AG brews not clearing

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MagnusTS

MagnusTS

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Hello,

I'm new to the AG side of things and have done 5 AG brews in the Grainfather so far. They have all been very nice, but none of them have cleared.

I'm not very patient with my brews, but these have had 2 weeks carbonation and up to about 5 weeks conditioning, and still no sign of clearing. My kit brews come out crystal clear, sometimes even before the 2 weeks carbonation is up.

The beer looks hazy rather than yeasty, and I think I read somewhere about protein haze - could this be the problem?

It's not the end of the world or anything, and the beers are all perfectly drinkable, but if anyone had any tips to getting clearer beer I'd be happy to hear them, thanks.

For info: I brew in the GF using a standard 1hr mash, 10 min mash out, 1hr boil. I add a protofloc 10 mins before end of boil. The brews have been various ingredient recipe packs from the home-brew shops.

Cheers.
 
Are the bottles clear or hazy at ambient temps - say 18-20°C, or just once chilled in the fridge ?
 
Are you using the CF chiller to pump into a FV or back into the GF when chilling? Also what temp are you mashing at and are you doing any steps with it? I don't use protofloc but any instructions I've seen seem to say that it should be added for 15 mins boiling not 10, maybe try 15mins next time and see if there is any difference.

It may just be down to small tweaks needed thru your process rather than 1 glaringly obvious mistake, hazy when chilled suggests excessive protein not being eliminated, hazy at room temp could be over carbed sediment heavy beer which when opened fires the sediment back up thru itself.
 
chewie said:
Are you using the CF chiller to pump into a FV or back into the GF when chilling? Also what temp are you mashing at and are you doing any steps with it? I don't use protofloc but any instructions I've seen seem to say that it should be added for 15 mins boiling not 10, maybe try 15mins next time and see if there is any difference.

It may just be down to small tweaks needed thru your process rather than 1 glaringly obvious mistake, hazy when chilled suggests excessive protein not being eliminated, hazy at room temp could be over carbed sediment heavy beer which when opened fires the sediment back up thru itself.
Click to expand...

Thanks Chewie,

I start the chilling back into the GF, but only for a minute until I have fiddled with the cold water flow and the wort flow to get a 22C (ish) outflow. Then I pump to the FV. Should I pump straight to FV and do my temp fiddling as the wort runs into the FV?

I mash at 65C for 60 mins and do a 75C mashout.

The beers are hazy at ambient, and yes I do like to carb them up for a nice fizz.

Thanks folks, definitely given me something to think about. Maybe protfloc in at 15 rather than 10 mins, and cut down on the priming sugar. Maybe gelatine to clear the brew. I'll have a go a doing some tweaking.
 
You should pump the wort through the chiller back in to the GF for a couple of minutes to sterilize it, dont run the cold water tho.
If you're bottling then finnings such as isinglass or gelatin are a bad idea as you'l take out too much yeast for the beer to condition later.
You could try crash cooling, give the beer a few weeks in the bottle then transfer to a fridge and get it to about 1C-2C for a week, Then serve at your normal temp.
 
Pawlo7671 said:
You should pump the wort through the chiller back in to the GF for a couple of minutes to sterilize it, dont run the cold water tho.
If you're bottling then finnings such as isinglass or gelatin are a bad idea as you'l take out too much yeast for the beer to condition later.
You could try crash cooling, give the beer a few weeks in the bottle then transfer to a fridge and get it to about 1C-2C for a week, Then serve at your normal temp.
Click to expand...

I have just done exactly this, and the beer will be two weeks conditioning in the bottle this weekend. So I will open a bottle Saturday and let you know how well it has carbed.
I have a feeling it will be fine because I had some cider that was 6 months in the secondary and crystal clear when bottled. It still carbed up in under two weeks.
 
Stick them on a shelf at the back of the garage and forget them.

They will clear eventually. The fact that your desired timing and "eventually" don't particularly coincide is of no consequence to the beer; it will just carry on doing it's own thing.

Look on the bright side - the beer won't come to any harm and it will taste a lot better in two or three months time, even it it still hasn't cleared! :thumb:
 
Dutto said:
Stick them on a shelf at the back of the garage and forget them.

They will clear eventually. The fact that your desired timing and "eventually" don't particularly coincide is of no consequence to the beer; it will just carry on doing it's own thing.

Look on the bright side - the beer won't come to any harm and it will taste a lot better in two or three months time, even it it still hasn't cleared! :thumb:
Click to expand...

Just depends on what your brewing Dutto, some beers may improve in clarity over time but will loose their hop profile, not a good thing if your in to brewdog style beers.
 
I'm not sure they will clear eventually if it's a protein haze, and since he's brewed with the extremely flocculent WLP002 it's not likely to be the yeast. Another place to look is the water you're using. I've intentionally brewed with a high chloride/sulphate ratio, high pH combination in an attempt to get a lasting haze and it worked. If you're doing this by accident then it could be a contributor to your haze.
 
MagnusTS said:
Hello,

I'm new to the AG side of things and have done 5 AG brews in the Grainfather so far. They have all been very nice, but none of them have cleared.

I'm not very patient with my brews, but these have had 2 weeks carbonation and up to about 5 weeks conditioning, and still no sign of clearing. My kit brews come out crystal clear, sometimes even before the 2 weeks carbonation is up.

The beer looks hazy rather than yeasty, and I think I read somewhere about protein haze - could this be the problem?

It's not the end of the world or anything, and the beers are all perfectly drinkable, but if anyone had any tips to getting clearer beer I'd be happy to hear them, thanks.

For info: I brew in the GF using a standard 1hr mash, 10 min mash out, 1hr boil. I add a protofloc 10 mins before end of boil. The brews have been various ingredient recipe packs from the home-brew shops.

Cheers.
Click to expand...

Hi Chewie

Stick us up a sample recipe, if you could, mate.

I suspect you may have a "hop haze" from shoving dry hops in slightly enthusiastically?

This kind of haze may just have nowhere to go, given the timescales referred to by the previous contributors.
 
I was getting very cloudy beers at the start when using the grainfather. I have started adding 5g irish moss 10 mins from end of boil and bought a couple of old fridges to control fermentation temp. I now cold crash for about 4 days at 2 C and am getting lovely clear beers now :-)
 
Slid said:
Hi Chewie

Stick us up a sample recipe, if you could, mate.

I suspect you may have a "hop haze" from shoving dry hops in slightly enthusiastically?

This kind of haze may just have nowhere to go, given the timescales referred to by the previous contributors.
Click to expand...

You might be on to something. I am quite enthusiastic with the dry hopping. One of the brews was the Brewdog Hop Fiction recipe with about 180g of dry hops. Also done the Punk IPA recipe kit. My latest is the HBC Apollo recipe pack. I've no idea about the ratios of Apollo and Columbus hops, but here's the recipe (roughly - just from weighing the kit ingredients):

6.1Kg grain
16g hops 60 min
55g hops 15 mins
62g hops hop stand 20min
33g hops dry hop

Not sure that will be specific enough to be any use to you, sorry. But I guess it shows that like all my brews it is fairly hop heavy at end of boil and dry hopping.
 
xozzx said:
I was getting very cloudy beers at the start when using the grainfather. I have started adding 5g irish moss 10 mins from end of boil and bought a couple of old fridges to control fermentation temp. I now cold crash for about 4 days at 2 C and am getting lovely clear beers now :-)
Click to expand...

Thanks for this. Good to know I am not alone with my cloudy beer problems.

I might try Irish moss instead of whirlifloc, see if it helps. Don't think I can do anything about fermentation temp at the moment though.

How do you do your cold crash? Do you mean you cold crash your FV for 4 days before bottling, or do you cold crash your bottled beer (after carbonation?)?
 
MagnusTS said:
Thanks for this. Good to know I am not alone with my cloudy beer problems.

I might try Irish moss instead of whirlifloc, see if it helps. Don't think I can do anything about fermentation temp at the moment though.

How do you do your cold crash? Do you mean you cold crash your FV for 4 days before bottling, or do you cold crash your bottled beer (after carbonation?)?
Click to expand...

I cold crash the FV before bottling. I have a couple of SS brewtech brewbuckets which works great as I can insert the temp probe from my inkbird into the thermowell to have much better control of temperature. After fermentation is complete I reduce the temp on the inkbird to 2 which usually takes about 1 day for the beer to reach this temp, then after about 4 days I will bottle and put these on the shelf in the utility room which generally stays around 20C. I keep them here at least 2 weeks then into another fridge ready for drinking.

My previous beer was a simple citra IPA and this was my first try with Irish moss, it came out amazingly clear, later Ill get a pic. Although this was the clearest beer Ive made yet it also did not have any dry hops which could have been a big factor in this.
 
MagnusTS said:
You might be on to something. I am quite enthusiastic with the dry hopping. One of the brews was the Brewdog Hop Fiction recipe with about 180g of dry hops. Also done the Punk IPA recipe kit. My latest is the HBC Apollo recipe pack. I've no idea about the ratios of Apollo and Columbus hops, but here's the recipe (roughly - just from weighing the kit ingredients):

6.1Kg grain
16g hops 60 min
55g hops 15 mins
62g hops hop stand 20min
33g hops dry hop

Not sure that will be specific enough to be any use to you, sorry. But I guess it shows that like all my brews it is fairly hop heavy at end of boil and dry hopping.
Click to expand...

This level of dry hopping does not look like the main issue to me. So my suggestion may be a Red Herring, as it were.
 
Slid said:
This level of dry hopping does not look like the main issue to me. So my suggestion may be a Red Herring, as it were.
Click to expand...

That's a shame. I thought you might be on to an easy solution for me.

Here is the HBC Apollo after 2 weeks carbonation at room temp, and 2 weeks conditioning at shed temperature (although it is a little hard to capture the haziness in a photo).

Maybe I'll stick a few bottles in the fridge for a week or so and see if that improves clarity.

IMG_3279.jpg
 

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