Hazy beer - already hazy in the boil

[biggtime]

Much of the discussion of hazy beer seems to focus on chill haze. I am getting hazes in my recent ales that appear to be present even in the boil, so somewhat earlier in the process, and I didn't used to. I'm assuming it must be one of two things: water treatment, or over-sparging (or overly hot sparging) and would be interested to know what people think is the most likely cause.

I mention water treatment because initially I didn't bother treating my water. Now I've started to, based on the generic water report for my area and using Wheeler's water treatment calculator. If I'm getting this wrong, could it be causing haze, somehow? Alternatively, if my sparge water is too hot (it may have been as hot as 84 degrees C for my most recent brew) is that likely to be a cause of the problem? Or, as a final suggesting, could it just be a consequence of over sparging? As I say, it seems hazy/cloudy in the boil, and boiling longer than intended made no difference. But beer using the same malt bill a while ago came out crystal clear.
Thoughts?

 

[Brewberoza]

The first thing I would check is that you are doing the vorlauf step correctly. Since you mention sparging I assume you are all grain. It is important to check the clarity of your first runnings, and I mean First first runnings. Check for particles of husk in the wort. I always recirculate my wort before it goes into the kettle to minimise the opportunity for particles in the kettle. Recently a friend leant me his mashtun as he got a larger setup. It is a brewferm one I think and I find clarity quite an issue. I have taken to using a splatter guard (those seive like things that go on top of a frying pan) at an intermediary step before the kettle. My sparge water comes from my brewing kettle so I have an intermediary vessel with the splatter guard. I see quite a bit of husk on top of it.

Could be an idea for you. Hope it helps. Also, there is always finings that can be used in secondary fermentation but I will let more learned people post on that topic.

 

[biggtime]

Yes, sorry, should have made clear it was all-grain. I am running off some of it and adding at the top of the mash, though perhaps hadn't given too much thought to really checking it for clarity as I was doing so. So I can probably be a bit more careful with that. As I say, the two things that I know I have changed are treating the water, and sparging a bit hotter. That's why I wondered whether either of these could influence wort clarity, particularly water treatment if it turned out it had been incorrectly calculated.

 

[Brewberoza]

Short answer here is I don't know. Number 1 guess would be check clarity of wort coming out of mash tun. Number 2 might be sparge water. I usually just shoot for 10 degrees higher than mash water to neutralise enzimes. 84 is hot but I couldn't say it was too hot. I am assuming here of course that this represents the temperature in the vessel not as it hits the wort in which case wow that is hot. However, I know too hot a sparge can be a bad thing but I will leave it for others too say why exactly. As for the water, I doubt it would have much of an effect but it does depends on the treatment. Heavy metals in water can negatively affect clarity however.

 

[brewtim]

I would say go back to your original process and change things one at a time.

How are you treating your water, what is the pH of the mash, high pH above 6.0 in the mash can promote the extract of tannins that could lead to colloidial haze (and astringency) ?

Why sparge with 84 C water, 80 is enough, you might be extracting tannins from the grain at 84 C and these may be translating into a colloidial haze (and astringency) in the finished beer. Do you taste any astringency in the beer?

You might be able to fine this type of haze in the fermenter/secondary using something like Polyclar.

My advice for people just starting out on water treatment is to KISS and just do basic water treatment - check the alkilinity BEFORE EACH BREW because it can change each brewday, then add AMS/CRS to reduce to the desired alkilinity for the style of beer, then add DWB to the grains if needed, all calculated from the Brewpaks website. This should get the ash in the desired pH 5.2-5.5 range. Use a salifert kit to check the alkilinity. Once confident that alkilinity is under control, then you can look at chloride/sulfate levels as more advanced water treatment on subsequent brews.

 

[biggtime]

Hi BrewTim.
Mash PH was about 5.5 - without treatment it is higher, but as I said, no cloudy beer in the past.

Sparged with higher than 80 basically by accident - my boiler's thermostat is a little unreliable but I didn't want to stop sparging (and assumed it would lose a couple of degrees in the process of moving to the sparge watering can, and then in being poured). But yes, need to work harder to keep it 79 or less. So could well be tannins!

 

[biggtime]

Tried an experiment and put some bottles back in the brew fridge and took it up to 21 degrees C to see if the haze would clear. The bottle I've just opened does indeed seem to be a lot clearer - not perfect (but then it's only been in bottle for less than a fortnight), but a lot less hazy. So perhaps it is some sort of chill haze after all, even though the haze seemed to be present during the boil and hadn't cleared at the end of the boil.