Whats the trick to a transparent beer?

[passedpawn]

Not refraction. That's when light changes direction when it moves into a different material.

The glass is simply a lens. Convex lens' always do that if the object is beyond the focal point.

 

[JKoravos]

BUT.........adding gypsum to your water may cause some flavor issues. I would suggest NEVER adding gypsum unless you have a water report in front of you.

If you feel you must do something (and I doubt you would for extract beers, as malt has plenty of calcium), I'd add calcium chloride and not gypsum. That's a "can't hurt, might help" thing. Gypsum can be disasterous in high sulfate water!

CaCl2 could throw off the balance, too. I don't think there's a lot of places in the US that the sulfate levels are high enough to have a teaspoon of gypsum in 5 gal go out of whack on sulfate. Most places have quite low sulfate levels.

But, yes, having a water report in front of you would certainly be preferred.


EDIT: From a technical perspective this is the last option after attacking everything outlined above, as it's least likely to be the culprit in an extract brew. Although, putting a teaspoon of gypsum in the boil is super easy and unlikely to have a detrimental effect on the beer, so there's that...

 

[frydogbrews]

yeah, it just makes it a lens. tweaks the word even more since it is a fancy shaped glass! i think i was a little cloudy last night (damn IIPA) and thought it was upside down!

 

[ChuckO]

Not refraction. That's when light changes direction when it moves into a different material.

The glass is simply a lens. Convex lens' always do that if the object is beyond the focal point.

Sorry to differ, but it is refraction. The light moved from air to glass to beer to glass to air. That's how lenses work, by refraction.

 

[passedpawn]

Sorry to differ, but it is refraction. The light moved from air to glass to beer to glass to air. That's how lenses work, by refraction.

You are right. I don't know what the heck I was thinking - duh. Thanks for the correction.

 

[Gameface]

I've used a plate filter a few times with varying levels of success and frustration.

Cold crashing in my fermentation chamber seems to have REALLY helped my last few batches. I also use whirlfloc when I remember to add it, and it seems to help.

 

[Yooper]

You are right. I don't know what the heck I was thinking - duh. Thanks for the correction.

It's ok. We all know you drink.

 

[BrewThruYou]

One of the things that sounds obvious but really wasn't, at least to me, is that clear wort will make clear beer. So, if the wort is not clear when you put it in the fermenter, it'll not clear easily.

I guess my issue is that my wort isn't clear. When I make an IPA, there's so much hop mass even after using a hop spider . I have a Blichmann and the diptube pulls within a fraction of an inch from the kettle bottom. I use a sanitized 5G paint strainer over my bucket fermenter, so that'll catch a decent amount of break/hop matter after it passes through the ball valve.

The only way for me to pull clear wort would be to let the wort rest in the kettle so the break and hops drop out and then siphon. It kinda defeats the purpose of the ball valve.

Even if I do that, I'll reintroduce haze when I dryhop.

I just did an IPA that I dryhopped and gelatin'ed at the same time in secondary. My last gelatin IPA was crystal clear. I'll try this new one in a few more days of conditioning.

 

[Burgs]

I think all of your suggestions are great, and I agree fully. However, this statement is completely false. Sugars are completely soluble, and will therefore not be visible. Think about it, wort, which has "a whole mess of unfermented sugar in it" is completely clear when all of the break material and hops settle out.

Fair enough - I guess I was just saying that in my experience, when I've seen an tasted underattenuated beers, they've been pretty cloudy.

I probably should blame that on yeast still in suspension rather than sugars in suspension. Thanks for the correction.

 

[FoundlingOfDollar]

I guess my issue is that my wort isn't clear. When I make an IPA, there's so much hop mass even after using a hop spider . I have a Blichmann and the diptube pulls within a fraction of an inch from the kettle bottom. I use a sanitized 5G paint strainer over my bucket fermenter, so that'll catch a decent amount of break/hop matter after it passes through the ball valve.

The only way for me to pull clear wort would be to let the wort rest in the kettle so the break and hops drop out and then siphon. It kinda defeats the purpose of the ball valve.

Even if I do that, I'll reintroduce haze when I dryhop.

I just did an IPA that I dryhopped and gelatin'ed at the same time in secondary. My last gelatin IPA was crystal clear. I'll try this new one in a few more days of conditioning.

Just to satisfy my curiosity, is there any particular reason you're not using a hop bag?

 

[JJL]

+1 to all of the above for improvements to your process. Only thing I can add is if you have beer in the bottle now that is hazy that you'd like to try to clear up, set your fridge on the lowest temp setting and just put all of your bottled beer in the fridge for about a week. The cold temps can help the remaining yeast, proteins, etc drop out of suspension.