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Beer is Cloudy

Post #1 made 13 years ago
by redlegger
Hey guys, thought i'd post this one here as to me this one is a fault as out 8 BIAB's this is the only one that is still cloudy after a long period in the keg......

I brewed the Smurto Golden Ale a few months back, and it has been in the keg now for at LEAST 10 weeks, this is third time i have brewed this recipe.....problem is.. it is still cloudy, i didnt gelatine this one when i kegged, so i initially thought that this was why it was still cloudy.... but as far as i understood, gelatine only sped up the process of what would happen after a few weeks of the beer being cold in the keg?
I didnt do any notes while brewing this one either so i cant refer to them....

My questions are...

1. could i have done something during the brewing process to affect the clarity of the final product?
2. can i gelatine now and clear up the beer (probably not much point now as there is only a few litres left)
3. WHY WONT MY BEER CLEAR NATURALLY :( :cry: :cry: :cry:
Last edited by redlegger on 19 Oct 2010, 19:19, edited 5 times in total.
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Post #2 made 13 years ago
by wizard78
sounds like strange one RL, it's not chill haze is it? Does it clear when the beer warms?
[center]"All right, brain. You don't like me and I don't like you, but let's just do this and I can get back to killing you with beer."
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Post #3 made 13 years ago
by redlegger
wizard78 wrote:sounds like strange one RL, it's not chill haze is it? Does it clear when the beer warms?
hey wiz! Thats what i initially thought, however i have let a glass of it warm up tonight, and it didnt clear at all, its definatley 'cloudy' and not 'hazy' does that make sense?
Another test i did with it last week was let a glass sit out overnight to see if any major sediment dropped out and sat in the bottom of the glass... but nope, nothing dropped out of the beer and the bottom of the glass was clean.

bit of a strange one because every other brew i have done has cleared up over about a week in the keg (amber ale, kolsch, porter, coopers pale clone)

thanks in advance everyone :salute:
Last edited by redlegger on 19 Oct 2010, 20:44, edited 5 times in total.
"I like beer. On occasion, I will even drink beer to celebrate a major event such as the fall of Communism or the fact that the refrigerator is still working.” – Dave Berry

Post #4 made 13 years ago
by BobBrews
One cloudy beer out of eight. If it tastes good than I don't think I would worry too much. If it just bugs you as to what is up? Then brew Smurto Golden Ale again. You never know it could be the beer? Here is a crazy notion. Maybe the grain wasn't what it was suppose to be? Maybe you could have grabbed a bag of wheat and that made it cloudy? Hey I told you is was a crazy notion! I know someone here will come up with a decent answer.
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Post #5 made 13 years ago
by hashie
I can't help you either RL.

The only time I had cloudy beer was when I had moved house and needed a beer quickly. I made a batch of Irish Red and had it from grain to keg in 4 days. This beer was cloudy as all get out, because it didn't have the time on the yeast cake to allow the yeast to clear it up.

I'm not saying this could be your problem, just what happened with me.
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Post #6 made 13 years ago
by redlegger
hashie wrote:I can't help you either RL.

The only time I had cloudy beer was when I had moved house and needed a beer quickly. I made a batch of Irish Red and had it from grain to keg in 4 days. This beer was cloudy as all get out, because it didn't have the time on the yeast cake to allow the yeast to clear it up.

I'm not saying this could be your problem, just what happened with me.
Thanks for the feedback guys..

Hash, you may be on the money here, i do recall this being kegged after only 7 days of fermentation , so maybe that is it!
I have another batch in a cube that i brewed on the weekend, so when my wheat beer finishes fermenting ill do the godlen ale and leave it for an extra week after it is stable and see if that helps, ill also gelatine it as well, that sound like it should solve the problem :)
Last edited by redlegger on 20 Oct 2010, 13:54, edited 5 times in total.
"I like beer. On occasion, I will even drink beer to celebrate a major event such as the fall of Communism or the fact that the refrigerator is still working.” – Dave Berry

Post #7 made 13 years ago
by crundle
it might even be that it has settled out in the keg somewhat, but the pickup tube might still be sucking up some sediment. This can occur sometimes if the beer is kegged early on in my experience.
If the problem goes away when the keg is say half empty (or full depending on your outlook on life) then this may have been the problem as it would have sucked up all the sediment near it by then.

Just a thought

Matt

Post #8 made 13 years ago
by PistolPatch
Believe it or not RL, as Bob said, "Maybe the grain wasn't what it was suppose to be?"

Grain specs often change. We home brewers always expect that if we buy a bag of 'this brand' and buy the same brand a season later, that they will behave the same. They often don't. This is why the maltsters provide breweries with grain spec sheets. Having this info tells the breweries what they will have to deal with.

Brewing beer consistently and commercially is not an easy game.

I'm not saying that your grain has changed but, like Bob, I am saying that if all your other brews have been fine then it is worth considering this rather than blaming yourself.

The guys above have thought of anything else I reckon.

If your problem is with the grain, the next question is how to fix it.

The first approach is to increase your boil time if you have only been doing 60 minutes. Raise this to 90.

Have you suddenly got interested in evaporation rates and subconsciously decreased the vigour of your boil? Average evaporation rates are bullshit as they do not consider the surface area of your pot let alone your batch size. Make sure you have not reduced your boil to an insipid one.

Finally, if there is a problem with the grain, it is no use someone telling you to use this or that fining unless you know what the problem is. Some problems will be fixed with this fining and others will be fixed with that fining. We can get all scientific and say this fining is positively charged and this one is negatively charged but without knowing what the problem is, you only have a 50% chance of getting it right in my opinion. Using both nearly always solves the problem but is it worth it?

I have two finings in my fridge/freezer, two filters in my cupboard and I haven't used any of this stuff in probably 18 months (I do use kettle finings usually) and my beer, given two weeks in the keg, comes clear to bright.

It's a good question you have asked RL. The guys excellent answers above I think will solve 90% of haze/cloudiness problems. The remaining 10% can sometimes be a bastard to solve.

I got stuck in this 10% for probably half a year. A fellow brewer who is a consistent gold-medal winner in lagers and who is also highly educated in brewing also had the same problem. He finally found a fining that worked but it took a lot of talking on the phone and took, at least, half-year to solve the problem. Now I don't use anything and don't have the problem!

Go figure!
PP

P.S. Another basic thing to check is your pH. Often your town water will vary in this.
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Post #9 made 13 years ago
by widdley
Hey RL, Tis the yeast I tell you!

If your using US05 I found its a pain to clear in this brew unless you use some of the voodoo products. Not familiar enough to know whether No.5 always behaves like this or just for the GA (with wheat etc) - i'm sure I could make reference to colloids here if I was a bit smarter... :?

My 1st 2 batches of the GA were cloudy like yours but still tasted great - refused to clear naturally after several months. I just kegged another last week by first chilling the secondary then adding the swim bladder of an un-baptised male fish. So now I can see through the glass.

My gut tells me it's going to take forever for this yeast to settle by itself so it may need a helping hand. I think I'll build me a big beer centrifuge to make the little bastards dizzy

Now I'm ranting :roll:
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