Chill Haze

[jdsowden]

Hi everyone

I'm looking for a few tips to help me improve the chill haze I am seeing in my homebrew.

This is my brew process:
* Grain brew; main malt is maris otter pale malt, plus a little bit (30g) of chocolate malt
* Mash for 90 minutes at single temperature (66-67C)
* Mash out to bring grain to 76C
* Fly sparge at 76C over ~40 minutes (efficiency ~80%)
* Good boil for 90 minutes - leave foam in the wort, loose hops
* Irish moss (non-hydrated) added for last 10-15 mins
* Immersion chilled. 100 - 25C in 10 minutes
* Wort transferred to fermenting bin through copper pipe in bottom of kettle with holes in. Wort passed through a hop bag to remove trub etc
* Primary ferment for 7 days
* Secondary ferment for 14 days
* Bottle conditioned

The bear is very clear in the bottle, but once in the fridge, cloudy. Does anyone have any ideas for (1) removing the source of the haze in my brew process and/or (2) removing the haze once the proteins etc are (regrettably) in the beer.

Cheers!

John

 

[Ren]

Gelatine might help and cold conditioning for 2 weeks after carbonation has finished.

 

[Cactus Jack]

Agree cold conditioning. Some may take quite a while. I moved most of my beers to the garage over winter. While clear indoors they soon displayed chill haze in the coldness of the garage. However over time they all cleared, no more chill haze. Some were quicker than others. :

 

[kev]

You need to get a sufficient break (both hot and cold) in your boiler then you need to remove this break.

If you do that, you won't have chill haze.

K

 

[Dr Mike]

You might want to try using Protofloc or Whirfloc instead of 'straight' Irish Moss. I might be miss-remembering this but I'm not sure it is that effective if not rehydrated.

 

[jdsowden]

Thanks guys. I'm actually experimenting with a few bottles left in the fridge for a while. Also added gelatine to one of them.

Kev, any recommendations for getting improving the hot and cold break? I boil vigorously, add irish moss and chill quickly (based on what I've read). The only way to chill quicker would be counterflow, but the opinion of whether this will improve cold break is limited based on what I have read.

 

[PaulCa]

http://www.youngshomebrew.co.uk/QA%20my ... 20page.htm

Can't say it's true, but it's interesting.

 

[kev]

I wouldn't expect tannins to be added to commercial beer. I think you'll find that is ultra-filtered to remove these proteins.

K

 

[Aleman]

I wouldn't expect tannins to be added to commercial beer.

That 'article' is somewhat simplified. . . .to the point at which any resemblance to accuracy is lost.

Some mega breweries do add tannins to the beer before crash chilling to force a chill haze, which is then filtered out.

chill haze may or may not be reversible as well, generally as long as you are not extracting tannins through over sparging, and you don't leave excessive amounts of low and medium molecular weight proteins (not just globulins) in the beer following the boil, then you should have a beer that does not throw a chill haze. However with time the likelihood of throwing a haze is increased due to the continuing redox reactions taking place over time. This is what I often refer to a 'stability', a stable beer will not change in clarity or flavour for some time in keg or bottle, and is an indication of good brewing practice throughout the entire process from mashing through fermentation to storage and bottling.

There are additives you can add to help reduce the likelihood of chill haze, Clarityferm is an endospecific enzyme that you can add to beer that 'modifies' the proteins preventing them from binding to the tannins and preventing the haze formation. Polyclar 730 Plus is another auxiliary fining consisting of PVPP which attracts tannins and silica gel which attracts proteins reducing the levels of these in the beer below that which is required to form a chill haze. Coupled with crash cooling and using a fining adjunct like gelatine or isinglass they are very effective, but should be considered another weapon in the brewers toolbox. You cant beat sparging with water below pH6.0, and no hotter than 78C . . . a vigorous boil with a good copper fining (protofloc/whirlfloc) . . . with good quality malt this is really all you should need to do to produce a beer with good stability.

 

[marksa222]

very well put Aleman.

I think I may have read somewhere about a mash rest which reduces the chances of haze? I wonder if this would have much affect on the modified grains most of us use?

I have not used finings before. Is isinglass added to the fv after fermentation?

I want to make a beer with no chill haze to share with friends (it tends to put off people who aren't involved in making it I find) so will follow these suggested steps;

*Sparge slowly, no higher than 78c
*use whirlfloc
*vigorous boil
*use good quality malt
*Use Isinglass or substitute in fv (I think)

look ok?

 

[Aleman]

Looks fine to me, You can do a protein rest at 55C but as you have said with todays well modified malts it's not really required. You then run into the issue of potentially removing head forming proteins . . . and the one thing you don't want is a lack of head :whistle: :whistle:

 

[marksa222]

Looks fine to me, You can do a protein rest at 55C but as you have said with todays well modified malts it's not really required. You then run into the issue of potentially removing head forming proteins . . . and the one thing you don't want is a lack of head :whistle: :whistle:

I'm a married man... had that problem for years

 

[NickW]

I do all that Aleman suggests without the need for fining at all. Crystal clear beer every time :thumb: