Clarity Issues

[dinosaw]

I have just started all grain brewing and am having trouble getting my beer to clear.

Have done about 3 all grains and every one has the same issue , bottle the beer and wait but the beer does not clear.
I have had some bottles for over 3 months and they are still cloudy. Have tried storing the bottles in a fridge for a couple of weeks but this did not work, Have tried filtering but this did not work. The beer is cloudy no matter if it is cold or not.

A mate said it is probably Protein another suggested racking to a secondary and leaving for another week.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated


Deano

 

[Steve]

Have you tried whirlfloc, polyclar or gelatine Deano before filtering?
Cheers
Steve

 

[dinosaw]

Tried Irish moss - made it a little better but still cloudy.

 

[reVoxAHB]

Try a crushed tablet of irish moss 15 minutes before the end of your boil, to encourage protein coagulation (cold break).

Are you chilling? And how? Any sort of filtering as you go into the fermenter?

Cold conditioning in secondary will also help.

reVox

edit: missed your reply of, "Tried Irish moss - made it a little better but still cloudy." by 2 mins. Other questions still applicable.

 

[bconnery]

I have just started all grain brewing and am having trouble getting my beer to clear.

Have done about 3 all grains and every one has the same issue , bottle the beer and wait but the beer does not clear.
I have had some bottles for over 3 months and they are still cloudy. Have tried storing the bottles in a fridge for a couple of weeks but this did not work, Have tried filtering but this did not work. The beer is cloudy no matter if it is cold or not.

A mate said it is probably Protein another suggested racking to a secondary and leaving for another week.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated


Deano

A few suggestions...
1. A good boil prior to adding the hops, 10-30 minutes of rolling boil before starting the "boil" for hop and recipe purposes
2. Kettle finings such as whirfloc or others. With a good whirlpool and allowing it to settle.
How useful this is will depend on kettle setup etc.
3. Finings in the fermenter. Various options there. A finings product or else gelatine.
Add after the bulk of fermentation is complete, such as when racking to secondary, and allow time for them to settle out.

There are many things that it could be but those things would help.
I was having clarity issues recently and I now follow those above steps and am getting brilliantly clear beers...

 

[jimmy01]

I have just started all grain brewing and am having trouble getting my beer to clear.

Have done about 3 all grains and every one has the same issue , bottle the beer and wait but the beer does not clear.
I have had some bottles for over 3 months and they are still cloudy. Have tried storing the bottles in a fridge for a couple of weeks but this did not work, Have tried filtering but this did not work. The beer is cloudy no matter if it is cold or not.

A mate said it is probably Protein another suggested racking to a secondary and leaving for another week.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated


Deano

Hi Deano

I have done about 30 AG's and still have clarity problems. I bottle and do not filter my beers. I don't have the cure yet but can suggest a few things that may help.

Things that I have tried that have not noticeably improved the clarity.
- returned to using a counter flow chiller
- ensuring boil is vigourous and 90 mins
- add kettle finings (Irish Moss or koppafloc)
- cold conditioning prior to bottling
- adding pH buffer to mash to lower mash pH to around 5.2

As your mate said it could be protein. Fining products such as Polyclar or Gelatine added to the secondary will help but in my experience they will not completely clear the beer. I have recently added a protein rest to my mash schedule. The first beer will be ready next week. Information on Protein Rests is often confusing. Most references suggest that it is not required for the well modified malts available in Oz. However, a few experienced brewers suggest that it still be carried out. If this helps my beers I will PM you and/or post to this thread

For info on Protein Rest have a read of John Palmers How to brew on the Web.
http://www.howtobrhttp:

Also this article //www.picobrewery.com/askarchive/proteinrest.htmlew.com/


As a matter of interest what is the head retention like in your beers? I find that the worse the clarity the worse the head retention.

Sorry I don't have a magic cure. From talking to other brewers I suspect that quite a few AG brewers have problems with clarity but either tolerate it or filter their beer which improves clarity.
Good luck. I will watch this thread with interest

Jimmy

 

[dinosaw]

Greatly appreciate the help and will try a couple of the steps listed and let you know how I go.

To try and aswer the question:

I cool my brew after boil by placing the kettle in a large tub containing ice - takes about 30 - 40 mins to bring 22-23 ltrs down to about 25 Degrees.
Dont whirlpool, dont realy have the setup to be able to - hopefuly in the future.
Tried to us a filter prior to fermentation but found it hard to keep the filter clean (one of those cloth style ones like a pool filter - any advice on keeping them clean would be great)
Have only been boiling for 60 mins and put the first of the hops in as soon as the boil starts (very vigorous boil though) - will try getting the boil up for a time before adding the hops.
Will look into the PH buffer and the protein rest.

I will let you know how I go.

Deano

 

[nifty]

Things that I have tried that have not noticeably improved the clarity.
- returned to using a counter flow chiller
- ensuring boil is vigourous and 90 mins
- add kettle finings (Irish Moss or koppafloc)
- cold conditioning prior to bottling
- adding pH buffer to mash to lower mash pH to around 5.2

As your mate said it could be protein. Fining products such as Polyclar or Gelatine added to the secondary will help but in my experience they will not completely clear the beer. I have recently added a protein rest to my mash schedule. The first beer will be ready next week. Information on Protein Rests is often confusing. Most references suggest that it is not required for the well modified malts available in Oz. However, a few experienced brewers suggest that it still be carried out. If this helps my beers I will PM you and/or post to this thread

I'm in the same boat as you Jimmy. I've tried all those things that you mentioned, except for the ph buffer. I've been playing with various water adjustments to get the ph right. My beers were still cloudy.

The last 2 brews were done with a protein rest at 52deg for 20 minutes. The first brew was a bit clearer, but not what I was hoping for. The second is still in the fermentor.

I've found Polyclar gives a sparkling clear brew, but I would like to try and get it clear without it.

nifty

 

[andreic]

I've had similar problems with clarity to varying degrees with all my AG brews. Doesn't really bother too much except with my Pilseners - I'd really like to get them clear. I've added in a protein rest for these beers (first pilsener with the rest is lagering away now).

I'm thinking of giving gelatine a go as well. I try and lager these beers for 6 weeks. If I put gelatine in secondary, do I chuck it in at the beginning of secondary/lagering?

 

[dr K]

Have a look at your mash regime.
For this purpose forget a protein rest, first question you have to ask yourself before even thinking about such a thing is why am I doing it? All of the base malts I use (Bairds, Weyermann and Barret and Burston) are well modified and will not benefit from a protein rest.
The sort of haze you are getting could be a starch haze, how do you get a starch haze?
Your mash may not have completely converted all the starches, there are many reasons for this but with todays malts its pretty hard not to achieve a high conversion, you can test by doing the old iodine test (google it if not familiar).
Another, and more common I believe reason is sparging at too high a temp (80 plus).
God luck, for good beer will come.

K

 

[matti]

All.
I am aware that it has been said before but John Palmer has got the process of making beer down pretty darn good.
if you want to know the reason why you should follow these processes to get clear beer Gregory Noonan will explain it in detail in "Brewing lager beer".
Basically mash temps and PH is essential and how you run it off succesfully to the kettle has got a 60% to do with if not more.
After that you can it easy to control the process with kettle-fining chilling and racking and finings.
All this without filtration.
Of cause nothing beat a tripple filtered beer for clarity....

'rry 4 any spellin'errors

 

[warrenlw63]

I have just started all grain brewing and am having trouble getting my beer to clear.

Deano

A point that has been touched upon in Dr K's post is unconverted starch. What I also did myself on my first few all grain batches is to not mash in completely. This leaves some balled up grain in the mash that can shield some of the starch from the mash liquid.

The problem then occurs during the sparge when the unconverted starch is washed through to the boiler via the sparge water breaking up the balled up mash.

In other words when you dough in don't be afraid to take your time and be "very" thorough when stirring the mash. Stir in the usual fashion but also stir "up and down" (vertically) if that makes any sense? What that will do is push any doughballs (provided you have them) to the surface where you can break them with your paddle against the side of the tun.

Also make sure you mash with an adequate liquor to grist ratio. Try for around 2.5 to 3 litres per kilo of grain. This will hydrate the grist sufficiently.

Good luck with your subsequent batches. I'm sure you'll get clear beer in conjunction with most of the other advice.

Warren -

 

[Hargie]

Have a look at your mash regime.
For this purpose forget a protein rest, first question you have to ask yourself before even thinking about such a thing is why am I doing it? All of the base malts I use (Bairds, Weyermann and Barret and Burston) are well modified and will not benefit from a protein rest.


K

....So, Kurtzie, you're not going to use a protein rest for the Beerd of Doom...???....you Barstarino....




....Cougar...

 

[jimmy01]

The sort of haze you are getting could be a starch haze, how do you get a starch haze?
Your mash may not have completely converted all the starches, there are many reasons for this but with todays malts its pretty hard not to achieve a high conversion, you can test by doing the old iodine test (google it if not familiar).

Dr K

I have wondered about whether my clarity isssues are related to incomplete starch conversion. My efficiency rates are not great (65-70%) so maybe incomplete conversion is an issue.

I have never done an iodine test as I haven't been able to find any iodine. I have Betadine but this is already dark in colour so its hard to observe for starch conversion. I have asked several pharmacists but they only stock betadine.

Any suggestions where I can get some Iodine?

More importantly what is likely to cause incomplete conversion. My pH is fine as I now use pH 5.2 stabiliser. I am pretty sure my thermometer is reasonably accurate so mash temps should be OK.

Could it be inadequate mixing of the grain with the water?

Also I have had some beers with poor head retention - any chance this could be due to incomplete starch conversion?
By the way - my glasses and bottles are not the problem. Head is fine with commercial beers and any extract brews that I do.

Regards
Jimmy

 

[matti]

Jimmy If you use pH5.2 you waist yor time with Iodine IMHO.
To help you guys with conversion.
YES water ratio to grain and how you dough in can vary your conversion rates.
Pending on your equipment it might be worth looking at the crush.
There is a look thread in either the wikipedia or AG section of "How the crush should look like".
In theory the the husks should remain intact so they can act as a filter in draining the liqour and the centre about 30 % remaining and the rest crushed.

Off course the retailers crush the grain a bit less so so you don't end up with too many dough balls.
But if you dough in at lower temps around 40-50 and gently adding water either by underletting orstirring at the same time your conversion rates will go up.

(In theory I can make perfect beer everytime) But it all come down to equipment and the brewer in the end hehehe
keep reading and asking and yuo'll get it right .
Mattti

 

[PostModern]

Betadine will do. You only need a drop on a white plate. The difference between the brown iodine and black/purple starch indicator is pretty obvious. I used iodophor, it's much the same colour.

 

[Darren]

Dr K

I have wondered about whether my clarity isssues are related to incomplete starch conversion. My efficiency rates are not great (65-70%) so maybe incomplete conversion is an issue.

I have never done an iodine test as I haven't been able to find any iodine. I have Betadine but this is already dark in colour so its hard to observe for starch conversion. I have asked several pharmacists but they only stock betadine.

Any suggestions where I can get some Iodine?

Regards
Jimmy

Hey Jimmy,

Doughballs will certainly cloud up a beer.

I found that underletting the hot liqour to the mash significantly reduced doughball formation. Its easier too. Simply fill yout tun with the crushed malt. Attach a hose to the outlet of the tun and HLT then open the taps fill to the desired level. Then give a good stir.

Betadine will work to check for conversion. Iodine is the same colour. Get a saucer and place about 10 drops in the centre. Smear around with your finger to make a thin film. Add a few grains or drops from mash to the plate. If it doesnt turn blue it should be ok. Its probably best to have a test with some dry, cracked malt as a positive control. You can also test grains from the mash.

A good crush is also important to reduce haze. Any whole or only cracked grains in the mash will take longer to be converted than small chunks. That residual unconverted starch will be washed out at sparge temps. Therefore it is probably best to err on the fine side of a crush. Commercial breweries crush their malts to powder.

cheers

Darren

 

[mika]

My first AG brews really suffered with cloudiness. When I used a different yeast my beer got a fair bit clearer. It's still not commercial quality but then those guys are filtering, something I have no intention of doing, so I'm relatively happy with where I'm at.
Even good ol' US05(56) was not providing the best results.
Could be another route to pursue.

 

[jimmy01]

Thanks guys for the advice.

Will give the Betadine a go when I brew on Wed this week. For some reason I thought iodine was lighted in colour.

Re: grain crush. I am pretty sure it is OK. I use a converted Marga Mill and the crush is similar to the grain I used to buy pre-crushed from Craftbrewer. I have ordered some more grain pre-crushed to compare side by side for the next brew.

I suspect that I may not be mixing the grain well enough. I have been a bit cautious - not wanting to introduce too much oxygen. I havent seen any doughballs though.

Mika - Re yeast - I did think of that but I use quite a few different yeast strains and clarity doesnt seem to be related to one strain.

Its been frustrating as the beers generally taste good. The lack of head retention concerns me more than the clarity issue. Somehow though I think the two are related as when clarity is worse - head retention is generally worse.

With perserverance and the generous help of others I will get there. Also hoping to get along to a few HB club meetings in Bris this year.

Cheers guys
Jimmy