Chill haze, more than the norm

[JosephN]

Okay I've been brewing for 13 months and have 33 full size batches under my belt. I've heard of chill haze, I never thought I had an issue, but here recently I have come to realize what that actually looks like when I compare my beer to a filtered or gelatinized Homebrew, and it seems like everyone of my beers have it. I keep hearing of these New England IPAs looking cloudy or like orange juice, well my Czech Pilsner, Belgian triples, or anything light colored, dry hopped or not, looks just like orange juice. Now my darker beers, when a super bright light is out through the liquid you can't see the cloudiness like you'd see in a lighter beer. Basically a light that shines through a dark beer, the beam comes out more defined than a lighter beer. I don't know if this would be brewing practices, which I'm starting to add more Irish Moss because of this, and I'm looking into whorlfloc tablets. I don't know if one works better than the other, but I've picked up some anyways. I also don't know if this could be a water thing. I filter my water, the filter has only seen maybe 300 gallons of water when it says it would do 800or what're more beers carbon filters will do, I know it's a lot, but I don't know if it's a hard water thing or what!!??

Any ideas on figuring this out would be very helpful. I'm sure I can get as detailed info as I have available if that's needed. DANG IT I JUST WANT CLEAR BEER TO PRESENT TO PEOPLE.

Oh and PS I'm working on my wife to see if she would be cool with me getting one more chest freezer just for cold crashing. I currently have one, 7.1cu ft, which is good for two fermenters, and I'm looking at. 5 cu ft one for nothing but cold crashing. Really I could cold crash two in the 7.1 and ferment one in the 5 if I had to, but I think you all get the point.

 

[jabba11]

it sounds like you already know the answer.. hot break, cold break, whirfloc, cold crash, filter or gelatin, cold condition. I have never filtered or used gelatin cause I don't care much and Ive never had anyone say "I cant drink this its not clear." Sometimes they clear by themselves over time in the kegerator sometimes they don't ever clear. I think there are some mashing technics that are helpful in keeping large proteins from being created or something youd have to look around for that one. I think the biggest reason I don't do much to mine cept an occasional cold crash is all this "fiddling" can lead to bad things IMHO, in particular oxidation. SO in my mind its..do I want clear beer or do I want to potential ruin a highly drinkable beer. If its just protein haze (chill haze) and not yeast in suspension then youd be hard pressed to tell the difference taste wise. Just my 5 cents worth.

 

[SteveHeff]

I use tap water off of a whole house brine filter (softener). My brews will always have chill haze unless I inject an extra step or two in order to prevent it. I have had good luck with irish moss, whirl floc, and gelatin. I chill my wort in an ice bath...usually takes 2-4 hours to cool to pitching temps. I'm stingy about not picking up too much trub when I keg but the first 2-3 pours from the keg usually look like a mud pie. If you keg, try the gelatin. It takes a few days before you really notice the difference. If you bottle, chill your wort and try some whirl floc. But I'm on board with Jabba. As long as it's drinkable, does it really matter?

 

[JosephN]

As long as it's drinkable, does it really matter?

Not to sound like I take more pride in my beer than anyone else, but yes it does matter. The reason it matters to me is that I send my beer into competitions and I go for medals, not just feedback. So appearance is 3 points and there is no reason to not get them all. A lot of the judges look for clear beer, when it counts. Belgian wits, Hefes and so on it doesn't matter, but a Pilsner it does matter.

Thanks for your input.

 

[unionrdr]

If you're mashing grains, you might not be getting full conversion from starches to simple sugars. Thus producing starch haze that won't settle out like chill haze. Make sure your mash temps are between, say, 147F & 156F for at least 1 hour. Then use no more than 1.25 to 1.5 quarts of water for every pound of crushed grain. And try to chill the hot wort in 20 minutes or less for clear beer.

 

[jabba11]

^ theres that bit about mashing.. thanks UNiondr

 

[SteveHeff]

This is a simple pale ale I made about a month ago. The only finings I used were whirl floc and gelatin. It's just dark enough where you can't see through it but there is no noticeable material causing a disturbance. Those are the two cheapest things you can do with good results.

 

[JosephN]

If you're mashing grains, you might not be getting full conversion from starches to simple sugars. Thus producing starch haze that won't settle out like chill haze. Make sure your mash temps are between, say, 147F & 156F for at least 1 hour. Then use no more than 1.25 to 1.5 quarts of water for every pound of crushed grain. And try to chill the hot wort in 20 minutes or less for clear beer.

The only part of this I don't do is the chilling the wort down to pitching temps in 20 mins. It takes about 30 to get it down to 75F, mainly because my ground water is so warm right now. Part of this is because I use a hop bag and that holds liquid and heat with the dense hop particles. I'm working on getting a freezer that I can make a dense saltwater solution that is keep at around 9F that I can use with a pre-chiller coil. I can explain it more later. Oh and my wort is absolutely clear when it comes out of my MT. I would think that it's fully converted, and that isn't the problem.

I just need to take some pictures and see what you all think. Maybe I'm just being too picky.

 

[unionrdr]

I've found that the 20 minute rule isn't steadfast. 30 to 45 minutes or so seems to be OK too in my experiences. I'm still doing ice baths, since my shorter, wider 5 gallon SS kettle fits our 2-bowl sink nicely.
But hop haze from a lot of dry hopping can cause some haze as well.

 

[JosephN]

Here is an example of my Czech Pilsner in the bottle and glass. Now I must also add that this Pilsner (in the glass) has been in the fridge for 7 days already, so there should be some clarity to it automatically.

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1470007346.605357.jpg

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1470007364.421440.jpg

 

[JosephN]

But then once it gets down closer to room temp it's clearer again. This is also the bottom of the glass. I took a picture of my stereo system, "left and right" channel.

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1470009742.358868.jpg

Does this level of haze seem normal to you all?

 

[Yooper]

I wrote this article quite a while ago, but it could probably be helpful even now since it's about clarity. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/clear-wort-clear-beer.html

I really believe that since we "eat (and drink) with our eyes", a beautiful and clear beer just seems to taste better to me as well as being aesthetically pleasing. To some it may not matter, but to me it does and so I try hard to make my beers very clear except for certain styles where a wheat haze or yeast haze is part of the style.

 

[JosephN]

I wrote this article quite a while ago, but it could probably be helpful even now since it's about clarity. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/clear-wort-clear-beer.html

I really believe that since we "eat (and drink) with our eyes", a beautiful and clear beer just seems to taste better to me as well as being aesthetically pleasing. To some it may not matter, but to me it does and so I try hard to make my beers very clear except for certain styles where a wheat haze or yeast haze is part of the style.

Thank you, FINALLY someone understands!!! I would say that my goal of clear beer is more than just for competitions, you're right, we eat and drink with our eyes. In history certain beers have an expected appearance, and I want to keep with that, but when a beer doesn't need to be cloudy then I want it as clear as possible.


Btw here is a Belgian Saison with a little bit of wheat in it. This bottle has been in the fridge for 2-3 days, and it's bottle conditioned.

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1470012195.802789.jpg

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1470012206.587295.jpg

 

[JosephN]

This is a beer I brewed today, look how clear the wort is, you can see my thumb print.

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1470013099.053266.jpg

 

[BrewSRQ]

How are using gelatin (if at all)? The colder you can get the beer before adding it, the better.

 

[mattdee1]

My beer seemed to get notably clearer when I switched from tap water to RO + salts, which enabled me to get the proper mash pH for pale beers. Not sure if this has anything to do with it, or if it’s just a coincidence.

Whirlfloc is great.

Don’t be afraid to sacrifice a bit of beer by leaving some behind when transferring from the kettle to fermentor, or from fermentor to bottling bucket. You may lose a bottle or 2, but in exchange you’re improving your chances of clear beer by reducing the amount of unwanted gunk that gets transferred to the next stage of the process.

I’ve tried gelatin, and am not a fan. With such little free time in life, I just don’t find the benefits of it to be significant enough to be bothered with yet another intervention on a given batch of beer.

Lastly, if you can swing it, get a dedicated full-sized fridge for your homebrew bottles and fill that sumbitch up as soon as your bottles are carbonated. Back when I used to just have one of those small dorm-room fridges for my beer, I’d only have room to chill 10-12 homebrews at a time (with commercial brews in there as well), while the rest sat warm on the shelf. Every minute a carbonated bottle spends sitting on a shelf is a minute that it could be sitting in a cold fridge, lagering and clearing up. If you are impatient you can “suffer” through the first several beers with their chill haze, but by the time you get into the middle of the batch and start drinking bottles that have been in the fridge for weeks, they’ll be crystal clear (assuming the rest of your process is sound).

 

[agrazela]

If you're mashing grains, you might not be getting full conversion from starches to simple sugars. Thus producing starch haze that won't settle out like chill haze. Make sure your mash temps are between, say, 147F & 156F for at least 1 hour. Then use no more than 1.25 to 1.5 quarts of water for every pound of crushed grain. And try to chill the hot wort in 20 minutes or less for clear beer.

Can't say that I've ever heard that mash thickness impacts clarity. Source?

 

[unionrdr]

Can't say that I've ever heard that mash thickness impacts clarity. Source?

I didn't mean thickness, but rather not getting full conversion of the starches by the enzymes to simple sugars the yeast can metabolize. Otherwise, it's the norm to use 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 quarts of water per pound of grain. That was my intended meaning. sorry for any confusion. Dang new computer giving me a hassle with pay sites for CC's, etc forgetting my info or something. Messes with my concentration. Dang, wish I had a beer...

 

[JosephN]

How are using gelatin (if at all)? The colder you can get the beer before adding it, the better.

I don't use gelatin. I just got a second deep freezer that I'm gonna use for lagering and cold crashing. Before I would have to kind of rush through cold crashing, but now I could leave the beer at 32F for 2 weeks if I wanted, or whatever.

Do the pictures seem about normal for your beer or does yours come out clearer?

 

[JosephN]

My beer seemed to get notably clearer when I switched from tap water to RO + salts, which enabled me to get the proper mash pH for pale beers. Not sure if this has anything to do with it, or if it’s just a coincidence.

Whirlfloc is great.

Don’t be afraid to sacrifice a bit of beer by leaving some behind when transferring from the kettle to fermentor, or from fermentor to bottling bucket. You may lose a bottle or 2, but in exchange you’re improving your chances of clear beer by reducing the amount of unwanted gunk that gets transferred to the next stage of the process.

I’ve tried gelatin, and am not a fan. With such little free time in life, I just don’t find the benefits of it to be significant enough to be bothered with yet another intervention on a given batch of beer.

Lastly, if you can swing it, get a dedicated full-sized fridge for your homebrew bottles and fill that sumbitch up as soon as your bottles are carbonated. Back when I used to just have one of those small dorm-room fridges for my beer, I’d only have room to chill 10-12 homebrews at a time (with commercial brews in there as well), while the rest sat warm on the shelf. Every minute a carbonated bottle spends sitting on a shelf is a minute that it could be sitting in a cold fridge, lagering and clearing up. If you are impatient you can “suffer” through the first several beers with their chill haze, but by the time you get into the middle of the batch and start drinking bottles that have been in the fridge for weeks, they’ll be crystal clear (assuming the rest of your process is sound).

I wished I had room in the second bedroom of my apartment for a full sized fridge, but I've already got two chest freezers in there and a mini fridge.

I also just used whirlfloc for the first time yesterday. I was told by one of the old school guys, owner of a LHBS, that Irish miss doesn't really work great and that he has found whirlfloc to work much better. The wort flowing through the tube is much clearer than when I use Irish moss.

One other thing is that I've done pretty well at leaving behind trub, I might let it sit in my kettle for 1.5hrs before I transfer it out. Also the cold crashing seems to pack the yeast and trub before transferring it to my bottling bucket. I do leave some behind, but I can usually see when gunk starts to be picked up.

Oh and you might have a point about the RO and salts. I'm kind of stuck with filtered tap water at this point. But then again professional breweries use filters tap water. Heck that's the majority of them, so maybe that isn't it, but they also filter their beer, at least many of them. A local brewery doesn't filter but they do cold crash to 32F for about 1-2 weeks and their beer is clear.

 

[Anyhowe]

Pretty easy answer and i am not the first. Add whorfloc last 5 min. Cold crash your beer for 2 days to below your serving temp, say 36-38. Put tablespoon gelatin in 2/3 cup cold water for 15 minutes. Heat in Micro til 150-160 degrees. Pour it in your beer. Wait at least 3 days then rack or keg. Done! Crystal clear beer.

 

[hottpeper13]

This past winter was my first foray into lagers and I found that the ones made with a majority of pils malt were hazy even after 8 weeks at ~35* lagering. I did a uber octoberfest with Vienna and Munich that was crystal clear,so I did a protein rest on my next pils base beer,a Kolsch and it was my first clear Kolsch. I use between 5% and 10% wheat and it was crystal clear,but that did include a 4 week 38* lager period.

 

[JosephN]

This past winter was my first foray into lagers and I found that the ones made with a majority of pils malt were hazy even after 8 weeks at ~35* lagering. I did a uber octoberfest with Vienna and Munich that was crystal clear,so I did a protein rest on my next pils base beer,a Kolsch and it was my first clear Kolsch. I use between 5% and 10% wheat and it was crystal clear,but that did include a 4 week 38* lager period.

I'll check that out and see if the avengers Pilsner malt I've been using is a common thing in my cloudier beers.

 

[unionrdr]

Hotpepr's right about the pils malt. It didn't matter if it was well-modified or not, it retains what seems to be starch haze. And I too used at least 50% pils malt in my Hopped & Confused hybrid lagers. I even thought about trying a 90-minute mash to more fully convert. Instead, version 4.2 will use a couple pounds of 6-row that has more diastatic power for conversion. I'll see if that improves the lot. Seems to me Cleveland brewers of my day used a lot of 6-row anyway?

 

[WrQth]

All this time and no one has mentioned Mash pH. Braukaiser has an article about how pH affects brewing, read the whole thing or scroll down to Protein Coagulation. I read another article somewhere but can't find it where the person brewed the same recipe except one was with a mash pH of 5.6 (maybe more but not much) and the other at 5.2, the 5.2 beer came out much clear and has cleaner flavors of malt and hops.

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=How_pH_affects_brewing

***Edit***
Found the article about how pH may have had an affect on the clarity though the article is about the affect of pH on hop character
http://www.hoptomology.com/2013/07/15/the-effect-of-ph-on-hop-character-the-results/

 

[jabba11]

All this time and no one has mentioned Mash pH. Braukaiser has an article about how pH affects brewing, read the whole thing or scroll down to Protein Coagulation. I read another article somewhere but can't find it where the person brewed the same recipe except one was with a mash pH of 5.6 (maybe more but not much) and the other at 5.2, the 5.2 beer came out much clear and has cleaner flavors of malt and hops.

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=How_pH_affects_brewing[/QUOT

my own experience is that mash PH does make lighter beers in particular better tasting the closer you can get it to 5.2 that said its had pretty much no effect on the clarity of my light ales that I can visibly see. There may be some science behind it but in practice at least for me I haven't seen any real difference in chill haze. I'm not trying to start an argument or anything I'm just saying that for me, in practice, I haven't noticed a difference.

 

[JosephN]

All this time and no one has mentioned Mash pH. Braukaiser has an article about how pH affects brewing, read the whole thing or scroll down to Protein Coagulation. I read another article somewhere but can't find it where the person brewed the same recipe except one was with a mash pH of 5.6 (maybe more but not much) and the other at 5.2, the 5.2 beer came out much clear and has cleaner flavors of malt and hops.

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=How_pH_affects_brewing

Yooper covered PH in the article she posted.

But to cover it more in depth, my mash PH is always between 5.2-5.5 I have a ph meter that I keep calibrated.

 

[JosephN]

This past winter was my first foray into lagers and I found that the ones made with a majority of pils malt were hazy even after 8 weeks at ~35* lagering. I did a uber octoberfest with Vienna and Munich that was crystal clear,so I did a protein rest on my next pils base beer,a Kolsch and it was my first clear Kolsch. I use between 5% and 10% wheat and it was crystal clear,but that did include a 4 week 38* lager period.

I have found that all of the cloudy beers did have either a Wheat or Pilsner malt in them. The ones with the majority Pilsner vs pale ale malt, basic 2 row, Maris Otter or Golden Promise were cloudy. All other grains produced a much clearer beer. So with all this being said, I'm gonna try a protein rest on my next majority Pilsner malt beer.

 

[JosephN]

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1470842509.568592.jpg

This is what a beer of mine looks like when there isn't any Pilsner or wheat in the grist.

 

[unionrdr]

Here's a shot of my Kottbusser, using Bohemian pils malt & wheat malt...

I only used half a Whirlfloc tablet in this one.