Chill haze

[far9410]

Hi all

Got a Belgian blonde bottled, very nice too and crystal clear, put a couple outside for my mate sat night as he likes it chilled, came in very cloudy, this has happened a lot before with other brews, can I prevent this from happening ?

[orlando]

Yes.

A number of things can be done. Starting with mash pH, if you are consistently getting this in the right range you help it enourmously to help you to keep chill haze out of the beer. I recommend you read Martin Brungard's Water Knowledge where he goes into more detail on the effects of mash pH and how to predict in advance what it will be.The other couple of areas on brewday are , hot break and cold break. The better they are again the more you reduce the level of proteins in the wort that are the chief cause. With the hot break I use both elements for the whole of the boil, which causes severe losses but is allowed for in the recipe. I assume you use copper finings but if it isn't protafloc I recommend trying it, just be careful how much you use as you can overdo it and find run off severely compromised.

The next stage at which you can make a difference is your approach to conditioning and packaging. If you are in a position to chill the brew down after fermentation you again help to get particles in the brew to drop out and fall to the bottom of the fermentor before racking off, with lighter coloured beers I like to rack off to a conditioning vessel containing Kwik Clear but other fining agents work well too. Leave the beer like this in a cold place for as long as your patience allows, even a few days will make a difference, then rack again to your syrup primed keg or bottling bucket. After that the usual advice applies, a week or two in the warm followed by as cold as you can get it for 3 or 4 and you will have crystal beer that will not suffer chill haze.

[barney]

You can try, Give this a quick read. I think Polyclar is the best for chill haze.

http://www.brewerssupplygroup.com/FileC ... 5B1%5D.pdf

[far9410]

Great advice, as always, thanks guys

[jimp2003]

Maltmiller now do a product which is supposed to help with chill haze [urlhttp://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/index.php?_a=vi ... ductId=158]HERE[/url] but I like Orlando's advice as prevention is always better than cure.

[barneey]

I`ve used polyclar in a brew before (first and last time for me) it worked but left alot of polyclar stuff still in suspension although you couldnt see in a glass just poured BUT if you left a glass of beer say for 30mins with out drinking a very fine sediment would form on the bottom of the glass. I'm sure ideally the beer needs to be filtered after using Polyclar, which is a little too much hassle for me. Anyone else found sediment with polyclar?

Edit if anyone wants to try polyclar I have some left over.

[Aleman]

I use Polyclar 730 plus for stabilisation, it's a silica gel / polyclar mix, and I add it to the beer before crash chilling. . . then about a week later I use Isinglas to drop out any remaining yeast and to 'stabilise' the loose polyclar sediment.

[orlando]

Maltmiller now do a product which is supposed to help with chill haze HERE but I like Orlando's advice as prevention is always better than cure.

There you go that should fix the link.

[TC2642]

I'm sure ideally the beer needs to be filtered after using Polyclar, which is a little too much hassle for me. Anyone else found sediment with polyclar?

Edit if anyone wants to try polyclar I have some left over.

Never had a problem, how long did you leave it in the primary for? I usually leave it two to three days to clear before transferring it to my bottling bucket.

[barneey]

Cant exactly remember, but I would have added it to the concial at least 3 or 4 days before racking through the arm into a keg.

[TC2642]

Strange, not sure what else that could be then.

[barneey]

I might give it another go at somepoint in the future as I have a nearly full tub of the stuff. For the soon to be keeged brew I used / will use the cellabrite / allkeer option which I know works well, although someone else has pointed me in the direction of leaf gelatine.

[alix101]

I've suffered myself and although it's not supposed to matter ...it did, reading up a bit like Orlando said boil hard ..at the end if you want to cut losses, protofloc and for some reason I've found it works better than worlfloc And crash chill, other than that chemicals or filtration... even the big boys suffer with this.

[far9410]

I've suffered myself and although it's not supposed to matter ...it did, reading up a bit like Orlando said boil hard ..at the end if you want to cut losses, protofloc and for some reason I've found it works better than worlfloc And crash chill, other than that chemicals or filtration... even the big boys suffer with this.

it could possibly be then, I have a 27 ltr boiler that i have to top up, so part of the wort is not getting a vigorous boil? ( new 50l boiler nearly done)

[setmash]

Im quite new to AG and have been suffering from chill haze. However after dropping a bollock with my latest brew (too low gravity) i had to boil twice to increase - and the second boil was really hard (i use an 9KW gas burner - goodness knows how much gas i chewed through). However, just finished fermenting and the beer is crystal clear....amazing , no additives other than Irish moss in the initial boil.