What contributed to "cloudy"

[Christ872]

Okay...so here's a question from a true Novice:

I brewed my 2nd batch a few weeks ago. In addition to the Booster sugar, I also added some honey and some brown sugar to the wort at the inital boiling/fermentation state. I waited about 16-18 days and put it into bottles on Friday (08-19). The wort poured into the bottles VERY cloudy and there was a huge amount of sediment/sludge at the bottom of the fermentation keg.

A) Do I have any hope that this will clear?
B) What in the wild-blue yonder is causing that cloudy look -- is it the honey or the brown sugar - or did I screw something else up?

 

[paulster2626]

I'm no expert, but it could be many things.
1) You agitated some sediments when bottling.
2) Home brewed beer is cloudy unless you filter it, which according to many isn't worth the time/trouble.
3) You should have left it for longer, or even racked to secondary to let more crap fall out of it.

The bottom line is that you're going to be told to try different things to see what works for you! But I don't think you did anything wrong.

And if the beer tastes good, you win anyways.

 

[smalliewader]

Sounds like you went roughly 2 weeks in primary then bottled. You also don't mention racking to a bottling bucket to get it off the trub....so I'm assuming the two culprits are:

A) Not enough time in fermentation to allow settling/clearing
B) Bottling directly from the primary

C) I don't like to see the word "pour" in any step of the brew process after pitching.

 

[beer-monger]

So many factors can contribute to cloudiness or clarity of a beer. Certain styles and certain yeast strains are just naturally more cloudy. I personally have noticed that how quickly you can get your wort from finish boil to pitchable temperatures can make a big difference in the cloudiness of the finished product.

 

[unionrdr]

It sounds like you didn't use a hydrometer to tell when the beer reached FG. You have to give it time to finish fermenting. Then,give it 3-5 days to clean up & settle out more. It should be only slightly hazy when you bottle it.
You also should use an auto siphon with a bottling wand to fill the bottles. The bottling wand fills the bottles from the bottom up to avoid oxidation. Not to mention,the siphon/bottling wand rig allows the beer to stay clear,leaving the sediment in the bottom of the fermenter. You'll wind up with a lot of trub in the bottom of the bottles. I have a video about this in my profile. It shows the usual method of bottling. That may clear things up a little.