I brewed a Blonde Ale about 6 weeks ago. I used Nottingham Dry yeast, and after secondary fermentation was finished, the beer was crystal clear. I bottled, let carbonate at room temp for 2 weeks, put one in the fridge, and low and behold, chill haze. I feel like I’ve don everything by the books, but chill haze has corrupted my brew again.
What’s the deal with the haze, and how can I get rid of it?
The question is WHY do you want to get rid of it? Chill haze is just proteins starting to coagulate as the temperature goes down. They’re always floating around in your beer. You can drop them out with gelatin or cold condition your beer for weeks or months. It’s easy to get rid of it if you keg, but bottles are harder because if you drop it out, the yeast will go with it, thus you extensively cold condition in bottles. It doesn’t affect the flavor, and personally I couldn’t care less if the beer is clear or chill-hazed.
I have found that on beers with a chill haze, the pH was high. Do you know what the pH of the beer is? Its too late to correct this batch, but next time, add a little acid to keep it around 4.5-5.0 pH going into the fermenter.
I honestly have no clue what my water pH is. I will definitely look into brewing salts and pH stabilizers. Thanks for the help.
I’ve dealt with it in two ways:
Long cold conditioning. If you keep the beer chilled for 2-3 weeks at fridge temperatures, it will go away and you have clear beer.
Cold crashing with gelatin. Cool the secondary fermenter or keg down to the mid-30s to generate a good chill haze. It takes about 24-48 hours. Then add gelatin. After another 3-4 days, you’ll have clear beer. If you’re going to bottle, then you might want to add some dry yeast to the bottling bucket. For kegging, you’ll want to dump the first pint or two, then drink the rest.
