sudden cloudy beer

[gnorwebthgimi]

So I took a bit of a break for a couple of months. I'm back brewing and I switched to a gas boiler. Now the beer hasn't cleared.

The malt was about a year old but no efficiency issues. The yeast was ramped up from a starter but it was a new yeast to me WLP007. The protafloc was probably a year old too.

The boil took forever till I got it under cover from the breeze but was quite a reasonable boil. The new boiler has a hop filter so I didn't use hop socks.

So what caused the cloudiness?

Old malt
Old protafloc
New yeast
New boiler - no kettle element to heat wort direct/ aluminium not plastic
Bohol socks used

[BrannigansLove]

Where are you seeing the cloudiness? Was it cloudy going into the FV, or is it only cloudy now once fermentation has started? How long has it been fermenting?

[gnorwebthgimi]

Good question! It was clearer than usual coming out of the mash tun ( good recirculation) normal (cloudy but ok coming out of the boiler) but didn't drop clear after fermentation. I guess that points to yeast or protafloc. If it's yeast - my experience is that; given time it will drop. As even the wheat beers I have brewed dropped brite.

So if it clears I'll know it is the yeast, if it doesn't I guess it's the protafloc.

[BrannigansLove]

Do you have the facility to cold crash it? A day or so at 3-4c drops yeast out of suspension pretty sharpish.

[jaroporter]

i'd strike yeast off that list straight way..

[gnorwebthgimi]

So, I'm planning to chuck a couple of bottles in the fridge in a day or two after leaving plenty of time for carbonation.

I have had other yeasts not drop clear for a month or so, why would you assume it's not yeast?

I'll be quite annoyed if the beer is below my usual standard, all told it was an ok brew day.

[jaroporter]

it's a massively flocculant yeast. for an example, my latest brew dropped clear in under 48 hours. that was admittedly a good healthy pitch, but it's widely known as a very good flocculator

if i had to guess from that information i'd be looking at maybe not getting a good break in the boiler / possibly also protafloc too. but that's just a guess.

[gnorwebthgimi]

The beer has dropped brite now. It smells of horse. I think it's a wild yeast has got in there.

[Kev888]

It certainly sounds like something may have gone wrong; things can smell odd during and immediately after fermentation but after this much time 'horse' doesn't sound good

Protofloc lasts for years in my experience and grain is normally fine in that timescale too if kept dry. In any case, infections are virtually never due to anything pre-boil or in the boil. About the only think I can think of from that stage may be if (rather than an infection) the first use of the new boiler collected some manufacturing residue, or something from the new metal.

If it is an infection its much more likely to be something post-boil. That yeast is normally reliable, fast to ferment and quick to clear. Did you taste the starter and/or check its attenuation? Was there anything unusual about the transfer to fermenter, disinfecting the fermenter or the fermentation itself?

[orlando]

Horse suggests a bit of Brett to me but would be surprised. Has it continued to ferment on? Try letting some of it go completely flat and test the gravity, if it is significantly less than you thought the FG was, a wild yeast is certainly a possibility. Clarity is a perennial issue for HB'ers, even commercial brewers, who want you to think it doesn't matter. There are a number of factors,anything from mash pH to not crash cooling either at all or for long enough and many factors in between.

[WalesAles]

It smells of horse. I think it's wild.

g,
Horseome!

WA

[Jocky]

Bacterial infections cause haze too - the haze is actually caused by the dead bacteria. Yummy.

[gnorwebthgimi]

Thanks Kev, yes it's probably post boil, I suspect one of the following:

either the yeast I pitched was infected (it was an old batch of liquid yeast ramped a few times to a healthy population), I used a sanitised cider jug to ramp the yeast up in one of it's stages, maybe there was some wild cider yeast kicking around).

Or as I had to move to the garage some wild yeast dropped in post boil (I usually boil outside and move inside but had to boil in the garage as the new boiler wasn't getting up to temperature.

The beer is "improving" with age but it's not sufficiently agreeable to belong to anything other than the drain. Oddly, I have noticed a very faint amount of the horse/barnyard taste in some commercial beers now. It could also be the fermenter was in storage too long and not sanitised sufficiently.

WA - they certainly are horseome, but [hopefully] I won't be brewing them again.

Jocky - whenever I want cloudy beer it drops clear (hefe weizen). Cloudiness does tend to go with age in all instances I have encountered it. Sadly sometimes it clears after the beer has been at it's best.