Making clearer beer

[NewkyBrown]

Hi all.
I have made a couple of all grain batches now and both have turned out great tasting. No big deal but I have noticed that they aren't very clear. I use a wort chiller and also add Irish Moss near the end of the boil. Are there any other tips to try and produce clear beer? After using the moss and cooling the wort, I then just pour the wort into the fermenter. Should I siphon this instead?

 

[unionrdr]

If you can,vorlaufing should help. recirculate the wort gently back onto the grain bed after mashing. This sets the grain bed so you can use a valve with some tubing into the boil kettle to get clearer wort. I do PM BIAB,so it's a lil more difficult to vorlauf. I may try a sanitized baster to try vorlaufing back through the bag & see if that works.
I used Fivestar Super Moss on my current batch,& it looks like it'll clear up nice. But the finer crush can cause protien haze problems at fridge time,which is what I'm getting & yours sounds like. so the moss 7 vorlauf would help. But adjusting the crush seems to be a factor as well.

 

[Yooper]

Are you getting a good "hot break"? And then a good "cold break"? That will go a long way to getting clear beer.

I found that whirlfloc (tablet) works better for me than Irish moss did, so I use that at 10 minutes left in the boil.

One thing that may also be at play here is that if you don't have clear wort, then you won't have clear beer. What I mean is that if your wort is very cloudy coming out of the the MLT, you may not have complete starch conversion. A starch haze will never clear in the finished beer. Do you check for conversion with iodine? Or mash for at least 60 minutes? How's the wort look after the mash and sparge?

 

[DocScott]

Great suggestions above. You can also look into cold crashing or using gelatin before bottling/kegging. I find that that combo really clears the finished beer to commercial quality.

 

[grathan]

Siphoning may help if you give trub time to settle, then you could leave this behind. This will also settle in the fermentor as well though.

Giving stuff time to settle is important. Cold temperatures can speed up settling. If your comparing you light colored beers to commercial ones.

 

[Yooper]

I don't strain out break material. I have a CFC, so cold break goes into the fermenter, and I don't have a way to strain out hot break. I also don't filter out hops debris.

I don't use gelatin or other finings (except for whirlfloc in the kettle) since I want my beer vegetarian friendly (plus the yuck factor of gelatin or plastic like polyclar).

Anyway, here is a picture of an IPA that was 5 weeks old when this picture was taken with a crappy cell phone:



As you can see, you can read a newspaper through it. So it's not only possible to get a clear beer without finings, it's actually pretty easy. With a few tweaks, anybody can do this at home.

 

[jbaysurfer]

Wow! That is indeed clear Yooper! Good advice on making sure conversion is complete to avoid the starch haze.

I also use whirfloc and cold crashing the primary (I don't secondary generally speaking) before racking. One thing I do with the whirfloc is crush the tablet up before putting it into the boil kettle. It probably doesn't make a difference in reality to precrush it, but in my head it helps.

 

[unionrdr]

I used Fivestar super moss the last 10 minutes of the boil. They say on the jar to dissolve it in some cooled wort & then add that to the boil. I used a bit of spring water to dissolve it in. so far,the beer is clearing nicely while dry hopping atm. but I also don't see a tremendous difference with as without at this point either. Just seems to be clearing a hair faster maybe But now that I have the barley crusher as well,I'll adjust the fine crush back to "normal" & see how that works with pm biab.

 

[NewkyBrown]

Thanks for the great tips. I get my grains pre crushed. Not sure of this could be a cause of the
haze. I haven't done a starch conversion test but I do mash for 60 mins.
I ll try the suggestions on my next batch (centennial blonde) and maybe the gelatin too.

 

[Yooper]

Thanks for the great tips. I get my grains pre crushed. Not sure of this could be a cause of the
haze. I haven't done a starch conversion test but I do mash for 60 mins.
I ll try the suggestions on my next batch (centennial blonde) and maybe the gelatin too.

No, crushing the grains finely (or not) wouldn't contribute to haze. If you happen to have some Iodophor around, you could check your next batch for starch just to ensure you're getting conversion. But if your wort is clear and not murky when your vorlauf and drain the MLT, that's an indication that it's not starchy especially if you're not using adjuncts.

What I would recommend for the blonde is to get a rocking hard boil for the first few minutes, to ensure a really good hot break. Once you get the hot break, you can tone down the boil a bit just so it's a rolling boil.

Add whirlfloc at 10 minutes (one whole tablet is fine for a 5-10 gallon batch) and then chill as fast as possible to 65 degrees or less after the boil. That seems to really get a super clear wort going into the fermenter.

If you use a flocculant yeast, then you should have a pretty darn clear beer by the time fermentation is over (5 days or so), and a really clear beer by packaging time. I've noticed that I can never seem to get S05 to clear very well, but WLP001 clears much better for me. English strains drop out like a rock, and nottingham particularly forms a tight compacted yeast cake with the trub.

 

[NewkyBrown]

I don't strain out break material. I have a CFC, so cold break goes into the fermenter, and I don't have a way to strain out hot break. I also don't filter out hops debris.

I don't use gelatin or other finings (except for whirlfloc in the kettle) since I want my beer vegetarian friendly (plus the yuck factor of gelatin or plastic like polyclar).

Anyway, here is a picture of an IPA that was 5 weeks old when this picture was taken with a crappy cell phone:

As you can see, you can read a newspaper through it. So it's not only possible to get a clear beer without finings, it's actually pretty easy. With a few tweaks, anybody can do this at home.

That's amazingly clear! So is the reason for that the mash? Or grain crush? As you don't seem to do anything else differently.

 

[unionrdr]

Well,it seems to me to have something to do with the crush maybe being too fine. I didn't have a crusher yet & used a mini food processor. Got too much of the floury part I'm thinking. Makes for good efficiency,but also seems to release more protiens into the wort. so I thought going to a normal crush with the barley crusher set at .039" would give good efficiency with less of the floury part. Plus leave the kettle on full blast till it boils a couple minutes to get a better hot break before reducing the heat from "HI" to "8.8" on the electric stove's dial. That second setting gives a bit gentler rolling boil that gives only about 1/2 gallon boil off after an hour.
The higher initial temp giving a better hot break for clearer beer later is per a suggestion by yooper recently in another thread.

 

[Yooper]

That's amazingly clear! So is the reason for that the mash? Or grain crush? As you don't seem to do anything else differently.

The grain can be pulverized, or nearly whole, and that doesn't seem to affect the final clarity of the beer. It seems like haze comes from several sources and just correcting that can make a huge impact.

The first is a protein haze/chill haze, and a good hot break and cold break really help with that. Another is starch haze, from a non-fully-converted mash. Protein-rich ingredients (like wheat) can cause a haze also.

In finished beer, often a persistent haze is chill haze but it should go away with lengthy cold conditioning. Yeast strains can also play a role. Cold crashing can help drop a persistent non-flocculant yeast but sometimes they just stay cloudy (like a hefeweizen yeast).

I don't use finings or filter, but others do with good results in beers that they want to be very clear.

 

[WesleyS]

The grain can be pulverized, or nearly whole, and that doesn't seem to affect the final clarity of the beer. It seems like haze comes from several sources and just correcting that can make a huge impact.

The first is a protein haze/chill haze, and a good hot break and cold break really help with that. Another is starch haze, from a non-fully-converted mash. Protein-rich ingredients (like wheat) can cause a haze also.

In finished beer, often a persistent haze is chill haze but it should go away with lengthy cold conditioning. Yeast strains can also play a role. Cold crashing can help drop a persistent non-flocculant yeast but sometimes they just stay cloudy (like a hefeweizen yeast).

I don't use finings or filter, but others do with good results in beers that they want to be very clear.

I agree with Yooper.
My grain is crushed more now than it ever has been. I went from having it crushed by the LHBS to crushing it myself with a corona mill. It's tightened down pretty good, but I still end up with clear beer. So crush in my opinion isn't the determining factor in clear beer.
I do the same as what others above have stated.
I recirculate wort until its running nice and clear before collecting in my boil kettle. I get a good hot break and I use a Whirfloc tablet at 10 minutes. I make sure to get a good cold break. I don't worry about break material getting in the fermenter because it will settle out anyways. And then I cold crash before bottling.
With just those basic techniques, I end up with clear beer. In fact I made an American wheat that cleared up so much after refrigerating, it looked like a BMC beer in the glass. I didn't even want it to clear that much and it did, even with all the wheat in it and no Whirfloc.

 

[Brian211]

Adding Super Kleer when racking to secondary works pretty well for me...and the whirlflock tablets 15 minutes in boil.

 

[hops2it]

I found that whirlfloc (tablet) works better for me than Irish moss did, so I use that at 10 minutes left in the boil.

Absolutely agree. Add cold crashing if possible. If you still want more clarification after that, it's on to gelatin.

 

[unionrdr]

Hmmm,guess I'll have another look at the recipes. Have to make sure I'm getting enough diastatic power for good conversion of the whole mash amount. It's gotta be something simple. Def chill haze & really stubborn. Beers go in crystal clear,then haze up so bad it takes sometimes 3 weeks just to get it mostly clear in the fridge. People talk about being one thing,then it's not & it's the other. I'll get to the bottom of this yet.

 

[Daves69]

Great suggestions above. You can also look into cold crashing or using gelatin before bottling/kegging. I find that that combo really clears the finished beer to commercial quality.

I second this, I cold crash my beers and use gelatin in the ones I want super clear! Cold crashing is super easy and cheap plus if you keg the beer takes the CO2 better. Gelatin works good too just remember the beer is no longer Vegan at that point, which does not bother me whole I enjoy a Homebrew with my porterhouse but it might someone.