold enough to form chill haze will allow the gelatin to precipitate out more chill haze protein.

Any unflavored gelatin is fine, I bought a pound on Amazon just for this. Well, also to make my ill-fated "gummi beers". Lets just say there's no IPA candy for a reason.

Some people gelatin in keg and just blow the gel-sediment out in the first pint, but I'm strictly a cheapskate, I mean bottler.

fearwig said:

"Bloom" 1-3tsp in room temp water for 30ish minutes, then warm to about 150 (don't boil). Cool and add a day or two before bottling and swirl gently if practical, with your beer the colder the better. It's still worth it at room temp but beer cold enough to form chill haze will allow the gelatin to precipitate out more chill haze protein.

Any unflavored gelatin is fine, I bought a pound on Amazon just for this. Well, also to make my ill-fated "gummi beers". Lets just say there's no IPA candy for a reason.

Some people gelatin in keg and just blow the gel-sediment out in the first pint, but I'm strictly a cheapskate, I mean bottler.

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I thought that gelintin had no effect on chill haze? Just a memory so could be completely wrong

mattd2 said:

I thought that gelintin had no effect on chill haze? Just a memory so could be completely wrong

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Seems to help for me, but you may know something I don't! But if it's visible in suspension at a given temperature it makes sense to me that it's going to bind with gelatin at that temp too. I wouldn't be surprised if that's something said by the folks who aren't chilling their wort before adding the gelatin, but that's just my guess.


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fearwig said:

Seems to help for me, but you may know something I don't! But if it's visible in suspension at a given temperature it makes sense to me that it's going to bind with gelatin at that temp too. I wouldn't be surprised if that's something said by the folks who aren't chilling their wort before adding the gelatin, but that's just my guess.


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No seems like you were right, every thing I have read just now says gelatine will work for chill haze. Is there any sort of haze that gelatine won't help, maybe that is what I'm confusing?

Purple haze, I think (you have to sleep that off).