Bottle Clarity

[Mike Neilson]

I am Fine Tuning my brewing, and want to improve my bottle clarity. I normaly Mash at 65.8-67.8. Boil for 60mins and when It comes to Bottling my beers are Crystal Clear. But after they have matured for 2-4 weeks in bottle as soon as I pop them in the fridge they Turn cloudy, chill haze. The Beer tastes spot on but I just want to improve the clarity, So when I give the Beer to people who dont realy know a real beer from an export or tui, they dont judge the beer to be awfull from just looking at it. I want to know if im missing a process or improve a process. any thoughts?

[Mike Neilson]

As I said before I dont mind haze but if i could get rid of it I would, only to satisfy other people, which make no sense!!!! I dont want to add any cemicals or fish bladder as I can buy that for $9.90 a Doz.

[Reviled]

I wouldnt blame no chilling for chill haze either, as ive had a couple of clear AG no chill beers

[James P]

I remember reading somewhere that chill haze can be due to not converting all the starch to sugars, so increasing the length of the mash or alternatively the technique. (Or using irish moss et al)

I have only done one BIAB so can't offer any real knowledge, however I do research as much as possible (probabaly too much) before I start a process, thus when I do a traditional AG I will probably be a little disappointed if I muck it up...

[MrC]

I had another thought on this today. For my very first extract (non kit) brew, I scraped every last bit of crud from the pot into the fermenter. Ther beer was terrible and hazy as hell. I now careully decant from the pot into the fermenter though a seive trying to only let the clear wort get into the fermenter and leaving as much trub on the pot as possible. Keep the break material (hot & cold) out of the fermenter.

[Mike Neilson]

Yeah have tried that also. I boil a grain bag more like a a fine cotton, after ten mins on the boil i pull it out at the same time as my wort has cooled and strain the wort. I dont force strain the bag at the end (im not gready) either more so just let it do its own thing. But this has only lead to a clean ferment! basicly the only tub I collected was the dead yeast and a few odd and sods. and not led to a clear served beer!!

[JoKing]

Haze has just as much to do with post fermentation as what it does pre fermentation.

The Americans do secondary fermentation. They use a glass carboy and keep it in there for about a month. Basically, when primary fermentation has finished they'll rack it over then store it in their cool rooms (a fridge will do this job). When it looks clear, they will then bottle/keg it.

The only issue that I see with this is more margain for infection and oxidation. However - they dont have any problems. Their beers had very little haze when served cool (8-10degreesC).

If you are prepared to spend the money and take the time to make a good brew, then it should be safe to assume that you would be prepared to add an extra month to your brewing process to get clearer beers.

[Horace]

Boiling the bag with malt in it?? Could be excess tanin extraction

[Mike Neilson]

no bag is boiled to sanatise, nothing else.

[Fairlane]

Creation of more tannin would actually be a good thing though as it would help to bind up the proteins....

I think unless you want to add something like calcium bentonite you may need to try an extended cold conditioning period after bottling...

dh