Break material on surface.

[vipergreen]

Made my third AG last Sunday, Sg was 1042 yesterday it was 1006 so I bottled it.

It is so clear I'm unsure it will carbonate, its as clear as my kits or extracts were after 6 weeks conditioning and if served up now I doubt many would question its clarity.

Anyhow on to my question.

The thick cloud type lumps formed on the Top of the brew in the fermenter and although I skimmed the surface some mater particles still seemed "suspended" in the beer.

I thought about chilling it prior to bottling but being so clear I thought I'd have even less chance of carbonation.

Luckily very little of the "muck" made it into the bottles but iw ould just like to know why the beer fermented this way and basically what i did wrong.

Many thanks for any advice

[Alton_Bee]

Are you sure those "particles" are not yeast ?

[clogwog]

The clumps are more likely to be hops residue than yeast.
I have this quite often, and sometimes scoop it out with a sanitised spoon, at other times I've ignored it.
Doesn't seem to affect the quality or clarity of my brews in the bottle.

[yashicamat]

Out of curiosity, what was your recipe / yeast? That sounds like a very good "quick brew" if it's that quick to ferment out and clear.

[pantsmachine]

I ferment in a 5 gallon glass carbuoy with a 2" neck and i never worry about any material that is on top of the brew. Heck i don't even transfer to another vessel before bottling. It either goes in the bottle straight from the fv or straight into a top tap king keg to settle. I am careful when bottling not to disturb bottom layer in fv and as such i have made a copper tube with predrilled hole in the sides of it which i put my syphon hose into at a set mark and then syphon. Beer ends up really clear. If its clear enoguh that you are worried about not having enough yeast then you are doing it right!

[vipergreen]

Out of curiosity, what was your recipe / yeast? That sounds like a very good "quick brew" if it's that quick to ferment out and clear.

My usual "make it up as I go along"

4100 Pale Malt (mashed for 90 mins with 8 litres then Batch sparged twice with 12 litres each time)
25g Fuggles (2 hour boil)
33g First gold (added at heat off)
Cooled but then left for a couple of hours prior to running into fermenter
1 packet Safale 04.

One thing I did do was tilt both the Mash tun and Boiler to get out as much as possible, but I think I must be pulling in more "crap" this way so in future should I leave alone and not be so greedy.

[booldawg]

I've had brews whereby bits of hop, break material and whatever else has carried through to the FV. Stick it out in the cold to mature and after time gravity will sort it out; it'll be down there with the yeast

[yashicamat]

Out of curiosity, what was your recipe / yeast? That sounds like a very good "quick brew" if it's that quick to ferment out and clear.

My usual "make it up as I go along"

4100 Pale Malt (mashed for 90 mins with 8 litres then Batch sparged twice with 12 litres each time)
25g Fuggles (2 hour boil)
33g First gold (added at heat off)
Cooled but then left for a couple of hours prior to running into fermenter
1 packet Safale 04.

One thing I did do was tilt both the Mash tun and Boiler to get out as much as possible, but I think I must be pulling in more "crap" this way so in future should I leave alone and not be so greedy.

Good stuff. I did an AG today with 8.25 lbs pale malt, 0.25 lbs wheat malt and the hops being made up of target for bittering and EKG for aroma. I have also used Safale 04 (first time) so I shall be very interested to see how this turns out. OG was 1041, but I did a fly sparge and managed to get 16 litres of wort at an SG of 1062 and just boil that in my 20 litre stockpot, rather than mess about with two pots, then topped up in the fermenter to bring the gravity to 1040ish.