Chill haze

[trussyd]

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.

 

[Mr B]

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

Kegging or bottling?

Could it be yeast?

 

[MastersBrewery]

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

 

[MHB]

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

 

[Judanero]

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?

 

[dr K]

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

 

[Bribie G]

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.

 

[SBOB]

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?

 

[gezzanet]

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

 

[Brewman_]

I normally stir it into the whirlpool as a slurry.

 

[good4whatAlesU]

Isinglass?.. Is it available?

 

[dr K]

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

 

[MHB]

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

 

[Beamer]

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.

 

[Bribie G]

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.

 

[trussyd]

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?

 

[MHB]

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

 

[Wall]

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.

 

[manticle]

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.

 

[Bribie G]

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.