Clear beer in carboy suddenly cloudy again

[supermoth]

I brewed a pale ale on 3/25 and dry hopped it a week later. I used S-05 yeast. At the time I put in the hops (pellets dropped straight into primary) the beer was mostly clear with just a touch of residual krauesen floating on top. When I looked at the carboy again yesterday I noticed the beer had gone all cloudy. Yeast had settled on the inner ridges of the carboy and the beer looked more like a hefeweizen! I took a gravity sample and a taste, it was at 1.008 and tasted pretty good for being flat and warm.

Has anyone seen this before? Any comments or advice are much appreciated!

 

[tennesseean_87]

My guess is the cloudiness is caused by the hop particles.

 

[Fletcher21]

Yeah I agree it's most likely the hop particles. Just cold crash before you bottle and you should be fine.

 

[supermoth]

Hmm, it really didn't look like hop particles. I would expect those to be more green, and I would also expect them to settle out after two weeks. It looked more like yeast in suspension. I do plan on cold-crashing, so we'll see what happens.

 

[IXVolt]

Adding the hops might have stirred up the yeast a bit, I think the cold crash would probably take care of it.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Hmm, it really didn't look like hop particles. I would expect those to be more green, and I would also expect them to settle out after two weeks. It looked more like yeast in suspension. I do plan on cold-crashing, so we'll see what happens.

Dry hopping almost always results in hazy beer. They're not going to look like hop particles because they are microscopic and evenly distributed throughout your beer.

Cold crashing can help but that can take a couple weeks. But don't fret, PA's and IPA's are within style guidelines if they're hazy simply because they are an oft dry hopped style.

 

[supermoth]

OK, thanks everyone. It was just odd since the last beer I dry hopped didn't look anything like this, and the hops settled out completely in a week.

 

[djfriesen]

Did you move the fermenter at all while dry hopping? It's pretty easy to get that yeast back into suspension. But as was said, the hop particles constituting the pellets are very small, but are pressed together. When they get wet, they break up, and look a lot like yeast. If you want an example, take a pellet and crush it on the counter with a spoon. That powder is what's floating around in your brew post dry-hopping.

 

[supermoth]

Nope, I didn't move it at all. Whenever I move my carboys to the kitchen table for bottling I can see some stuff that gets unsettled, but it's nothing compared to what I'm seeing in the carboy I'm talking about now! I guess I'll wait a couple days and take another gravity reading to make sure it's still ok and then proceed as normal.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

I guess I'll wait a couple days and take another gravity reading to make sure it's still ok and then proceed as normal.

That's usually the best solution for most of what ails your ales.

 

[pjj2ba]

There are compounds in the hops that contribute to haze, not just the hop particles themselves. I suspect the amounts of these vary from hop to hop with some contributing more haze than others.

These will eventually settle out, but by then, a bunch of the hop aroma will have faded too. Drink cloudy and enjoy!