worst haze ever, help?!?

[BadWolfBrewing]

I tried no-chill for the first time recently. For me, it makes a lot of sense for a lot of reasons. Cut down on the brew day, use less water, store less equipment, and potentially decouple the brewing and fermentation schedules.

I used the 6g plastic winpack white barrel thing. 6 gallons went in after boil and a vigorous whirlpool, as I think HSA is a crock. The next morning, I transferred to an ale pale, shook it to aerate (not enough, though, so I'll try a better aeration technique soon). Post fermentation, transferred to keg for carbonating / conditioning. That was over a month ago.

The recipe is a SMaSH with Maris Otter and Mosaic. I've done it before, and it is fantastic. I forgot to adjust my hops schedule for no chill, so it is more bitter than previous efforts, but still tasty.

However, this is the HAZIEST beer I've ever seen, regardless of brewery or style. For what is actually a pretty light colored beer, there is NO light getting through it.

I forgot irish moss in the brew kettle, due to worrying about other things, so thats my bad. I can't believe that is the only thing causing my haze though. It seems so many people have shown that no-chill can result in great clarity, so what is my issue?

I'm considering trying gelatin in the keg, though not sure if I care enough at this point.

So, what are all the different factors that contribute to haze? I see a lot of arguments on the topic, but are there anythings that have been 'proven' to have a large impact?

I'll post a pic when I get home from work. It is pretty bad though.

 

[kombat]

No Irish Moss, no real cold break, and no gelatin, and you're surprised it's cloudy? You didn't do ANY of the things that contribute to clear beer!

If you care, it's not too late to add some gelatin, but if it doesn't matter to you, and you're not really serving it to others, I wouldn't bother. I'd be worried about clogging the pickup tube in my keg with gelatin.

 

[Yooper]

Hmmm. There are a ton of things that can create haze in beer. I wonder if the mash didn't fully convert, and you have a starch haze? Did you happen to do an iodine test?

Did you get a good hot break? Lack of a cold break isn't usually going to cause murky beer, and I know that quite a few no-chill brewers have clear beer in the end.

 

[BadWolfBrewing]

yeah, I get your point

I've forgotten irish moss on other brews though, and I've never used gelatin. So, mostly I guess I'm worried that no-chill is having the biggest effect, which sucks. I still haven't snapped a pic yet, but this is seriously the haziest beer I've ever seen.

No-chill was really easy to do, and I would like to stick with it if possible.

It was also the first brew with a brand new brewing system (stout-tanks plus kal-esque control panel). I might have accidently oversparged a bit, so perhaps somehow the ph / tannins made a difference. I had trouble maintaining mashout / sparge temperatures, so I sparged a little more than I should have to make up for lost efficiency knowing I could just boil off the excess liquid.

Unfortunately, SWMBO says I can't brew this weekend, as there are 'things that need doing' around the house. So, I can't try another lighter colored beer to test any theories.

 

[BadWolfBrewing]

Hmmm. There are a ton of things that can create haze in beer. I wonder if the mash didn't fully convert, and you have a starch haze? Did you happen to do an iodine test?

Did you get a good hot break? Lack of a cold break isn't usually going to cause murky beer, and I know that quite a few no-chill brewers have clear beer in the end.

Normally I do an iodine test, but I don't remember if I did. New brewery and all, I was a little disorganized / giddy. It could be starch, it doesn't look like normal chill-haze IMHO.

I guess I never check for hot break. I assume it is there, I was doing a 5.5g batch on 4.1kW of heating element (which is a 5.5 kW element on a 208v circuit).

I dumped from the no-chill vessel without trying to leave anything behind, could this be the issue?

 

[Yooper]

Normally I do an iodine test, but I don't remember if I did. New brewery and all, I was a little disorganized / giddy. It could be starch, it doesn't look like normal chill-haze IMHO.

I guess I never check for hot break. I assume it is there, I was doing a 5.5g batch on 4.1kW of heating element (which is a 5.5 kW element on a 208v circuit).

I dumped from the no-chill vessel without trying to leave anything behind, could this be the issue?

I dump everything in also, and I forget the whirlfloc about 1/2 the time, and never have hazy beer. It's possible that it's the lack of chilling, but I don't think that is it. I'd recommend next time to ensure starch conversion, and a good hard rolling boil to ensure a hot break. Whirfloc can only help, but it's easy to forget.

 

[BadWolfBrewing]

How about this... I want to test to see the culprit.

Sources of haze = starch, yeast, and protein, right?

So, take a small pour, let it warm up. If it starts to settle out eventually, this implies it is protein.

Or, if gelatin works in a little test-glass, this also implies protein based haze, right?

Would the iodine test work in beer as well as wort? I don't see why not... if starch is there it should react.

How about to test for yeast haze? Anything I can do to get the yeast to flocculate out of a finished product?

 

[Yooper]

A protein haze or a starch haze may never settle out- but a yeast haze should. Hops haze won't settle, either, but it's not murky.

Gelatin works with all negatively charged hazes- like yeast. I'm not sure it will clear out positively charged protein haze. But I have never used it, and I have no experience with it. Others have used it with good results to remove chill haze (which is protein based).

 

[BadWolfBrewing]

So, clearly the answer is then to put two electrodes in a glass of beer, attached to either side of a 9v battery . See which electrode collects stuff...

I don't think it is yeast, and the iodine didn't turn purple. It didn't vanish like it usually does, though, just stayed cloudy and orange.

 

[Yooper]

Wow- it sure is murky, isn't it?

I'm thinking that it has to be a starch haze from incomplete conversion, but it is possible that it's a protein haze if you didn't get a great hot break.

Do you happen to check mash pH?

I'm stumped, especially as it's been chilled for a month if I read your post correctly.

 

[BadWolfBrewing]

Didn't check ph, though perhaps I should next time. Wouldn't the iodine turn purple if it was starch?

A cup sitting put for 24 hours isn't clearing up, so there goes that test.

Would excess extraction lead to this problem? Like I said, I sparged the crap out of it, and by the time I though to check it was 1.006, which is pretty low.

I'll try a small amount of bloomed gelatin in my test glass, to see what happens.

 

[BadWolfBrewing]

Brewed again, this time a fairly big IPA. I did a 90m mash and tried whirlfloc.

After transferring from the no-chill vessel to the fermenter, it seems like there is a HUGE difference already. And for those that say that you don't get a cold-break from no-chill are nuts. I had a huge amount of break material. I leave most of the hop sludge and hot break in the kettle, so it must be the whirlfloc doing its job. The bitter wort was already much clearer than the previous beer, so fingers crossed.

I also set a new PR for least sanitary transfer ever. I don't have O2 setup yet, so I figured I'd just dump as violently as possible into the fermenter. Things got away from me a little though. Made a mess, wort foamed all over. I pitched a HUGELY active cal-ale yeast starter, though, so I'm not too worried about infection.