Polyclar Issues

[Bubba Q]

I currently have a saison in the keg that I have used polyclar & filtered. Keg went into the fridge on Sunday night. On Monday night I added polyclar that had been rehydrated on the stir plate for half an hour and left it to do its magic in the keg for half an hour.

Beer was then filtered into another keg and the results at the time were quite impressive to me.

I went to pour a beer last night and to my horror it appears hazy again!

This is where I think I may be going wrong
- Polyclar was not left to rehydrate long enough
- Kegged beer may not have been cold enough for the polyclar to work properly
- Polyclar may not have had enough contact time with the beer
- Filter was sanitised with Iodophor, could this be causing haze in the beer?

I no chill and ferment in a ghetto cooler so I cant add polyclar and crash shill in the fermenter. Once kegged the kegs remain at room temp until space in the fridge frees up.

Opinions?

 

[Bribie G]

Did you let the beer warm up in the glass to see if the haze disappeared? If it remains cloudy then that's not chill haze - how's the flavour? I'd be a bit suss on leaving kegs at room temperature. Look I've done it heaps of times myself but it's always nagged me as a possible source of infection as there are more nooks and crannies in a keg than in a sanitised bottle.

Edit: I just tossed a keg of ESB which remained cloudy for a week in the kegerator and started tasting "medicinal" and I put it down to a sneaky infection either in the fermenter or the keg as it didn't taste too bad on kegging.

 

[Bubba Q]

The taste is good but I'm not the kind of man who can stand idly by whilst a beer gets warm. I may have to make an exception in this circumstance.

 

[Kodos]

The taste is good but I'm not the kind of man who can stand idly by whilst a beer gets warm. I may have to make an exception in this circumstance.

What temp was the beer at when you added the polyclar?
My understanding is you want it a bit colder than your intended serving temp, ie get it down to below zero to force as much of the chill haze as possible to come out of solution, and give the polyclar as much as possible to bind with. The polyclar then does it's job (and is filtered out) so when you serve it ~4 degrees no more haze shows up.

If the polyclar is added at a slightly higher temp than serving, you may not have forced all the chil-haze forming polyphenols (I think that's what does it) out of solution, and the rest appears later on. Letting a glass warm up will help you work it out.

I occasionally use polyclar by adding it to the fermentor at -0.5 and let it sit for up to a week (I don't have a filter, so I try to give it plenty of time to drop out on its own) before racking into the keg. So maybe 30min isn't long enough? An experienced filterer would be able to give better advise there tho.

 

[Dazza88]

More time possibly. Starsan causes haze, dont know about idophor

 

[argon]

Your beer does not need to be cold for polyclar to be effective. It just works quicker when colder as the proteins will drop out quicker.

The things that have the greatest impact on it's effectiveness are dosage and mixing it well into the beer. Rehydration again is not strictly neccessary. It works quicker and mixes better when rehydrated, but will still work when thrown in dry, as long as it is allowed to come in contact with all the beer.

In your case you probably rehydrated it well, but may have not mixed it in well enough prior to filtering.

Other than that, it may not be chill haze as others have said.

 

[davo4772]

I found I was still having a bit of chill haze after polyclar and filtering. At the time I was just throwing the powder into the fermenter, stirring and leaving overnight.
I ended up increasing the dose of polyclar to 6 grams (from memory) and now get excellent results. I also stir the polyclar into 100-150mls of water before adding to fermenter or keg.
Essentially I think it was a dosage issue rather than any other variable. YMMV.

 

[jjeffrey]

Your contact time was way too short for Polyclar to be effective. You need 3-10 days to properly form large enough polyphenol/poly vnyl polypyroline complexes to facilitate effective filtering.

The colder the temperature, the faster the complexes will grow. About 2 degrees is good, but the polyclar will still be effective at higher temps.

You don't need to hydrate the Polyclar- it's insoluble. Mixing it with water just helps to distribute it more effectively through the beer.

jj.

 

[tonyt]

I chill to 1 deg in keg,re hydrate 7-8 g of polyclar for half hour, stir in, let sit for 10 mins, filter into other keg and have clear beer....... But in saying that,I have had the occasional cloudy/ hazy brew. So i don't think contact time is an issue.I use sodium perc to clean filter... I know when it dries it is powdery.So i now make sure i rinse filter a million times after cleaning.i check if clear by half filling housing with clean water then agitating filter in the housing until water stays clear. Cause if filter is not clean you are causing the exact thing your trying to eliminate, cloud/ haze.
Ooorrrr it is something else.

Cheers

 

[Ross]

Your contact time was way too short for Polyclar to be effective. You need 3-10 days to properly form large enough polyphenol/poly vnyl polypyroline complexes to facilitate effective filtering.

The colder the temperature, the faster the complexes will grow. About 2 degrees is good, but the polyclar will still be effective at higher temps.

You don't need to hydrate the Polyclar- it's insoluble. Mixing it with water just helps to distribute it more effectively through the beer.

jj.

Interested in where you got your info from, as it appears to disagree with the manufacturer?

" A contact time of 5 - 10 minutes is desirable, however there is no negative impact on the beer from extended contact times, ie, several days or more."
" For maximum efficiency Polyclar stablisers should be fully hydrated before addition to the beer, failure to fully hydrate can result in reduced efficiency of polyphenol adsorption"

cheers Ross

 

[Nick JD]

"Once kegged the kegs remain at room temp until space in the fridge frees up."

I reckon your answer sits within this statement. Especially with a Saison.