Cloudy beer

[Tmpppr]

Hi

I'm repeating my first attempt at a beer similar to Brewdog's Dead Pony Club, the first one was really cloudy. I didn't use fining a or Irish Moss etc on the first attempt, could this be the problem or more likely a bacterial infection? Also we used a large fermentation bucket with lid for the first fermentation rather than a glass carboy. Would this have affected anything? Thanks

 

[DoctorMick]

It could be many things ranging from he ingredients used, not using kettle finings, not getting a good rolling boil so no hot break, getting loads of trub in the fv, not fermenting for long enough, not cold crashing, disturbing the trub when bottling/kegging. How did the beer taste? If it was fine then it probably wasn't an infection.
Maybe you could post the recipe and describe your process and someone might be able to help isolate the problem.

As an aside, clarity is overrated imo...it's great if you manage it but the taste is much more important.

 

[MyQul]

Whilst I'm not obssessed with clarity I quite like a nice clear pint. I recently did a few experiments with getting a clearer pint. Some things I found that help.

-Use kettle finings
-Use a flocculant yeast. What yeast did you use for your dead pony club
-After it's finished fermenting, rack to a secondary and leave it for a week to drop more yeast out.

When all's said and done, if you leave a brew for long enough it'll end up clear, due to gravity dropping everything out

 

[cheapbrew]

All of the above and possibly move the FV to somewhere a good few degrees lower than fermentation temp once the brew has finished fermentation for a cold crash, colder temps (but not as low as freezing) will help the yeast to drop out of suspension quicker.

 

[fuzzy]

Hi Tmpppr Welcome to the forum.

As above but I would also add that cooling your wort down as quickly as possible after the boil and leaving as much break in the kettle as you can helps. You might find that a few small tweaks to the different stages of your process might make all the difference.

What I aim to do is to try and keep the wort as clear as possible before boiling and again when running it into the fermenting vessel. After mashing I recirculate the wort over the grain bed as much as possible so its as clear as I can get it. Also after a fast chill I uses a fine mesh hop stopper from the kettle to try and leave as much of the break there. The downside of a fine mesh is the risk of a slow runoff into the FV as its more prone to blocking, but nothing a clean long handled spoon helps to get it moving again.

Also have you tried whirlpooling the wort before running to the FV.

I don't think the choice of fermenting vessel makes a difference to the clarity at home brew sizes batches, but technically the taller the vessel the longer it takes for proteins and yeast to settle out as they have further to travel but on our scales it should not make much of a difference.

Hope that helps

 

[Dutto]

Welcome to the Forum. :thumb:

By far, the best three clearing agents for all beers are time, gravity and patience. :thumb:

 

[Ajhutch]

Welcome to the Forum. :thumb:

By far, the best three clearing agents for all beers are time, gravity and patience. :thumb:

My home brew shop sells the first two but I can never get my hands on the third!

 

[Brewmarc]

Welcome to the Forum. :thumb:

By far, the best three clearing agents for all beers are time, gravity and patience. :thumb:

The only place whare there is an abundance of the 3rd is in jail! Trouble is you have to murder someone first, & beer doesnt last that long:lol:

 

[MyQul]

Welcome to the Forum. :thumb:

By far, the best three clearing agents for all beers are time, gravity and patience. :thumb:

There are those who would disagree with you on this. Some brewers are quite keen on gelatine as a clearing agent. It clears the beer quickly and produces crystal clear beer. I wouldnt use it though as I'm vegetarian, well pescatarian actually. So I'm happy for the use of another clearing agent if it happens to find it's way into my pint in a pub, inisglass, which as I understand it is used by many large breweries for their cask ales, as well as used by us HBers. As again it clears the beer quickly.

 

[peteplus1]

Most of the beers I drink these days are of a natural cloudy nature . Modern IPAs and DIPAs are often murky as hell and part of the beers charm in my opinion . That said, pales and similar that I have made have all come out crystal clear. As said further up, patience is your friend here. Get your beer bottled, leave it well alone for a good few weeks and then go back and see.

 

[Dutto]

........... Some brewers are quite keen on gelatine as a clearing agent. It clears the beer quickly and produces crystal clear beer. I wouldnt use it though as I'm vegetarian, well pescatarian actually. ...........

Of course commercial breweries want to rapidly clear and sell the rubbish that they make! It increases "Turn-Over" which increases "Cash-Flow" which in turn increases "Profit".

The fact that it has side effects is ignored as long as they can keep selling the crap they make.

I lived in Iran for a couple of years back in the 70's and one of the beers we could buy was Budweiser (the other one was Amstel) which was apparently one of the companies that promoted the use of gelatine as a clearing agent.

We always blamed "the trots" that followed a drinking session with Budweiser on the residual gelatine so, personally, it's not something I recommend! :thumb: :thumb:

 

[MyQul]

Of course commercial breweries want to rapidly clear and sell the rubbish that they make! It increases "Turn-Over" which increases "Cash-Flow" which in turn increases "Profit".

The fact that it has side effects is ignored as long as they can keep selling the crap they make.

I lived in Iran for a couple of years back in the 70's and one of the beers we could buy was Budweiser (the other one was Amstel) which was apparently one of the companies that promoted the use of gelatine as a clearing agent.

We always blamed "the trots" that followed a drinking session with Budweiser on the residual gelatine so, personally, it's not something I recommend! :thumb: :thumb:

I'm not disputing that big breweries use clearing agents to make profit. All I'm saying (as the OP is interested in solutions to cloudy beer) is that it works.

I've personally never used any clearing agents as I'm happy drinking beer that's not crystal clear or on the odd occasion I can wait for gravity to do it's work. So I dont know if they give you the trots or not but;

inisglass - many of the best Bitter producing breweries we have (such as Timothy Taylor, I watched a youtube vid of them pouring it into their barrels) use this clearing agent

gelatine - Many HBers including myself are a fan of the Brulospher blog, myself included. He seem quite happy to use it. In his blrulosphy triangulated experiments he uses everyone from his mates to head brewers to US National BJCP judges and I've never read of any of the people trying his experiments have found a problem with him using geletine in the beers he's made

 

[Razor]

There are those who would disagree with you on this. Some brewers are quite keen on gelatine as a clearing agent. It clears the beer quickly and produces crystal clear beer. I wouldnt use it though as I'm vegetarian, well pescatarian actually. So I'm happy for the use of another clearing agent if it happens to find it's way into my pint in a pub, inisglass, which as I understand it is used by many large breweries for their cask ales, as well as used by us HBers. As again it clears the beer quickly.

Have you tried Vege-gel or another vegetarian gelatin to clear your beer?


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[MyQul]

Have you tried Vege-gel or another vegetarian gelatin to clear your beer?


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No, because I not THAT bothered about having clear beer that Im willing to spend money on a clearing agent. As I mentioned I happy just to let gravity take it's course if I want clear beer (along with making sure I use floculant yeast and kettle finings)

But thanks for the heads up I'd never heard of vege-gel

 

[Razor]

No, because I not THAT bothered about having clear beer that Im willing to spend money on a clearing agent. As I mentioned I happy just to let gravity take it's course if I want clear beer (along with making sure I use floculant yeast and kettle finings)

But thanks for the heads up I'd never heard of vege-gel

Dr. Oetker make it. I had to use it when baking for vege's. You can get it in Tesco for £1. Not sure how useful it would be for clearing beer but it seems like the same idea as proper gelatin.


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[Tmpppr]

I think I know what I did. I added the dry hop allowance of hops to the end of the boil. Also, this time round we added some irish moss to the boil to see if that helps