# Chill haze



## trussyd (10/6/16)

I was originally going to post this in the “Whirlfloc and then what?” (http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/91101-whirlfloc-and-what-then/page-3#entry1378649) thread but as I was writing it it took on a life of it's own so I'm starting a new thread. 

I've been AG for three or four years now, doing about 30-40 brews in total I'd guess. In all that time I don't think I've ever had a brew that hasn't been chill hazed and I'm getting the shits with it. I had been reading the thread mentioned above with interest and now have a few questions.

Firstly, a few notes about my system: I do a nominal 25L batch, no chill using whirlfloc in the last 5min of the boil. After flame-out I let the convection currents calm down then whirlpool before racking to two cubes. The main cube is usually about 20-22L then what's left, hops, trub, wort and all, goes into a secondary "cube" (usually an empty milk bottle). The trub material sediments out as it cools and I'm usually left with about 2L of clear wort to use as a starter. I then ferment, cold crash and bottle. I have tried using polyclar in the past but haven't noticed a difference in the presence of chill haze so I haven't been bothered with it of late.

My understanding of whilrfloc is that it is, as the name suggests, a flocculant which causes the hot break proteins to clump together and drop out of solution. Is this correct?

Would there be any adverse effect on the wort in the secondary cube being in contact with the hot break while it's cooling? Usually only overnight but occasionally I don’t get around to starting my starter for a couple of days. (No trub actually makes it into the starter)

Do I need to be worried about cold break? I assume most (all) no-chillers pour the cold break into the fermenter.

How fiddly is Polyclar? I note that you're supposed to agitate it for 60 minutes before use. Not having a stirplate the longest I've managed to stir it for has been about 10min. (That was an exceptional case, usually closer to 3-5 minutes). I've not used finings with it. Is that required to get it to drop out of solution?

From what I've read about brewbrite it seems to be more or less the same stuff as ployclar but added into the kettle rather than the maturation vessel. Is that right? How does that work?

Finally and slightly OT but does anyone else do the "secondary cube" thing? To me it seems like an obvious way to cut down dead space in the kettle to almost zero. (and I'm all for any idea that gives me more beer for the same amount of work!)

Any other thoughts, tips or suggestions are welcome.


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## Mr B (10/6/16)

Maybe first up, is it chill haze, how long do you let them settle?

Kegging or bottling?

Could it be yeast?


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## MastersBrewery (10/6/16)

Replace whirfloc with brewbright and the beer gods will grant your wish of clear beer.


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## MHB (10/6/16)

BrewBright contains the active ingredients from Irish Moss as does Whirlfloc and the PVPP that is found in Polyclar.
PVPP is a plastic and as such can be engineered in different ways, most of the Polyclar sold in home brew shops is actually made for wine making rather than brewing. PVPP in BrewBright is designed for use in brewing and only needs a 10 minute rehydration in cold water, just make a slurry let it rest for 10 minutes then stir it up and tip in in. I find that adding it to the whirlpool works best, saves bashing up the flock with a spoon.

Irish Moss is a seaweed and it contains a bunch of really complex sugars called Carrageenan's there are lots of them, Irish moss works, Whirlfloc contains refined Irish Moss and a dispersant and works better, BrewBright contains the most effective of the carrageenan's called Kappa Carrageenan and works best of all.

Now for the bad news, there is no magic bullet that makes Haze go away, the above helps but everything from your choice of ingredients, your mash profile and the length and quality of your boil, even your water chemistry all impact on how much haze you will get. As does the temperature you store your beer at.
For Ales if you don't have them too cool they wont haze, or you can Lager them cold enough for long enough then rack to a keg.

I have somewhere to be, so keeping this brief good basic brewing practice without cutting corners will make better beer with less haze!
Mark


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## Judanero (10/6/16)

How hard are you boiling? Aim for a pretty aggressive boil for about ten minutes once you see hot break forming-I'm not at home at the moment but there's an article on the function of boiling wort that is a good read, I'll attach it when I get home.

I whirlpool for couple minutes as soon as I stop boiling, put the lid on, put the kettles insulation jacket on and let it sit for ~ 30 mins or so, nice trub cone every time.

I also run off into a milk container but allow for it and leave the trub behind I don't add it to the milk container.

I use brew brite, I add it a couple minutes before flame out and it's awesome, whirfloc should still be working though.

Is it definitely chill haze? I.e- the beer is clear at room temp?


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## dr K (10/6/16)

I am not going to comment on techniques.
Here is a nearly 20 year old snip from BYO which is helpful in understanding chill haze.
http://byo.com/malt/item/486-conquer-chill-haze

K


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## Bribie G (10/6/16)

Pretty good information but their assertion that no-chilled beers will _always _have a chill haze is bullshit. Shades of Palmer.





Second in Pale Lagers Nats 2013.. seen here with its balls chilled off.

ed: as you can make out I had to wipe the frosting off the glass to get a good shot.

ed: to OP, that was no chilled but with a good dose of BrewBright (from Brewman, no affiliation) in the kettle at end of boil.


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## SBOB (10/6/16)

MHB said:


> BrewBright is designed for use in brewing and only needs a 10 minute rehydration in cold water, just make a slurry let it rest for 10 minutes then stir it up and tip in in. I find that adding it to the whirlpool works best, saves bashing up the flock with a spoon.


so rather than adding with ~10min to go in the boil, you suggest adding after flameout?


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## gezzanet (10/6/16)

SBOB said:


> so rather than adding with ~10min to go in the boil, you suggest adding after flameout?


Interested in this also. I have been adding it at 10 min before end of boil. 
.......and beating it to death with a spoon during whirlpool


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## Brewman_ (10/6/16)

I normally stir it into the whirlpool as a slurry.


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## good4whatAlesU (10/6/16)

Isinglass?.. Is it available?


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## dr K (10/6/16)

Pretty good information but their assertion that no-chilled beers will _always _have a chill haze is bullshit. Shades of Palmer.

Which is a bit like asserting that fast chilled beers beers will _never_ have have a chill haze (demonstrable bull-shit).
It is like saying that the only reason to fast chill is to avoid chill haze.
The snip I posted actually mentioned more than speed of chilling, I feel that it is important to look at all aspects rather than single one out

K


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## MHB (10/6/16)

It is a pretty old article, as mentioned. I think a few things have changed since it was written, Papain and Bentonite are very much out of vogue, one for the head damage and the other for its ability to strip hops out of beer.
Totally agree that the whole brewing process has to be treated as an integrated whole - pretty much covered that above.

On cold break, from what I have been able to work out (including a couple of attempts to measure it) you get the same amount whether you chill fast or slow. The faster you chill, the bigger the flock and the better it settles, it is more apparent. Slow cooling gave the same amount, but it was finer and slower to settle (days) and it's very easy to disturb it. Have wondered how it would respond to a fining agent, perhaps gelatine or isinglass - something to play with some time.

Mark


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## Beamer (10/6/16)

Not sure if this helps but I use delta floc, which I'm sure is similar to whirfloc tabs,but I add mine about ten minutes before you at the 15 min mark.

I also no chill and add gelatin to keg, I have no problems with clarity.


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## Bribie G (11/6/16)

On reflection, "bullshit" was harsh.
Probably more accurate to say that 20 years ago, based on a much smaller evidence base than nowadays at a time when all grain home brewing was a fraction of what it is nowadays, certain things made perfect sense, so why dispute them. In the case of chill haze, authors such as Palmer made a good case for rapid chilling to shock cold break out of the brew ... as we knew then cold break is the precursor of chill haze, end of story.

Since then, all grain home brewing has boomed and nerds and geeks including myself have tried all sorts of experiments to check what works and what doesn't - for example two beers from the same batch of wort, one fermented with wort containing no cold break and the other fermented with the rest of the wort including the entire cold break, and there was heaps of it.




However, although I have no chilled since 2008 I'm open to all suggestions. I'm currently undertaking a sequence of traditionally brewed lagers for this year's comp season and in the case of the Euro brews I'm following Braukaiser's schedule, including a copper coil chill with ice, and extended lagering to remove any hazes.

Will be interested to see results.


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## trussyd (12/6/16)

In response to a number of comments, it is definitely chill haze. It's only cloudy when cold.

My boils aren't that vigorous. I've only got an electric urn which struggles a bit to keep a hard boil. I'm planning on going gas soon so will be able to give it a bit more power.

Does adding Brewbright at flameout take out the same tannins, proteins ect as adding polyclar to the secondary fermenter? My understanding was that polyclar was able to react with / adhere to these impurities as they had been precipitated out of solution by crash chilling. Would they not all be dissolved and thus unavailable to the Brewbright at flameout?


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## MHB (12/6/16)

If you aren't getting a good boil, boil longer. Same result, you should be getting close to 10% evaporation over the boil, if that takes 60 or 120 minutes so be it.

BrewBright contains two active ingredients, one is the same as the active part of Irish moss/Whirlfloc, but arguably more refined for effectiveness. The other part is PVPP which is what Polyclar is made from, but it's engineered to work in the kettle rather than the fermenter. Yes it chemically binds Tannins that will otherwise contribute to haze.

There are also fermenter versions made by the people that make BrewBright (called 70/30), it contains PVPP and Silica Hydro Gel (similar to the drying agent but a bit different) the silica is designed to bind the protein that forms haze so it tackles both sides of the chill haze formation equation.

BrewBright works better than anything else I have used, but it isn't perfect. there are also a lot of variables and I doubt you would want or be able to eliminate all of the proteins and tannins in the hot wort, the idea being to get them to manageable concentrations.
You may need to have a long hard look at your milling and mashing processes and see if you can make some improvements that will reduce both Protein and Tannin, better not to have a problem than to try and fix it.
Mark


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## Wall (14/6/16)

trussyd said:


> Does adding Brewbright at flameout take out the same tannins, proteins ect as adding polyclar to the secondary fermenter? My understanding was that polyclar was able to react with / adhere to these impurities as they had been precipitated out of solution by crash chilling. Would they not all be dissolved and thus unavailable to the Brewbright at flameout?


You mention tannins, I struggle to get my water Ph. down. Have found that if I'm sparging with untreated water (using only that mash stabiliser additive stuff as I've run out of donated RO water) or using my tap water treated with Ph stabiliser for the whole brew then I get chill haze.
Have put it down to pulling tannins below the taste threshold but enough to give me a slight haze that takes a long time to condition out if at all.
Really need to get my own RO and filtration system for this horrible perth water.
This is purely my guesswork based on observation, suspect that it may be shot out of the water by sciences.

Edited because even with an English degree is still can't spell.


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## manticle (14/6/16)

Try acidifying the sparge water, wall.
Or pre-boil, allow to settle, decant from any impurities, then acidify.
pH stabiliser (you mean 5.2 from fivestar?) isn't really going to help.

RO is a good idea though.


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## Bribie G (15/6/16)

trussyd said:


> In response to a number of comments, it is definitely chill haze. It's only cloudy when cold.
> 
> My boils aren't that vigorous. I've only got an electric urn which struggles a bit to keep a hard boil. I'm planning on going gas soon so will be able to give it a bit more power.
> 
> Does adding Brewbright at flameout take out the same tannins, proteins ect as adding polyclar to the secondary fermenter? My understanding was that polyclar was able to react with / adhere to these impurities as they had been precipitated out of solution by crash chilling. Would they not all be dissolved and thus unavailable to the Brewbright at flameout?


A good method of getting a better boil with an urn is to use a grain bag (not BIAB bag) as sold by Craftbrewer etc, peg it round the top of the urn and use it as a swimming pool for your hops. I find that this keeps the boil going harder than when it's exposed to the cold air. It also reduces hop trub considerably, and traps most of the material from pellets - not just flowers.


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## MHB (15/6/16)

Just wrapping an old towel around the urn will do wonders for your boil.
I really don't like hop bags of any sort, they do reduce your utilisation (measurably), hop pellets don't cause any problems in that they whirlpool well.
It isn't the hop debris that is an issue but the break material at least if you have hops mixed with it, it makes it a lot easier to tell how much you should be leaving in the kettle.
Having less hop debris/trub encourages people to think they can get more out of the kettle than they should, at the cost of beer quality.
Mark


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## Wall (16/6/16)

manticle said:


> Try acidifying the sparge water, wall.
> Or pre-boil, allow to settle, decant from any impurities, then acidify.
> pH stabiliser (you mean 5.2 from fivestar?) isn't really going to help.
> 
> RO is a good idea though.


Yeah I've as good as given up on 5.2, got given half a tub. Played with it for a while it but it doesn't seem to achieve much.
I'm going to try the pre boil idea though, see if I can get anything out / drop the ph.
Will read up on how best to acidify.

Proper water control is my next hurdle.
And I've hijacked a thread so I'll stop now.


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## Rocker1986 (16/6/16)

Interesting that the Polyclar didn't do anything, it works bloody well every time I use it. I'm doing BIAB and no-chill as well, although I don't save the kettle trub for anything. I mix it up in hot water and stir it for an hour or so on the stir plate, then use a sanitised spoon to very gently stir the beer in the FV to get it moving a little, re-stir the Polyclar with the spoon and tip it in. It gets a good even coverage and then it's kegged a few days later. They are treated with isinglass prior as well just to get a bit more yeast to drop out but I believe this also aids in dropping out some haze forming particles as well.

This beer was a Centennial/MO ale, it had a bit of yeast haze when I first tapped the keg as is normal for me, but once that dropped out it was clear as anything.







And a Bo Pils that received the same treatment,


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## MHB (16/6/16)

I don't think anyone said Polyclar doesn't work, it does and if used properly works very well.
Wall did mention that he found 5.2 less than perfect, which I think is fairly widely agreed with, not at all related to PVPP.

I think there is a lot of misunderstanding about what chill haze is and how we combat it.
Chill haze is a temporary association of Tannins (more properly Polyphenols) most of which are extracted from malt husks. If Chill or temporary haze forms and then warms up, disassociates is then cooled and reforms... you will end up with permanent haze. Basically permanent haze has the same chemistry as temporary haze but doesn't go away.
Remember that Polyphenols are a family of chemicals and there are lots of different Polyphenols, there are also lots of different Proteins, some proteins will under certain conditions combine with some tannins and form a haze particle.

Clearly the more of the tannins and proteins that engage in haze formation there in the beer the more haze forms and generally the more likely/easy it is to form and the more likely the formation of permanent haze.

You do not need any chemicals to combat haze, we use kettle finings Irish Moss, Whirlfloc Isinglass, Gelatin, BrewBright* and process aids like PVPP, Silica... (these are not fining agents) to speed up the processes that will happen naturally if you are patient enough. * BrewBright contains both a fining and a process aid.

Reducing the amount of haze forming agents in the beer will result in less haze.

Tannins - Milling finer makes tannins more available. Higher pH will extract more tannins. Over sparging will also extract more.
Proteins - The total amount of soluble protein is fairly well determined by the malt, all we can do by controlling the mash temperature and pH is control the size of the protein. Long protein rests will make for more smaller protein, this will degrade desirable head forming proteins and is generally not recommended in modern brewing with well modified malt. Boiling preferentially removes higher Molecular Weight (MW) protein, but all protein is to some extent reduced by boiling, so longer more vigorous boils reduce protein, my default boil is 90 minutes, longer for high gravity (will also have more protein)
In the kettle
Longer, better boils cause more protein to coagulate, adding Carrageenan (the active ingredient in Irish Moss) in the form of Irish Moss, Whirlfloc, Delta Flock BrewBright will help the coagulated protein clump and fall to the bottom.

Not leaving it in the bottom of the kettle undoes to some extent the benefits of boiling (getting high MW protein out of solution). This sediment is called Hot Break. It can't really be filtered, sieved or trapped on a stocking, with very few exceptions even big brewers leave it in the kettle/whirlpool
PVPP (as contained in BrewBright) chemically binds the tannins that form haze. Adding the PVPP engineered for low temperature (in fermenter) like Polyclar to the kettle wont help you, the PVPP in BrewBright is very effective at boiling temperatures.
The dosing of all fining/process aids is critical. too much can cause light fluffy trub that is hard to separate from the wort causing increased waste of good beer (=bad). Not enough and the trub settles very slowly and in the case of BrewBright not enough of the tannins are removed to reduce or eliminate haze.
There has to be some protein in the wort for head building, mouthfeel and as a yeast nutrient, with a good boil and effective trub separation, add to this the fact that the types of barley used for brewing are specifically breed for brewing and are going to give the best possible combination of proteins and starches... for brewing. The protein that doesn't coagulate and the protein that forms cold break will provide all that the beer needs. there is some discussion about removing cold break, if I were using 6-row malt with its higher protein content then yes it would be a matter for concern, as it isn't available in Australia (nor pretty much anywhere outside the US) I don't really get too concerned about cold break.
That said if I were brewing an extremely pale light bodied (lawn mower) beer or a very delicate Kölsch I might try to eliminate/reduce the clod break.

After fermentation, if the beer is chilled and there are enough residual haze forming agents - Haze will form.

Storing the beer long enough and cold enough and these haze particles will fall out, this is often called lagering or chill proofing. It is critical that the beer not warm up or the haze will go back into solution, racking the beer off the haze means it can be packaged in kegs or bottles, allowed to warm back up and then chilled again with little or no haze formation - as what forms haze is gone.
Isinglass will accelerate the precipitation of haze particles and yeast, Gelatine wont act on haze, tho it may help yeast to sediment
PVPP (as is in Polyclar) will chemically bind residual polyphenols, 70/30 (from the makers of BrewBright) is a combination of PVPP and Silica the silica attaches it self to the key MW proteins and the PVPP to tannins as previously so it is attacking both sides of the problem.
You can make perfectly clear chill proof beer without any of the finings/aids but it is a long demanding process. The finings and process aids make it easier to achieve commercial quality beer. If you are going to apply them read up on the products and use them properly.
Personally I find few beers really need zero haze, It's nice to know how, but I suspect far from necessary in home brewing. Over my life I would have drunk more Coopers than all other beers added together - so I'm not drinking with my eyes.
Mark

Further reading
View attachment 01_-_Beer_Stabilisation_part_11.pdf

View attachment 04 - Beer stabilisation part 21.pdf

View attachment 02_-_The_function_of_wort_boiling11.pdf


The learning resources at the IBD are very good basic introduction to many aspects of brewing - they are *FREE!*
And we haven't evened mentioned filtering...
M


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## Rocker1986 (16/6/16)

The OP did mention using Polyclar in the past and not noticing a difference. Maybe it was permanent haze?

Anyway, interesting reading there. I'll have to come back and read those PDFs later as I'm about to go back to work, but always interested to learn about these things and the science behind them.


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## trussyd (16/6/16)

Big thanks for all the responses, especially to MHB. Plenty of good info there and ways to imporve my processes!


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## stewy (16/6/16)

Bribie G said:


> Pretty good information but their assertion that no-chilled beers will _always _have a chill haze is bullshit. Shades of Palmer.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Don't quote me on this but I may recall an episode of Brewstrong where Palmer retracted that claim around no chill?


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## Lindsay Dive (21/7/16)

This is a real interesting subject.

For what is worth I thought I would let you know of something that I experienced a short time ago.

I have been kegging now for quite a number of years (closer to decades) and I brew mostly Lagers. I have very bright beers with absolutely no chill haze whatsoever.

About six months ago when I was kegging some beer, I thought I would bottle a few and see how they turned out. I think I bottled about four 750ml bottles. I primed them with dextrose and left them on the floor in the garage and noticed how brilliantly clear they were after probably about a month. So, I then placed the bottles in my coolroom so I could get a couple into me. The next evening I went to the coolroom and bugger me these beers were as cloudy as what you would ever not want to see. So, I left them in the coolroom for probably two months or more and I then noticed during that time that they were gradually clearing up once again to be brilliantly clear.

The chemistry that goes on is very weird.


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## dr K (21/7/16)

sometimes, even with "commercial" beer I notice an increasing chill haze as the night wears on, I think it is a time thing..

K


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