Cloudy beer all of a sudden

[greenxpaddy]

I have changed the way I brew recently and I have been getting cloudy beer as a result which does not settle with isinglass.

The two new practices I have been employing have been

1.cold steeping and warm steeping grains, followed by a pasteurisation of the extract at 75 degrees C, cooling before adding to main wort.

2. making hop teas in a pan and using the tea to add to main wort or last time I used a hop back for 80c wort to pass through to fermenter.

Both of these seem to have added cloudiness to the end beer.

Consequent questions are.... the cloudiness could be malt proteins from unboiled extract or could be polyphenols from the huge amount of hops. Which is more likely?

I have been using 2 tabs per 164L protafloc . Do you think I should up that to 3 tabs?

[bigrichlock]

My money would be on the lack of a boil for part of your grain bill, why not just boil the steeped wort for 30min? boiling is not just for sterilization, lots of interesting things happen protein wise, George Fix's book goes into it in a lot of detail.

Or just do what most micros do just chuck the grains in the mashtun?

I doubt its the hops, how huge is ur huge amount? more then 1kg per barrel? i normally just use gelatin and ive never had a problem getting bright beer with hopping rates up to this level.

I think your about right with the Protafloc, think the key is a boil of all wort is required, only one way to find out really?

Cheers

Rich

[crookedeyeboy]

Sounds like protein, use some auxiliary finings and it'll drop bright.

[greenxpaddy]

Cheers for the advice. About 700g-1kg hops per barrel late is the kind of amount.

I'll try the gelatine/ kwik clear route. In future I will stick with one recipe, then I Won't need to prat about splitting wort

[scuppeteer]

Are we talking brewers barrel or your standard 9 gallon cask? If the latter that's a shit load of hops to be putting in and its unlikely to clear properly. Bet it tastes good though! ;o)

[WishboneBrewery]

Sounds like protein, use some auxiliary finings and it'll drop bright.

What he said

If you let a Copper fined sample settle in a glass how does it look and how long to settle out to a layer at the bottom of the glass, we'd use about 8g of Protafloc in your volume for a 1040 OG.

But go with the Auxiliary, they are specifically for proteins and you could dose at two stages, first when you start chilling down your beer and second before you rack to secondary or cask (Both does go in the fermenter, or the second dose can go in a conditioning tank).

I'll have to get in to all your bottles soon

[greenxpaddy]

Based upon your replies I would bet that the haze has come from the specialty malt steep without boiling the extract.

They don't really mention this part of steeping on the internet articles. They make a cursory mention to pasteurising it. The intent not to boil it is to reduce bitterness extraction from the dark malts. It would appear this comes at a cost of clarity.

[WallyBrew]

Based upon your replies I would bet that the haze has come from the specialty malt steep without boiling the extract.

They don't really mention this part of steeping on the internet articles. They make a cursory mention to pasteurising it. The intent not to boil it is to reduce bitterness extraction from the dark malts. It would appear this comes at a cost of clarity.

Can you explain exactly how you did your extraction process. Such as were the grains cold steeped and then heated or were the cold steeped grains separated from the extract prior to heating etc etc

[greenxpaddy]

I've done a cold steep then remove grains and pasteurise

I've done a warm steep 30c and pasteurise

I've done a steep at 75c and cool.

All seem to give similar results

[WishboneBrewery]

I've never done a cold steep, I think most people just add the cold wort in at the start of the boil.
I like a good but not overpowering amount of Roast character in an India Black Ale, Dry hopping well does help to smooth over the roastiness.

[gnutz2]

I allways use auxiliary before isinglass and more recently I've started using polyclar in conjunction aswell, kind of attacking it from all angles. I think the polyclar helps stabilize the beer and prevent future hazes.

[greenxpaddy]

I've done retracing of my brews to try to analyse possible beer haze sources

Three areas of haze causing particles

1.yeast. Easily removed with isinglass BUT you need to get a pretty clear beer first or you will need just too much of the stuff.

2. Proteins from malt. Easily removed by boiling and fining with Irish moss.

3. Hop particles. Not sure if this is polyphenols exactly. If you try to extract hop flavour using WATER not wort, especially where the proportion of hops to liquor is great you tend to extract a lot of hop particles. An extreme version of hop rocket haze. I'm not talking about dry hopping or a steep in the boiler, that's fine. If you boil up hops and stir them round you break the leaves and create a big hop soup. Wish someone had told me that. No finings remove those particles

[WishboneBrewery]

Not all proteins are removed from the wort by boiling and protafloc, last years crop of malt was mostly over fertilised / high in nitogen due to the lack of rainfall, your cold/warm steep thing could just be exasperating things, but Protafloc alone would NOT give you a pin-bright pint.

Isinglass finings do help settle Hop pellet particles though, its probably a matter of them being floc'd out with the yeasty clumps.

[greenxpaddy]

Not all proteins are removed from the wort by boiling and protafloc, last years crop of malt was mostly over fertilised / high in nitogen due to the lack of rainfall, your cold/warm steep thing could just be exasperating things, but Protafloc alone would NOT give you a pin-bright pint.

I tried some auxiliary finings and its the solution I was looking for. So it really red flags proteins as you thought. I have never had this problem before and even brews without the steeping method have been affected. So I am guessing it must be the high nitrogen content in the malt. However I am going to pay particular attention in future to the recirculation of first runnings and the protafloc dose in future. I have never needed to use auxiliary finings in the past and would rather avoid the addition of this extra step. I try to keep my brewing as wholesome as possible. Adding silicates to beer really doesn't make me feel happy.

[WishboneBrewery]

I think I'd rather have Silicates than Isinglass, like Moorbeer.