Advice to clarify my beer

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Permalink Reply by Ralph on October 18, 2012 at 6:44pm

If you are bottle conditioning then you will get sediment from the yeast that do the secondary fermentation in the bottle no matter how much you fine the beer beforehand.

If you want home brew with very little sediment in the bottle then it gets more complicated... Bottling from a keg is one way you might achieve this.

I find the best way to get good clear beer from bottle conditioning is to use a yeast that is very flocculant and so the sediment sits very firm on the bottom of the bottle. The danstar Nottingham dried yeast is one that I have found achieves this well. Other than that store your beer upright, handle it with care and pour the clear beer off the yeast in one go.

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Permalink Reply by Phill Chevsi on October 18, 2012 at 10:02pm

Cheers Ralph,

I was reading about getting good yeast flocculation recently.  Think I will hunt some out for my next batch.  Thanks heaps for your input.  Much appreciated.

Phil

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Permalink Reply by Kelly Milligan on October 18, 2012 at 7:31pm

Hey Phil :)

Raplh is spot on, it's the actual act of carbonation in the bottle that generates most of that sediment you find in your bottles. Notty is awesome for this, it floccs out to a very good clarity within weeks (those english strains.. they're mutant I tells ya!). 

Otherwise, do you find that the clarity is better at room temp, but gets much worse once you stick your beer in the fridge?  How about when you switched from extract to partial mash, did it get far worse with the mash batches?

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Permalink Reply by Phill Chevsi on October 18, 2012 at 9:55pm

Hey Kelly,

Thanks for your input.  No I haven't  really found a huge change in clarity when I fridge it.  I guess I was looking back at other brewers batches that I have tried and am keen to achieve what they have done (Not that what Ive made is in any way bad.  Its always good and friends are more than happy to drink it)  

I hadn't thought about sediment from carbonation, and now that makes perfect sense to me.  Also, thanks for advice on the Notty.  Yeast is something that I have been learning a lot about recently so will give this a try next time.  

Thanks again for your thoughts and advice

Phil

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Permalink Reply by Edmund Barker on October 24, 2012 at 1:07pm

Heya Kelly,

Is Nottingham good for a sparkling golden ale? I have US-05, but if Notty will floculate better, I might go for that and save the US-05 for my IPA. Cheers :)

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Permalink Reply by Kelly Milligan on October 24, 2012 at 1:54pm

I think Notty would be great for a sparkling ale! :) might give you slightly more yeast character than the 05, which is a good thing for the style. I do have a soft spot for US-05, but unless you're able to cold crash it for several weeks or use Gelatine (which i use, and it works spectacularly!) then clarity can be pretty troublesome.

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Permalink Reply by Dan on October 18, 2012 at 8:38pm

I found my beer got lots more"murky" when I went to Grain. Try using some Super Moss or similar at last 10mins of the boil and strain your wort well before you put into fermentor (I run mine though viole). Made a huge difference to my beer clarity.

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Permalink Reply by Phill Chevsi on October 18, 2012 at 9:58pm

Cheers Dan,

I was reading about Super Moss recently.  Think I will give it a go in the next batch if it has worked for you.

Thanks for your ideas

Phil

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Permalink Reply by Nick on October 21, 2012 at 9:32am

With grain brewing, beet clarity and stability start at mash time. The cloudiness you're seeing is probably protein in the beer that causes cold haze.

I found four things that make a big difference.

1. Make sure your boil is vigorous and you get a really good hot break in the kettle. Irish moss is a good addition to help this happen.

2. Chilling the hot wort as quickly as possible helps with a good cold break which I rack the wort off as I found that it breaks up once fermentation starts.

3. Cold conditioning the beer after fermentation is complete causes the proteins to curl up (form the haze), clump together, and settle out of the finished beer.

4. If I'm bottling, I use a fresh yeast with high floculation properties so it forms a good sticky sediment that stays put in the bottom of the bottle. In fact, after cold conditioning, I found this essential as there is very little yeast left in the beer and the yeast there is is naturally non-floculant (which is why is remained in suspension so long). I found that if I didn't "krausen" the beer at bottling time, it would take months to carbonate, resulting in awesome fine bubbles, but the yeast rises from the bottom as soon as you open it. 

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