Why would you think that? None of the beers that I've ever dry hopped were hazy.
Revvy,
I was under the impression that dry-hopping has the potential to cause haziness in beer (I didn't know why, but I am always ready to find out). After a little further research, it appears that dry hopping can indeed cause hazy beers. Unfortunately, I cannot find any accredited references for this; it appears that this is not heavily researched. However, here is what I have gathered from multiple pro-brewer forum responses, and other non-accredited websites out there (not usually my style, I like professional references, but again, does not appear to be much for information about this topic).
Here is an excerpt from the probrewer.com forum that I believe best sums it up. Best explanation I can see so far. Will keep looking for accredited sources for this information.
"I do believe that this would be caused by protein/polyphenol interactions. Basically, the origin of this phenomenon is rooted in the types of proteins and polyphenols that are present in the beer.
When the wort is boiled much of the proteins (barley hordeins) are denatured and therefore in an open and extended stucture which makes them accessible to the to the polyphenols in solution (from malt and hops) and these associate to form flocs of trub, which get bigger and bigger, and eventually precipitate out and are left in the whirlpool. These associations are primarily between the proline residues of the barley hordeins and the aromatic rings of the polyphenols. This is not a chemical reaction, but it might be analagous to the attraction velcro has to its other half: it holds pretty well, but can come apart with a tug (only to re-attach later).
After the boil, most of the haze-active polyphenols have been removed in the trub, but there is still some protein left in solution. When dry-hopping you are adding more haze active polyphenols to the system, which in-turn allows for the eventual formation of more haze and trub-like sediment (sorta like Le Chatelier's principal). This can take a while to happen in the package because it is kind of dependent on the oxidation of the beer in the package. Once these anti-oxidant polyphenols begin to scavenge the oxygen in the package, they begin to re-polymerize into large molecular-weight structures, and due to their increased size they can more easily bridge the gaps between the protein molecules and cause haze. Once they get to a certain size, they fall out of solution.
Therefore, I would imagine the problem would appear sooner and be more severe if you have high headspace air levels. Also, it might be worse if you are using hop pellets rather than whole hops because the higher surface area of the hop material in the pellets might allow for a more complete extraction of the poylphenols into solution. I also found that the more acidic the solution, the more complete the extraction of polyphenols."
So it appears that this protein/polyphenol binding occurs early, and depends on several different factors. Also, it appears that it will dissipate over time, depending on these factors - may be weeks-months. As I mentioned in a previous post, I have made crystal clear beers (before I started dry hopping), but the last 2 batches I have dry hopped are hazy (dry hopped with pellets). They are both a little over a month out, and may have cleared a little, but not much.
Found at:
http://www.probrewer.com/vbulletin/archive/index.php/t-1403.html
Let me know what you think.
Ryan M.
Sorry OP, didnt mean to hijack the thread, but I hope the information is relevant to you too.
). Nothing in my process has changed, except the dry hopping. I have a new keggle, and have been putting my hops in a hop spider during the boil. Otherwise, process remains exactly the same mashing/lautering/fermentation wise.
