66 replies to this topic

[Big Nake]

To eliminate chill haze, you need to gel the beer colder than you serve it.

Right. I have heard this. The problem is that my "on-deck" fridge is not kept quite as cold because it's also the place where I store my yeast. So that fridge may not be quite as cold as my serving fridges are set to. I may have to lower the temp of that fridge and I think that my temporary strategy is going to be adding a gel solution to every single keg after I chill it and before I carb it. I already do this on beers that I really want to be clear and I get decent results. When it comes to hoppy/DH'd beers, I'll make a gameday decision... either gel it and live with lower hop character or leave it and serve beer that looks like you could walk across it. Cheers.

Ps. The character than I'm getting from this helles is really wild. The aroma from the airlock has a much deeper and robust malt character than I'm used to. Again, is it the Barke Pils doing this (Weyermann's documentation on the grain does suggests that it makes a malty beer) or is it the Brewtan preventing O2 from scrubbing out the malt character or is it both? I'm looking forward to sampling it because it's really acting like a completely different animal right now. From the BSG site... Weyermann® Barke® Pilsner malt is perfect for creating authentic lager style beers. It enhances body and mouthfeel substantially in the finished beer, while imparting intense malt aromas. What also sets Barke® Pilsner malt apart is it’s excellent process characteristics in the brew-house and during filtration, coupled with increased extract efficiency.

From Weyermann: Barke® brings with it the best conditions for an intense malt taste in the beer, a full-bodied flavor and good head.

[neddles]

Fermenter with a CO2 port solves this

Fancy Pants.

 

Send neddles a fermentor with CO2 port!

Right. I have heard this. The problem is that my "on-deck" fridge is not kept quite as cold because it's also the place where I store my yeast. So that fridge may not be quite as cold as my serving fridges are set to. I may have to lower the temp of that fridge and I think that my temporary strategy is going to be adding a gel solution to every single keg after I chill it and before I carb it. I already do this on beers that I really want to be clear and I get decent results. When it comes to hoppy/DH'd beers, I'll make a gameday decision... either gel it and live with lower hop character or leave it and serve beer that looks like you could walk across it. Cheers.

Reverse that. Keep the "on deck" fridge colder and the serving fridge warmer. Also, I think colder is better for storing yeast as long as you aren't freezing it.

[ChicagoWaterGuy]

Right, and if you open it while cold there will be a massive influx of air. So do you warm it back up to equalize the pressure before gel and/or transfer or how do you handle the potential O2 contact problem?

My process is to pull the airlock/drilled stopper after fermentation. Insert a solid bung. Crash chill carboy for 24 hours. Then I pull the bung and add the gel. From what I understand of gelling, you want the beer to be as cold as possible. Some air gets pulled in but here is still a co2 in the carboy. I've never worried about it or noticed oxidation. I guess I could sort out a way to purge the headspace when gelling but I haven't had any problems.

[Big Nake]

Reverse that. Keep the "on deck" fridge colder and the serving fridge warmer. Also, I think colder is better for storing yeast as long as you aren't freezing it.

I'm going to put a cup of water into the on-deck fridge and in the serving fridges and see where they're at. I do serve my beer cold which is my preference and the preference of most of my target audience. I'll leave the water in each fridge and then check the temp with my Thermapen and see if I have some room to adjust.

[neddles]

My process is to pull the airlock/drilled stopper after fermentation. Insert a solid bung. Crash chill carboy for 24 hours. Then I pull the bung and add the gel. From what I understand of gelling, you want the beer to be as cold as possible. Some air gets pulled in but here is still a co2 in the carboy. I've never worried about it or noticed oxidation. I guess I could sort out a way to purge the headspace when gelling but I haven't had any problems.

Thanks for that. I am stuck in that zone between "I haven't noticed any problems from it" (like you) and heroic efforts to "avoid O2 exposure of any kind post fermentation."

[denny]

I have made 3 batches in the last 14 days. Exactly two weeks ago I made an Amarillo-Citra pale ale. On Friday I made a helles. Today I made another pale ale bittered with Nugget and then 2 ounces of Santiam and 2 ounces of Crystal added in the last 15 minutes. All of these were made with Brewtan. While I made the batch today, I took the Amarillo-Citra batch and racked it from primary directly to a purged keg instead of a secondary. I left the keg at room temp because I wanted to dry hop it. So I added an ounce each of Amarillo and Citra to a muslin bag and dropped it in there. I'll let that go for 5-7 days, retrieve the bag and then chill the keg, gel it and carb it. I know there has been some talk about gel stripping dry hops but without the benefit of secondary (for clarity) plus the dry hops, I need to take some step towards clear beer so I will try it this way. The helles I made on Friday went smoothly and it was made with the resurrected 2352. I tasted the wort going from kettle to primary and I was quite surprised at the flavor. It had a REALLY pronounced grain flavor (in a good way) and it was very different than what I would normally taste. This was the first batch I made with this Weyermann Barke Pils so not sure if it was that, the low(er) O2 or a combination of both. I plan to comment here on how these batches come out once I have sampled them. I notice that the Brewtan seems to temporarily change the color of the wort (it looks unusual while recircing and boiling... once I rack it to the primary, it looks totally normal) and the foam/break material has a strange color as I posted earlier. Cheers.

 

I had the same reaction to the Barke pils.  I have 3 batches cold crashing now, 2 of them made with Brewtan.  I'll take a taste in the next couple days.

Nope.  In fact, if I remember correctly, allowing break material into the fermentor lead to clearer beer in the end.

 

That is what a few tests have shown.  Also improved flavor.

[Brauer]

Nope. In fact, if I remember correctly, allowing break material into the fermentor lead to clearer beer in the end.

Yes, a number of experiments have shown dramatically improved clarity with trub in the primary.

Chill haze is a combination of protein and tannins. Gelatin removes tannins and protein. Perhaps the problem is too much tannin. I have reduced the tannin levels in my beers, so maybe that's why my beers are clear after a week or so in the fridge, but I assumed that was typical. Maybe it's because I don't try to keep trub out of my primary...

[Big Nake]

Yes, a number of experiments have shown dramatically improved clarity with trub in the primary.

Chill haze is a combination of protein and tannins. Gelatin removes tannins and protein. Perhaps the problem is too much tannin. I have reduced the tannin levels in my beers, so maybe that's why my beers are clear after a week or so in the fridge, but I assumed that was typical. Maybe it's because I don't try to keep trub out of my primary...

I get plenty of trub in my primary, for sure. How do you reduce tannins?

[Brauer]

I get plenty of trub in my primary, for sure. How do you reduce tannins?

I guess I misunderstood. It sounded like you try to get clear beer into the fermentor. I never bother with that.

I reduce tannin by conditioning malt and, primarily, by doing a No Sparge mash. When I have a reason to sparge, I use only a small sparge with water at mash temperature. Of course I'm also doing what we are all doing, mashing at proper pH and adding Calcium. Along with water treatment, No Sparge can make a noticable difference in tannin levels. I didn't do this to improve clarity, though, I did this to improve malt flavor.

[positiveContact]

I guess I misunderstood. It sounded like you try to get clear beer into the fermentor. I never bother with that.

 

I'm wondering if you guys don't have the same definition of trub, hence some confusion/miscommunication.

[neddles]

I'm wondering if you guys don't have the same definition of trub, hence some confusion/miscommunication.

Yeah, I thought Ken was transferring to primary through a strainer but maybe not.

[Brauer]

Cold crash the primary before sending to a keg? No. Lagers ferment in a fridge around 50 but then sit on the basement floor for a few days to clean up. Ales sit in a tub of water between 60 and 65 and then come out and sit on the basement floor for a few days. Everything used to go to secondary and clarify at room temp.

I think that what I'm seeing primarily is chill haze. A number of beers lately have been cloudy when cold but very clear as they warm up a bit. Does that suggest that I'm allowing too much schputz from the kettle into the primary? I typically get about 4 gallons of very clear wort going into the primary but then I start to pick up a lot of hop and break material. Maybe I need to try Chils' draflaussen thing so that all that stuff settles and then rack off of it. I generally do not just magically get clear beer after the beer sits cold.

I think I honed in on 'very clear wort' and lost track of the mention of kettle trub.

Edited by Brauer, 13 June 2016 - 06:46 PM.

[Big Nake]

I started trying to get less trub/break material/hop material in the primary to keep yeast as clean as possible and to make it easier to tell how much yeast I had as opposed to yeast + a bunch of stuff I didn't want. Plus, I'm not sure I have ever heard that trub is beneficial. Even Chils' drauflassen routine seems to be a way to get around extra schputz in the primary. Even still, once my wort stops running clear, plenty of break material ends up in my primaries. I may get 3-4 gallons of very clear wort but the last 1-2 are sludge. Yes, I use a strainer but it only catches some of the stuff.

[Brauer]

Plus, I'm not sure I have ever heard that trub is beneficial.

I think that's the result of seeing all the efforts that people go to to get clear wort and then assuming that it must be a good thing to do. It's just that, when tested, kettle trub in primary improves the rate of clearing. As an anecdotal example, I dump my entire kettle into my primary through a strainer, removing only what gets filtered by the hop bed that forms, and my beer clears without any finings other than Whirlfloc.

I started doing that after comparing split batches where half the wort was run clear into one fermentor and all the trub was added with the half that was added to the second fermentor. There was no flavor benefit to removing the trub in blind tasting.

[Big Nake]

I think that's the result of seeing all the efforts that people go to to get clear wort and then assuming that it must be a good thing to do. It's just that, when tested, kettle trub in primary improves the rate of clearing. As an anecdotal example, I dump my entire kettle into my primary through a strainer, removing only what gets filtered by the hop bed that forms, and my beer clears without any finings other than Whirlfloc.

I started doing that after comparing split batches where half the wort was run clear into one fermentor and all the trub was added with the half that was added to the second fermentor. There was no flavor benefit to removing the trub in blind tasting.

The second part of that suggests that what you witnessed was specifically due to the trub, right? I say that because I wonder if something in your water composition had anything to do with it or some other part of your process that I do differently. You condition the malt (which was a part of the low-O2 paper) and you have a smaller sparge. Let me ask... how do you condition your malt? Something like 2-3 ounces of water sprayed on the malt prior to milling? Also, for a 5-gallon batch I might mash with 4.5 gallons and sparge with 3.5 gallons. There used to be some guidelines about mash consistency and those guidelines seem to have disappeared. If I used 8 gallons of water for a 5-gallon batch with 9-10 pounds of grain in it, how would you divide up the mash and sparge water? Could I go 6 gallons mash and 2 sparge? I used to do 4 and 4 and someone mentioned making the sparge smaller so how much could I adjust that by and what are the drawbacks, if any. I could cut down on tannins this way which would have an impact on clarity. Cheers and thanks.

[denny]

I reduce tannin by conditioning malt and, primarily, by doing a No Sparge mash. When I have a reason to sparge, I use only a small sparge with water at mash temperature. Of course I'm also doing what we are all doing, mashing at proper pH and adding Calcium. Along with water treatment, No Sparge can make a noticable difference in tannin levels. I didn't do this to improve clarity, though, I did this to improve malt flavor.

 

Yet I do none of that and have the same result.  So is that procedure really the cause of the c;arity?

[Steve Urquell]

Just so it's clear about drauflassen. I don't do it specifically to target beer clarity nor am I concerned about trub in the fermenter. My beer does drop very clear after a couple of weeks in the keg though, gelled or not. Not saying drauflassen is the reason though.

[Big Nake]

I feel like I have to work hard for clarity and one of my tools was to allow beer to sit cold in kegs and get it to clear naturally. But every now and then I hear someone tell me that I leave my beer sitting around too long and that I should drink it "fresher"... but something's gotta give. How can I drink a beer that went from grain to glass in 15 days and expect it to be clear too? I can't seem to do that.

[positiveContact]

Yet I do none of that and have the same result.  So is that procedure really the cause of the c;arity?

 

too many variables to really compare I would think.

[Steve Urquell]

I feel like I have to work hard for clarity and one of my tools was to allow beer to sit cold in kegs and get it to clear naturally. But every now and then I hear someone tell me that I leave my beer sitting around too long and that I should drink it "fresher"... but something's gotta give. How can I drink a beer that went from grain to glass in 15 days and expect it to be clear too? I can't seem to do that.

I think people (myself included) were saying you had unnecessary transfers and extended aging time unprotected from oxidation. I get them in the keg asap then let my eyes and tastebuds determine their drinkability. Mine are usually at prime ~3weeks after kegged.