not enough evaporation!

[Troutman47]

Hi All,

My beers always seem to go cloudy when chilled so I'm assuming its chill haze although I am adding 3g Irish Moss.
So today I decided to boil with the lid partially on to get a slightly more vigorous boil and then with my newly improved IC chill it to 20C in about 14 mins.

However, after the 90 mins boil I have 30 litres of wort instead of the usual 25!
I've tested the OG and instead of 1.050 I have 1.044 so I have continued the boil until I get the right amount of wort before I add my flame out hops.

Have I done the right thing by continuing the boil?
What effect will the extra boil have on the two additions of hops i've added already?

Hops added 66g Challenger, all of boil
40 Progress 15 mins from end.

I'm making the JBK ESB.

Cheers.

[keith1664]

It won't have too much effect on the Challenger as they've already been there for 90 mins, there will however be a lot more bitterness from the Progress.

[Troutman47]

Thanks Keith.

total boil time 172 mins!!

[Blackaddler]

It sounds like your boil isn't vigorous enough.

[Troutman47]

I'd say it was a bit more vigorous than usual, i think the problem was having the lid on probably covering 80% of the opening to increase the vigour.

Anyway, it's set aside to ferment now, unbelievably slightly short in brew length!

Ended with 1.052 maybe 1.054

[keith1664]

What was the AA of the hops?

[Troutman47]

Challenger was 66g at 7% AA (172mins)

Progress, 40g at 5.5% AA (82mins)

EKG, 40g at 5.7% AA (flame out, 20 min steep)

As I said in my original post, I'm getting chill haze, so my idea was to partially cover the boiler with the lid to increase the boil vigour slightly and then cool quickly with my newly adapted IC.
However, although I would say there was a bit more vigour to the boil I seemed to have less evaporation which I'm guessing is because it was covered over (not fully).
Mind you the IC worked well, when I adapted it I cooled 24l of water from boiling to 20C in 14 mins. Today, after a 20 min steep it cooled it to 17C in 12 mins!

[keith1664]

Putting your numbers into Brewmate suggests the bittering from your Challenger increased by 0.7 IBU and that from the Progress 15.4 IBU, giving you a total of 73.5.

The reason you didn't have so much boil off is that the steam will be condensing on the lid and then dripping back in.

[Troutman47]

I'm open to suggestion to sort this chill haze problem out.

I treat my water, on this occasion, with DWB. I always felt my boil was ok but tried today to increase the vigour but didn't get the evaporation, the only thing that's worked as I hoped is the IC!

Any suggestions welcome

[LeeH]

Thought about using protofloc and ditching the moss?

http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/aca ... VKBQCYA4Ls

[Troutman47]

Yea, I've used protofloc before, not really noticed that they were any better than Irish moss

[Andy]

What beer temperature is giving you a chill haze ?

[Troutman47]

Good question Andy!

Never really tried working that one out!
At room temp it's clear, when it's been in the fridge overnight, at probably 4/5C, it's hazy, if that's any help?

Cheers!

[Troutman47]

http://s1237.photobucket.com/user/trout ... 4.mp4.html

This is the kind of boil I get from one element, do you think it's vigorous enough?

Personally I think it needs to be a bit more but before I go buying a 3kw element I'd like to know what you all think.

Any one bought one of these? http://brewbuilder.co.uk/index.php?_a=p ... duct_id=48

Any good?

Does it require the same size hole in the bucket or bigger?

Cheers

[Andy]

I sometimes get chill haze at low temperatures also. However, at serving temps. (13 degC ish) then I get no haze so don't worry about it.