Exaggerated haziness with Mosaic hops?

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rmeskill

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Has anyone else noticed Mosaic tends to lend a haziness to a beer, even when not aiming for it? I have a base pale ale recipe I run with when testing out new hops or test hot-side and cold-side combos (or just save when I find a keeper) and one of my favorites is a Mosaic/Amarillo or Mosaic/Callista which is light on the hot side and then a 3g/l whirlpool and then a single 5g/l dry hop. It always comes out hazy. If, however, I use Pacific Jade and Nelson Sauvin (or Azacca/Wai-iti or Vic Secret SMASH) they come out mostly or entirely clear. The PacJade/NS in particularly REALLY cleans up. Besides the hops, though, my recipe is exactly the same: 68% pale malt, 28% Munich I, 4% Carapils with US05 yeast and a whirlfloc tablet mashed at 66.6C/152F. The only thing that makes sense to me is Mosaic accentuates haziness-has anyone else noticed this as well?
 
funny you mention because I had an amber ipa on tap that had mosaic in it that never cleared. I even left it in the keg for a few months and it was very cloudy the whole time. I recall it being a lazy brew day brewing wise because I suddenly had a lot going on while I was brewing. I didn't take a ph reading and I also skipped a couple other things I usually do. The beer tasted ok but it never cleared at all.
 
I should note I have no filtering in my process and rarely do a proper cold crash until it goes into bottles and crashes on its own, but I've never had a mosaic beer clear, even if I do a cold crash and then let it settle out in bottles. So it's good to have at least another data point here...
 
I should note I have no filtering in my process and rarely do a proper cold crash until it goes into bottles and crashes on its own, but I've never had a mosaic beer clear, even if I do a cold crash and then let it settle out in bottles. So it's good to have at least another data point here...
I do not filter my beers either and I do usually cold crash for a day or two. Pretty sure I cold crashed the beer in question for a full day which wouldn't really clear it all that much but it usually does a little bit. This beer was kegged for a while because of how cloudy it was every time I pulled a pint. I'd say it was on tap for about 2.5 months before it kicked and it never cleared really at all.
I have a ton of mosaic so maybe I'll do a 2.5 gallon smash or something with simple grist and see what it does.
 
I'm just surprised no one else has noticed/commented on this before if it's really a thing. I'd say it could be batches, too, but I'm in Europe so thinking that's unlikely...
 
I'm east coast in the US. I just have a clear vacuum bag of pellets so I'm not sure where they came from but probably the Pacific northwest since that's where a lot of the US hops come from. Or maybe Wisconsin as hops are grown there too.
Specific hops are grown in specific regions due to the climate a specific strain likes so I wouldn't be surprised if maybe we could get hops from the same farm.
 
Now that I look at them, mine say '2018' and that's about it, nothing about their progeny, besides that they're an 'American-type' hop. But yeah, I guess there's a chance-would be interesting to see if there's any other data points out there...
 
As a conflicting data point, I will add that I've used Mosaic quite a few times, more than any other American hop really, and can't say I've noticed anything unique about the beers' clarity. Each has cleared to a normal degree over the usual 2-3 week cold conditioning period.
 
As a conflicting data point, I will add that I've used Mosaic quite a few times, more than any other American hop really, and can't say I've noticed anything unique about the beers' clarity. Each has cleared to a normal degree over the usual 2-3 week cold conditioning period.
The one consistency on my end is the ones I'm working with are clearly 2 seasons old. Are yours younger? I wonder if there's something about the variety that doesn't age well...
 
I don't believe I've ever kept the bags around long enough to age them once in my possession. They usually get used within a couple of months. I didn't keep any records about the crop years, sorry about that.
 
I got mine from a brew buddy that moved away this year so I'm not sure how old they are. I do have a ton of hops though that are a couple years old. I keep them all vacuum sealed in my beer freezer and they still work great. Haven't noticed any other clarity issues with them. I have used the mosaic in other beers but they were darker beers and just used for IBU's.
 
I don't believe I've ever kept the bags around long enough to age them once in my possession. They usually get used within a couple of months. I didn't keep any records about the crop years, sorry about that.
Oh neither do I, my bags are just labeled '2018' from MLHBS. I don't know if they buy them larger and split them up or buy them in 100g (~3oz) packets and sell them pre-labeled.
 
Maybe being that old, they were a bit dry and crumbly and stayed in suspension. Did you notice any particular hop bite to the beer? I squeezed my dry hop bag dry once and had that issue. It was a bit of a bite in the back of the throat. Never cleared even through cold crash and gelatin.
 
I'll add that among the hops listed in the OP, Mosaic has relatively low total oil content. I don't really know if the oils interact in any significant way with proteins that are relevant to haze, but thought I'd mention it.
 
Hmmm, I was planning to do a west coast ipa next year with something like Columbus and Mosaic or Nugget and Mosaic to get something different from the usual Centennial and Cascade combinations.

Anybody try using gelatin to clear?

On a different hop note, I was also planning on making my next APA with Ahtanum, again to break the usual Centennial and Cascade combinations and also to be different enough from the IPA. I’ve noticed Ahtanum seems to be in scarce supply. The bigger places like B3 don’t even have it.
 
I normally avoid Mosaic because it is in so many beers, preferring to brew what I can't buy so no knowledge of this. If you want to buy mosaic from the same farm, Hop Heaven does have it available and will extend a discounted price so we can figure out what's up with cloudy mosaic beers 2020 Mosaic is shipping next week $19.95 lb, send an email ted at hopheaven dot beer
 
Ahtanum will be hard to find. Right now brewers are pig piling Mosaic and Citra leaving many hops behind. Ahtanum is a victim of this. In review of my farmers who supply hops for Hop Heaven, not one grows this variety. Good luck finding it
 
Ahtanum will be hard to find. Right now brewers are pig piling Mosaic and Citra leaving many hops behind. Ahtanum is a victim of this. In review of my farmers who supply hops for Hop Heaven, not one grows this variety. Good luck finding it

I found some - Adventures in Homebrewing has some. Just placed an order, said it was in stock.

I normally avoid Mosaic because it is in so many beers, preferring to brew what I can't buy

I agree whole heartedly - I believe I’ve even used those words myself. “I like to try to brew beer I can’t buy.”

Those “beers I can’t buy” that I try to brew tend to be largely stuff from the UK that we never see here.

Mosaic is a hop I haven’t brewed with or done much brewing with. I’m not very familiar with it, or what commercial beers it is used in. When I think APA, I think Sierra Nevada, the classic, which is heavy Cascade. I don’t buy a whole lot of IPA, but I love what Lagunitas is making. Their IPA or Hop Stoopid. I live near Victory and Hop Devil is great too. I think they use Simcoe, not really sure. I have used Simcoe in IPA and DIPA. Have to say I’m not much of a fan of the beers I’ve made with it.

I haven’t been exploring many of the new hops. And there are many. Whenever I’ve brewed APAs and IPA’s, I’ve pretty much stuck to mostly various combinations of Centennial and Cascade, with Perle or Chinook or sometimes Nugget for bittering.
 
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Pretty much my path, lots of beers that are not IPA, sorta strange when I have 70 tons I can go use.

An old hop that never saw much light in the US that you should try is Savinjski Golding. It is a Slovenian hops and works wonderful in English style beers. I use it in my dark mild, it brings magic to an already tasty beer, especially on a hand pump. Balance is the key from pure greatness to bah humbug. Small adjustments to get it right, much like the Bitters. Savinjski also goes great in browns and brown porters. I did a USA brown and it is wonderful, a light secondary flavor that the IPA drinker can not understand and will think it is malt or fermentation characters. It gives the dark mild a black tea character. Don't be put off by the low alpha on these Slovenian hops. Coming from the US where we push the alpha up to cut cost to the mega brewers, these look ridiculously low, but they make great beers. I guess the best way to put it, it is as antiIPA flavor as an traditional German lager but in a solidly different camp
 
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