My first brew - IBA

[JoeNew2Brew]

I brewed my first beer on 3/3/2012, it is a Midwest Supplies India Brown Ale. It had a OG of 1.082 and a FG: 1.018. I left it in the primary for a week, moved it into the secondary for 18 days and left it in the bottle 3 weeks before tasting it. The results in terms of flavor is outstanding. The beer is all an IBA should be. I have done some blind taste tests with it and a commercially available IBA and my friends and family like mine better.

My only concern is that the beer is cloudy. See picture below. It doesn't quite have the clarity I would hope for. Is there something I did wrong? Is there something I can do to get better clarity in the future? I will definitely brew this again, since it is one of my all time favorite brews and I hope to improve the clarity next time.

Thanks for your help!
-Joe

 

[Reno_eNVy]

That looks great and welcome to the forum!

As for the haze:

1) Did you get a nice rolling boil and did you chill quickly afterwards?

2) How long did you put the bottles in the fridge before serving?

3) Was there any dry hopping involved?

 

[JoeNew2Brew]

1) Yes, there was a nice rolling boil and I chilled it quickly with a wort chiller.

2) Bottles were in the fridge 2 days before serving. I have some in the fridge now that I am waiting a week before opening to see if they are better.

3) I dry hopped into the secondary as recommended by the recipe kit.

 

[ACESFULL]

It might be left over yeast in solution. Leave a bottle in the fridge for a week or longer and see what you get. I bet your beer will clear with time. If not they you may have a chill haze issue (proteins) Report back after you leave a bottle for a while. I bet you will be surprised on what you find.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Ah, the veil has been lifted.

It's not uncommon to get some haze from dry hopping due to the oils in the hops. But that also makes it appropriate for the style. But if you're set on getting it crystal clear, I'd say waiting a week should help. I've had all kinds of hazy beers clear up, including a super hazy hefe that only took two weeks in the kegerator to turn into a krystallweiss.

The only one that will never ever clear up regardless of time is my Sahti, which requires boiling juniper branches in your mash liquor

 

[Beer-lord]

My take is, why do you really care? Seriously, it tastes good, why does it really matter if it's cloudy? I'm not trying to be an ass, but people worry too much about clarity. You've done well. you like it and that's all that counts, right?

 

[JoeNew2Brew]

I love this beer and the lack of clarity is not impacting my enjoyment of it. My goal is to learn and hopefully improve the next batch.

 

[Bamsdealer]

Not to speak for Joe, but if he's like me he's just trying to improve from batch to batch. I was the same way with my first batches, but after making good tasing beer the next step is to improve on qualities other than just taste. Tweaking carb levels, shooting for clarity, maybe head retention, etc. It's a never ending game... and the reason I enjoy the hobby so much.

 

[Bamsdealer]

congrats on what sounds like a great beer by the way

 

[Beer-lord]

I think it's great to want to improve and who can't improve their beers? I am only a novice compared to so many here. I take notes and get a little anal at times. I spend way too much time thinking about my next batch.......dangerous sometimes.
I don't want my comments to seem harsh when I mentioned not to worry about clarity. It's just that most would rather good tasting, quality beer and after you've brewed a few, most end up not worrying about the little things. Get the basics down and the rest will follow (I hope and think).

 

[JoeNew2Brew]

No worries Beer-lord. The reason I posted this was to learn what I could have done wrong and what I could do to fix it in the future. My friends, family and I are loving the results and I am hooked on home brewing. I already brewed a Cream Ale for the summer that is sitting in the primary as I write this. And BTW, you are 100% correct. An enjoyable good tasting, quality, albeit hazy beer is awesome.

Bamsdealer thanks for the congrats!

 

[FifteenTen]

Ahh...the joys of trying to make great beer better...why else would we do this. My wife often says: "Its only 8am, I can't think about beer yet." and I think "Its 8am!, I've already lost 8 hours of planning today!"