Cloudy beer..... normal?

[Smallbeer]

Hi guys,

Need to pick your brains.

Moved to all grain finally after buying a bulldog brewer.
Did a brew two weeks ago and all went well... but when taking a trail jar two weeks on it's very cloudy, is this normal for all grain. Having only used kits before I'm all confused and concerned 🤔

Thanks.

[mick02]

Hi guys,

Need to pick your brains.

Moved to all grain finally after buying a bulldog brewer.
Did a brew two weeks ago and all went well... but when taking a trail jar two weeks on it's very cloudy, is this normal for all grain. Having only used kits before I'm all confused and concerned

Thanks.

This is normal. You can cold crash your beer and fine it with gelatin or similar if you want to clear it up.

[irish_goat]

Did you use whirlfloc?

[Smallbeer]

Thanks Mick was beginning to question myself !
I found and thread here about gelatine and cold crashing , very useful.
I used Irish moss with 15 minutes left of the boil as per very closely followed instructions.

Does any body use a beer strainer when transferring, do the work, or just another bit of gear?

[Qs]

How quickly did you chill your beer? Chilling quickly and getting good cold break will help clear up your beer in future.

Also if you dry hopped that will add haze.

[Smallbeer]

Thanks all.
A few more questions if I may?

Mashed in 23 litres with 5 litres spare on top.
Boiled 60 mins.
Had bulldog below cooker extractor fan, only got 17 litres, yet the OG was spot on at 1070.
Question did the extractor reduce my efficiency?

Cooled down to pitching in twenty five minutes Qs.

Filter clogged and needed to be continually scraped to get any worthwhile flow. Was I correct or should've been more patient?
Would a fine mesh filter above fv help

FG is supposed to be 1010, three weeks in slowing dropping current read 1016, so happy out so far.

Will go down route of cold crash and gelatine procedure as described, so well on the boards.

Am I on the right track?

Thanks guys.

[mick02]

Looks like you're doing everything right. Big beers nearly always mean lower efficiency. When you removed your malt pipe what was the volume in the bulldog at the start of the boil? You also have to factor in loss through cooling (a reading of 20L at 100C will not be 20L at 19C for example)

If your filter is getting blocked consider using a hop sock or hop spider when adding hops. This should prevent the filter from clogging.

Other than that most of what you have said is about right.

[Smallbeer]

Thanks Mick,

Big beer, loss of volume makes sense.
In my excitement I never checked the volume when I emoted the malt pipe, but was shocked post boil at me measly 17 litres 😀
Hop socks were used , having only done kits before, the cloudiness surprised me.

[SkiBeagle]

A few things can affect haze/cloudiness: wort clarity, hot and cold break, trub precipitation, yeast and time.

Filtering through the grain bed in the Bulldog helps to get clear wort.

Hot break occurs naturally during the boil.

Chilling fast helps to precipitate cold break. Once chilled, whirlpooling in the Bulldog can help to separate hot break and hops. You can do this by pump-whirlpooling or by using a drill and paddle. I find the drill and paddle is the quickest. Remove hop bags/spiders first, of course.

Some folk just pour everything into the fermenter. Others prefer to precipitate trub (the hot+cold break) before the fermenter. This is my preferred option. I pump the chilled wort from the Bulldog into a Burco (which has had a little water boiling in it to sterilise it thoroughly). Let it settle in the Burco for a few hours. The trub precipitates out into a white murk at the bottom of the Burco. Then carefully drain into the fermenter, leaving the trub behind. This way, you get very clear clean wort into the fermenter. Very good if you plan on reusing yeast.

The yeast is very important: one with medium to high flocculation will help to clear the beer once the fermentation is over. The beer will be cloudy during fermentation due to the agitation caused by fermentation. Dry yeasts like Nottingham or US05 produce crystal clear beers. For liquid yeasts, best to look up the White Labs or Wyeast catalogs to see which ones give good flocculation.

Finally, time helps to clarify the beer too. I use whirlfloc/protofloc 1g/25L at 15 minutes. I used to use gelatin, but don't bother any more. The beer is nice and clear.

If you still have problems, then this could be a chill-haze issue.

Cloudy doesn't much affect the taste of beer and some styles require it. But there is nothing quite like pouring a glass of crystal-clear beer!