Massive chill haze

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NaymzJaymz

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I just drew a sample of my DIPA that I've made several times. It's been carbonating in a very cold refrigerator at 10psi for 1 week. The beer has a massive chill haze this time, but tastes fine. The only difference with this batch is that I used water from a high quality filter rather than bottled water, but I don't think there's any chill haze connection in that. I didn't use any clarifying agent this time(Clarity Ferm, gelatin, ect..), but I've skipped those in past batches without this amount of haze. My question are, does anyone have an answer to the chill haze issue in general, and is it possible to add gelatin to the keg at this point to aid in clarification? Thanks.
 
NaymzJaymz said:
I just drew a sample of my DIPA that I've made several times. It's been carbonating in a very cold refrigerator at 10psi for 1 week. The beer has a massive chill haze this time, but tastes fine. The only difference with this batch is that I used water from a high quality filter rather than bottled water, but I don't think there's any chill haze connection in that. I didn't use any clarifying agent this time(Clarity Ferm, gelatin, ect..), but I've skipped those in past batches without this amount of haze. My question are, does anyone have an answer to the chill haze issue in general, and is it possible to add gelatin to the keg at this point to aid in clarification? Thanks.
Click to expand...

If it taste good drink it...but if your concerned I don't see why you can't add gelatin and wait a few days for it to clear.
 
Thank you sir, I was wondering if the fact that the beer was carbonating would make it too late to use a clarifying agent like gelatin. I'm still curious about why I got so much haze on this batch. Thanks!
 
chill haze comes from proteins still in suspension. the key to making them drop out is a good hot break & good cold break. also, enough time at very cold temps will clear it up.
 
NaymzJaymz said:
I just drew a sample of my DIPA that I've made several times. It's been carbonating in a very cold refrigerator at 10psi for 1 week. The beer has a massive chill haze this time, but tastes fine. The only difference with this batch is that I used water from a high quality filter rather than bottled water, but I don't think there's any chill haze connection in that. I didn't use any clarifying agent this time(Clarity Ferm, gelatin, ect..), but I've skipped those in past batches without this amount of haze. My question are, does anyone have an answer to the chill haze issue in general, and is it possible to add gelatin to the keg at this point to aid in clarification? Thanks.
Click to expand...

I'll help, lets first look at water.

What type of bottled water was it, and what is your base (unfiltered) water mineral levels? Also what type of filter?
 
rnm410, thank you for your input, and sorry for my late response. The bottled water was high quality spring water from the company that brings the drinking water to where I work. The filter is a high quality bacteriostatic filter. My tap water tastes okay by itself, but it tasted like bottle water coming out of the filter. I thought I could save money buying a filter and using this very good tasting water. Could this be my "mistake". I haven't yet found the mineral breakdown on my tap water. Maybe that should be my next step. Thank you.
 
Depending on the source of spring water, it's possible some calcium and other minerals may dissolve into the water. Also possible the bottling company add minerals for taste.

Looking at Cottonwood and knowing nothing of their water, we would want to know the city water source. Being near the mountains its possible that this time of year it is snow/glacial melt.

My local water is glacial melt, it is devoid of minerals, most importantly calcium.

Calcium plays many of factors in producing clear beer.

Next we should find out more about the bottled water and your local source.

Can you post a brand of bottled water and find a water analysis/source from your city?
 
On top of that (above) if the alkalinity of your water is higher you may be above your target mash pH, leading to malt tannin extraction. Tannins (polyphenols) in conjunction with proteins bond together to what we know as chill haze. Sufficient calcium upstream (in the mash) can help control both pH and ensure a good protein break.

Do you check mash pH and do any salt additions?
 
I only started building my own water a half dozen batches ago so I'm still learning a lot and am about to buy a pH meter to get a better handle on things rather than relying entirely upon calculator predictions. My most recent brew produced a similar hazy (and yeasty) result. It was an am. pale ale with 82% pilsner malt & 18% munich for the grain bill and hop bursted for all bitterness with a moderate water profile.

Everything went well but my mash was a little odd and sure enough my efficiency was a few points below average and my cold break was sub-par. Now I have a hazy (& yeasty beer I suspect the 2 go together). I've found my hoppy beers neither clear nor drop the yeast as quickly as non hop-centric beers. My beer is wonderful with meyer lemon, tangerine, & grapefruit as well as mild mango & pineapple aromas with a grainy non-sweet malt character fermented in the low 60s.

Im gonna leave it just the way it is to see how long it takes to drop clear. Once past the first 3 or 4 pints the yeast was gone and it taste wonderful. It is no problem to add gelatin, which I'm a fan of, but I'ma leave this one to see what occurs.
 
MVKTR2 said:
I only started building my own water a half dozen batches ago so I'm still learning a lot and am about to buy a pH meter to get a better handle on things rather than relying entirely upon calculator predictions. My most recent brew produced a similar hazy (and yeasty) result. It was an am. pale ale with 82% pilsner malt & 18% munich for the grain bill and hop bursted for all bitterness with a moderate water profile.

Everything went well but my mash was a little odd and sure enough my efficiency was a few points below average and my cold break was sub-par. Now I have a hazy (& yeasty beer I suspect the 2 go together). I've found my hoppy beers neither clear nor drop the yeast as quickly as non hop-centric beers. My beer is wonderful with meyer lemon, tangerine, & grapefruit as well as mild mango & pineapple aromas with a grainy non-sweet malt character fermented in the low 60s.

Im gonna leave it just the way it is to see how long it takes to drop clear. Once past the first 3 or 4 pints the yeast was gone and it taste wonderful. It is no problem to add gelatin, which I'm a fan of, but I'ma leave this one to see what occurs.
Click to expand...

Protein from the malt and tannins from malt and hops when chilled form together to what we see as chill haze. It would be expected for a highly hopped non-filtered APA/IPA to be hazy in appearance. Do not confuse haze with yeast, yeast are 5-10 microns in size and settle out the beer naturally. Yeast, due to their charge, can also be settled out quicker by adding gelatin or isinglass, but cold crashing and time can do the job just as well. Haze on the other hand is generally 0.1-1 microns in size, smaller particles take longer to settle out. Haze (proteins and tannins) also carry the opposite charge as yeast (and weakly at that) therefore they do not settle with the same clarifying agent. To clear haze try bentonite, PVPP or silica based agent. I do not have any documentation on this last fact, but I theorize removing tannins responsible for the haze you see will also remove some of the hop character of your hoppy beer. In my opinion it is best to remove the yeast (cold crash, gelatin, isinglass) or filter at 5 and 1 micron for hoppy/hazy beers. Similar, but not exact, also goes for high protein beers such as wheats. BJCP allows for hazy beers that are hoppy or high in protein adjuncts.
 
I've found my hoppy beers leave yeast in suspension much longer than non hoppy beers, and so I assume in my brewery the 2 are linked. That may have to do with hop effects upon a lot of things. I am not confusing yeast & haze, simply shared I think they're linked. I realize chill haze is mostly attributed to protein suspension thus the link with cold/hot break, along with chemistry issues linking suspended proteins to calcium etc. I find that gelatin actually helps chill haze quite a bit, this may not be your experience. Generally speaking aside from hoppy beer I brew beer that rarely encounters chill haze, am a big believer in vigorous boil and fast crash. I'm additionally a stickler for clear wort going into the kettle but the documentation generally suggests that has little to do with haze generation.
 
What you are referring to is the charge of the yeast and haze. Yeast and haze have opposite charges, it is possible they can grab on to each other, everything will eventually drop out though. Using finings causes coagulation and speeds up the flocculation process. Temperature decrease also speeds up clearing of suspended particles. Stokes law is our understanding of the physical happenings. Let us know how your beer ages/clears...etc.
 
Per my earlier post my mash chemistry was obviously off as I built the water, still learning that process, and my efficiency was down by about 5 or 6 % iirc. My conversion wasn't complete. Clearly the above pics have tons of condensation. The brew has been in the low 30s for 8 days.
 

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