A lot of sediment in my second brew...

[secret_pint]

Hi all - been lurking here for a while and have my second brew on. Have a question regarding the sediment in it.

First, let me explain the recipe in case it helps...

Maris Otter pale malt
Extra Light Spray Malt
Extra Light liquid malt (late addition)
Columbus hop pellets (90mins) 45g
Ahtanum hop pellets (0mins) 28g
28g Amarillo hop pellets (dry hop)
White Labs WLP007

I steeped crushed pale malt in 2.8L of water at 65C for 45 minutes, then I placed the grain bag in a collander and slowly rinsed it with 1.4L of water at 76C.

Added this to my kettle with water to make 13L, added the spray malt and boiled added the columbus at the start, malt extract 15 mins before the end and ahtanum at knock out.

I added enough water to make it around 19L and cooled the whole thing in a water bath.

I pitched the yeast into 1L of wort to make a starter and added this to the fermenter - now when I pitched I think my wort was still a little warm at 27 degrees but I was struggling to get it down (I have since built an immersion chiller for next time).

I placed the fermenter in my usual spot with an immersion heater (thermostatically controlled at 21 degrees) and after 9 days of fermentation, I dry hopped into the primary.

All hop pellets during boil or dry hop stage were in muslin bags.

Now, I went back on day 15 to check gravity and it was around 1.011 and this is where I have my issue...

There is still loads of 'stuff' floating in the beer. When I took the sample into my hydrometer tube, it had lots of stuff floating. I don't have a photo but can grab one if it helps. Is this normal enough?

I've read that cold crashing can help with improving clarity a little but I don't really have the ability to do this yet.

So I was thinking of this:

• Leave beer for full three weeks in fermenter
• Check gravity for next few days
• When it remains the same, turn off the immersion heater to allow it to cool a little (not exactly a cold crash but best I can get)
• after three days of no heater and un-moved fermenter, bottle beer

Does this sound sensible enough?

 

[TopherM]

The stuff floating around is pretty normal. There is CO2 offgassing from the wort/beer for quite a while after you start primary that would definitely still be going on at day 15 in primary. That CO2 off gassing will push yeast, proteins, and maybe some of the finer particles from your dry hop to the surface, and the lighter material might even cling to the surface for a while.

Don't worry about it, it's very normal.

An easy way to make sure everything is settled before you bottle is to add about a 1/2 package of unflavored geletin. That will coagulate all of the light stuff so that it's heavy enough to fall out of suspension. Just letting it sit undisturbed for 3 weeks like your plan above will do the job as well, just be careful when you rack to your bottling bucket.

Good luck!

 

[secret_pint]

Thanks TopherM. That reassures me!