hot to cold clarity

[GABBA110360]

last night I thought i'd try a brew ive had aging for 8 months now in stubbies.
it was a extract /grain brew.
wee heavy scotch ale 11.4 abv
I put 6 in the fridge the clarity through the bottle was clear as I expected.
on inspection this morning in a cold condition the appearance is now opaque.
I checked cold against warm side by side.
any ideas?
will sample at sips this arvo if it tastes like crap it might run the lawnmower !

cheers
ken

 

[black_labb]

Sounds like chill haze.

Can you give some details on how you dealt with the grain in the brew?

 

[NewtownClown]

It is chill haze and not necessarily due to how you deal with your grain - if, in fact, he is all grain brewing.
A protein rest helps if using grain, as does a good rolling boil for both grain & extract brewing and also an effective, rapid chill.
It can be removed post fermentation through chilling and/or the use of finings (polyclar is very good). There is also a new product (White Labs Clarity Ferm, an enzyme I believe) that is added at the start of fermentation.

It is more an aesthetic issue, it wont affect the flavour or aroma of the beer.

If there was no chill haze 8 months ago (I would be pissed of if I discovered an Ale I paid for was 8 months old) it may be another issue; infection, oxidation, etc

 

[manticle]

Speed of chill has little to do with it. Wort or beer just needs to get cold enough, then proteins need to drop out.

 

[NewtownClown]

Rapid cooling forms a better cold break, and more haze-inducing particulate will precipitate out of solution as they clump with the cold break.
Sure, I may be wrong, but it has worked for me and it tallies with what I have read on the subject. I still have a bag of PVPP that I haven't needed to touch since chilling a lot quicker than I used to. I had tried increasing the vigour of my boil (4 litres per hour to 5 litres) then introduced a protein rest, both helped, but the change to my post-boil chilling regime made a bigger difference.

 

[GABBA110360]

ok this was a play recipe before I went to all grain
19l batch
4 k ldme
1k dark brown sugar
0.9 TF crystal malt 90-110
0.45 peated malt bairds
90 g n/brewer 10.6 aa
wyeast 1728
grain was mashed in 4 l @70c in a bag then drained
liquid boiled for about about 60 with hops in bag
sg 1.106
fg 1.026 @24c
going to sips soon gunna open one and taste

 

[GABBA110360]

well after tasting it has a very strong alcohol flavour with a quite bitter flavour on first mouthful
I drank the stubby and then went to a different brew and the normal brew tasted weird.
I might try one mixed with ginger beer I think its definately rocket fuel

ok I forgot it pour cloudy yet the warm bottles are clear?

 

[manticle]

Rapid cooling forms a better cold break,

Than what?

Add to that, if you rapid cool using a plate chiller the cold break ends up in the fermenter anyway.

I'm not suggesting that your change in process didn't result in improvements you noticed in your brewing but the idea that cold break only forms in the presence of a rapid chill is a furphy as far as I understand. Temperature causes the proteins to behave in that way. No chilled wort and beer can be made cold enough for the haze proteins to appear, coagulate and drop from solution.

 

[dicko]

I have kept an open mind on the subject of chill haze over my brewing years, listening to many for and against arguments on the subjects of slow chill, vigorous boil, addition of finings like polyclar etc.
I will say that I have tried all methods with varying equipment combinations and I would like to present my observations.

I had a 3V system that produced around 200 brews and with a nasa burner on the kettle I had very little examples of chill haze.
From records the beer that did display chill haze on this system were created mainly by me not ensuring that the mash achieved full conversion or more to the point, a mash that did not include a protein rest with wheat, rice and other adjuncts that require this rest.
A vigorous boil was a fact of life with a Nasa and most brews were quite free of chill haze as a result of this boil characteristic.
During the ownership of this 3v brewery I tried two methods of chilling. One was chilling with a CFWC and the other was with no chill.
When I used the CF WC i found that the experiences of chill haze were related mainly with the use of wheat in the boil when the cold break went into the fermenter.
As my equipment evolved I modified the brewery to recirculate from the kettle though the CFWC and back into the kettle and as well as introduced a Herms system that gave me full control over the mash, in particular, the protein rest.
When I used the kettle as a settling tank when the wort was chilled then the beer was drained into the fermenter I found the beer fermented cleaner and the incidence of chill haze was greatly reduced.
Brewing can be a complete pain in the arse sometimes, particularly if you are endlessly chasing improvements.
I felt the 3V system had run its race so I bit the bullet and got myself a 20 litre BM.
Now this post is no deliberate advert for a Speidel brewery but this system gave me full control over mash temp rests which has now eliminated the protein rest conundrum where maybe the Herms was not giving me the full protein break over a short period IE 10 mins at 55 deg.
But as I said previously brewing is a pain in the arse and the Speidel system does not give a vigorous boil like my previous brewery but 40 brews later and at times I was experiencing chill haze again.
I then tried Brewbrite with a good result but it wasn't until I replaced the CFWC with an immersion chiller that I improved my results as I could then use the kettle as a settling tank after chilling and before decanting the cold wort into the fermenter.
This method produced the cleanest clearest brews I have experienced until I got into summer brewing just recently when I noticed a couple of my lagers had a touch of chill haze.
I will say that I had only noticed the haze because I had been brewing a few lagers and had turned the temp down on my kegorator to serve a bit cooler.
Now brewing turned into a pain in the arse again so as an experiment I got a submersible pump and a 60 litre container and filled the it with an ice slurry and recirculated this slurry and chilled my wort to 9 deg c.
Well, I was amazed at the wort clarity and the final results that I have achieved since doing this....the last 4 brews.
I have had to let the wort warm up to pitch the yeast

To summarise this post which has turned into a blog of my life as a home brewer I have concluded that a vigorous boil is important for eliminating chill haze as is the mash process in converting proteins.
The use of a good fining such as brewbrite and maybe polyclar in the secondary before kegging / bottling is also worth considering, but the best improvement I have noticed is the chilling to a temp of around 10 deg c and letting the wort settle before decanting to the fermenter. This settling process usually takes around 45 mins to one hour in my system.
I make sure I leave all the settled break in the kettle after the chill.
I have had to let the wort warm up to pitch the yeast

This is not an argument against no chill but when I have done "no chill" I have had a lot of the break material go into the fermenter when decanting to the fermenter, the same as using a CFWC.
I have no intention of going back to no chill after the results I have achieved in the last year or so, however I would like to hear a side by side report from a brewer who is prepared to only decant absolutely clear wort into the fermenter from their no chill cube and leave all the other break material in the storage vessel. I found this procedure difficult to achieve when I have no chilled as I tended not to want to waste any wort by leaving the trub in the cube.

I need to point out also that to achieve reasonable results I found that the use of RO water and the accurate additions of salts, mainly Calcium, has gone a long way to achieve these results as well. Calcium in correct levels is an important component for wort clarity.

Apology for the length of this post.

 

[GABBA110360]

this is a photo of the brew in question poured into two identical room temp glasses
the left one is room temp and the other is 2degrees c

 

[manticle]

Don't drink Scottish wee heavies at 2 degree C

 

[GABBA110360]

Don't drink Scottish wee heavies at 2 degree C

what temp is it meant to be served at then?

 

[manticle]

Personally I don't think any beer should be served that cold unless it's 40 degrees and you've been moving wheelbarrows full of concrete. After that, I'd be drinking cold fizzy yellow booze no drama.

Wee heavy is a rich, malty hopefully complex ale. Cold mutes flavour. Actual temp is up to you but I'd be at a miniumum of 7, closer to 10. Traquair for example recommend room temp (closer to 20).

Like anything - it is personal taste and entirely up to you but try the one which is at room temp and try the one at 2 degrees and tell me which one has more flavour. Drinking a wee heavy at 2 degrees is a little like sitting a shiraz in an icebucket.

Don't take my word for it though- you have a cold one and a room temp one. Side by side.

 

[NewtownClown]

the idea that cold break only forms in the presence of a rapid chill is a furphy as far as I understand

In no way did I state that. I said a rapid chill forms a better cold break. And is one way that helps in dealing with chill haze issues in the kettle.

 

[manticle]

No you didn't and I apologise for implying that.

I keep reading in HB texts and online that cold break formation requires rapid chilling and this is patently untrue. As for better - compared to what?

You are correct that it is a way to get the proteins to drop out and be left behind in the kettle (unless you use a plate chiller) as opposed to removing them from no chilled wort prior to pitching (decanting or siphoning away) or cold conditioning the beer for a length of time post fermentation.

I still have no idea why speed of chill could have anything to do with how well the proteins clump - just the temperature at which they clump is reached sooner.

 

[dicko]

No you didn't and I apologise for implying that.

I keep reading in HB texts and online that cold break formation requires rapid chilling and this is patently untrue. As for better - compared to what?

You are correct that it is a way to get the proteins to drop out and be left behind in the kettle (unless you use a plate chiller) as opposed to removing them from no chilled wort prior to pitching (decanting or siphoning away) or cold conditioning the beer for a length of time post fermentation.

I still have no idea why speed of chill could have anything to do with how well the proteins clump - just the temperature at which they clump is reached sooner.

I appreciate you support of no chill or should we all call it ' slow chill ' but what I, and some others have observed from actual cases is that the break material settles into a more compact and generally more manageable trub in the kettle rather than in the fermenter or cube.
The term manageable in my experience means that the crap that has settled out in the settling tank under cold and rapid chill conditions after the boil and before the wort entering the fermenter is more manageable in the homebrew situatin than generally having it in the fermenter and having to deal with it post ferment.

My observations of break in a no chill or slow chill cube is that it is fluffy and extremely difficult to keep out of the fermenter unless you or at least any brewer using this method is prepared to decant ONLY the wort that does not contain any trub material from the cube.

By the same observations with rapid cold chilling in the boil kettle and then a short time for settling, the break material is much more compact and at the home brew scale much more controllable in preventing this trub entering the fermenter.
While your theory is probably correct in the statement re the removal of the trub by syphoning off the trub post chilling and before fermentation, once this trub hits the fermentation process then is when the trouble starts.
Many commercial and some micro breweries use settling tanks and centrifuge filters prior to fermentation for this very reason.
The statement that the beers we brew should be drank at warmer temperatures does apply to many styles that we may brew, but it does not apply to all styles.
Many lager styles need to be served cold and this is where the chill haze problem will appear.
Brewing APA's and serving them at 6 to 8 deg c will rarely produce an example of evident chill haze and the high hopping schedule of this style will mask a multitude of other problems.
The same may be said of malt forward styles as the above pics display.

I will say that if I brewed a beer that had that amount of chill haze as displayed in the pic above I would be concerned the my brewing practices may need a tad more attention to detail.

As with all home brewing the results you achieve are those results related to the effort you are prepared to put in and to the end result you are happy with, but to accept a standard because " we should drink it at a higher temperature because it is homebrew" and chill haze is what we achieve with our methods is wrong and if there is a process where by we may eliminate chill haze it must help the quality of our brewing.

A good boil, a good quick chill, allowing setling time, the correct requirement of Calcium in the boil, and the correct mash schedule for the grist composition and wort PH will all go to eliminate or at least reduce chill haze.

 

[manticle]

Good post dicko and I'll respond in more detail in the next day or so as I'm interested in the discussion.

Certainly not coming at it from purely a no-chill defensive perspective.

Anyway I'd welcome others' thoughts on whether the discussion should continue in another thread so as not to derail the OP or whether it should stay here as a logical tangent/evolution/development.

 

[manticle]

Was going to write a long winded post but decided against it.

Dent recently posted that in his experience, speed of chill had little to do with CB formation. Posts elsewhere from Thirsty Boy suggest similarly. However I respect other people's experience differs.

I guess my question is - what is the causal factor in the flocculation you are seeing Dicko? Is it actually the speed of the chill or is it more to do with the kettle finings (or something else)?

Is there a scientific basis for the idea that cold break formation is a function of something other than temperature?

 

[MHB]

Just a guess but when you chill in the kettle you still have fining material in there, Carrageenan works best if it is added to hot wort (that unravels it) then chilled where it closes back up, it will act on either hot or cold break, protein is protein. It also denatures if it is too hot for too long which is what I suspect is happening in a no chill environment.
Mark

 

[dicko]

My observations of the compact formation of break material in the kettle as opposed to the break in the no chill cube could be the fining agents at work.
As you say Mark, it is quite feasable to consider that these fining agents may "unravel" due to extended heat as in no chill and therefore may work just that tad better with a more rapid chill in the kettle.

My observations from my brewing since I began using an ice slurry to chill the wort in the final stages, was that I appear to be achieving a clearer end result with regard to chill haze than what I was seeing before using the ice and the pump.
Prior to using ice I used to chill in the kettle to tap water temp (as high as 32 deg here in the summer) and then settle for a time and decant into the fermenter and cool to pitching temp in the fermentation fridge. This method provided quite clear wort but nearly always the finished beer displayed some chill haze in varying degrees of cloudiness.

I should point out that these are my observations only and I have no real technical explanation as to why I am getting a better result apart from the known information in various texts on the subject and the new consideration of the explanation of Marks re the use of Carrageen and the effect of extended heat on its effectiveness.

I find this subject quite interesting and would value others thoughts and observations as well.

Manticle, rather than move some of these posts to another topic, you could edit the title to read "Chill Haze hot to cold clarity".
In this way this thread would be easily found for someone searching "chill haze" for results.

Cheers