All-grain help!

[Sethanon]

Hey guys,

I really need some help here! I've moved to all grain brewing (made about 4 now) and for life of me I don't know what I'm doing wrong! My beers are coming out dirty mud water cloudy! The taste and smell is fine just super super cloudy!

I'm using a 20lt braumeister, immersion chiller with the hose running through an ice bath for extra quick chilling, then a single stage fermentation in a temperature controlled fridge. I am whirlpooling but at the moment it's just using a spoon. I'm also getting a fair amount of break material into my fermentor.

Any help would be most appreciated!

Cheers,

 

[Sethanon]

Attached is photos from 2 seperate brews

 

[dave_h]

Give it more time for everything to drop out, if you are brewing in a fridge then drop the temp after you are sure fermentation has dropped.

You could also use finnings if you want but time is your friend.

 

[MitchD]

Looks fine to me, ferment as normal and leave for a couple if weeks in the bottles to clear and carb up.
I had an APA with us-05 that looked like a whit mit hefehefe that eventually dropped crystal clear.

 

[klangers]

At which point along the brewing process are these samples from?

They look pretty normal to me; I found when I switched from extract to all grain that my beers were a touch more cloudy. Since I've been doing stepped mashes this has reduced, however.

 

[indica86]

Mine usually look like that post ferment.
Bottle and wait.

 

[dicko]

I have a 20 litre BM with an immersion chiller and after chilling I leave the wort to settle in the kettle anywhere from 1/2 an hour to 1 hour.
Once settled I draw off about 200mls of wort and discard and then I decant into a fermenter and when the kettle is nearly down to the tap outlet I carefully tip the BM toward the fermenter and place a block of wood under the back leg.
By doing this I generally get very clear wort into the fermenter and I usually leave approximately 2 to 3 litres in the kettle.
Some say it does not matter if the wort is cloudy or not, but IMO it DOES matter if you want a nice clear light colured pilsener without "off" flavours in the finished product.

 

[dicko]

Apology for the sideways beer but the software on this site can't cope with an IOS operating system.

 

[Dan Pratt]

Are you using Whirlfloc/brewbrite or Irish moss at the end of the boil?

 

[MastersBrewery]

a good cold crash usually sorts most cloudy issues, once ferment has finished drop the temp down to as close to 0c as you can once there, leave it for 3 or 4 days.

 

[dicko]

Are you using Whirlfloc/brewbrite or Irish moss at the end of the boil?

If you are asking me.......

I use Brewbrite and after ferment I cold crash at minus 2 degrees c for as long as I can wait.

 

[MastersBrewery]

If you are asking me.......

I use Brewbrite and after ferment I cold crash at minus 2 degrees c for as long as I can wait.

yeah tried that froze some beer Once I get a few bits done I'll try going down this far again but happy with my clarity. Note I keg so with in a week crystal clear anyways

 

[marksy]

A good boil, whirlpool and time is all you need.

The wort in glass is the from after filling the cube up, and the empty kettle after I filled the cube up (all hops and gunk are in the middle)

 

[dicko]

yeah tried that froze some beer Once I get a few bits done I'll try going down this far again but happy with my clarity. Note I keg so with in a week crystal clear anyways

Check your controller settings...because of the alcohol content beer should not freeze at -2deg c unless it is a very light beer as in a light beer

 

[crowmanz]

Whirlfloc and a cold crash always gets me clear enough.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

How good is the boil ?. You want a really good rolling boil as this will help drop out the proteins

Then let it sit in the kettle to let all those proteins drop to the bottom

 

[Sethanon]

Yea, I'm using BrewBright during boil. First photo is mid fermentation and second photo was completion of fermentation. I've never cold crashed but I'll give it a go this time around. Thanks heaps for the advice I was getting close to going back to partial mashes as that's the last time I got a clear beer! Haha

 

[Moad]

Just put gelatine in it when you cold crash if you are lazy like me, this is assuming you are bottling. I keg so I'll leave it for a few weeks after kegging and if it isn't dropping I'll gelatine it. I rarely need to these days but the odd one needs a helping hand, usually us-05 is the culprit.

 

[Danscraftbeer]

Just on the whirfloc tablet at last 15minutes of the boil. When I do a hydrometer of the wort prior to pitching yeast. After sitting for only an hour or so it is crystal clear wort in the test tube. Which just shows how good the Whirfloc really works. Whish I had a photo to show its quite incredible. Then when yeast is pitched its all cloudy again and through the ferment its mud. All tips mentioned will result in crystal crystal clear again. Also vorlauf well. Attack the cloudy problem from every angle.

 

[MastersBrewery]

When you start AG you really learn to be a patient brewer, I work on a minimum grain to brain of 3 weeks, add 4 weeks if bottling, and probably a week to mature and lose that young background taste.