I am enjoying a Belgian IPA recently brewed in the vein of Stone’s Cali-Belgique, but am a bit disappointed with a cloudy/hazy appearance. I suspect this is related to the 2oz Chinook that I used to dry hop but didn’t have this with the last IPA that was dry hopped with Cascade. I toss these in at the end of primary and after 10 days transfer to keg. I used belgian pilsner and caravienna malt and the duvel yeast, and mash and fermentation went as per usual. I suppose the duvel yeast could have done this but have no real experience with it. Any thoughts?
I just racked a beer to secondary that used a blend of duvel and wyeast 3787 and it too was very cloudy. Hoping some time in the secondary will clear it up. But yes, I was surprised how cloudy it was. I’m thinking it’s the duvel yeast.
Did you do a protein rest? Pils malt tends to have a large amount of protein and maybe the Belgian pils was somewhat less modified than the malts you’re used to using. I don’t think its the yeast, if it were then you’ll see it clear eventually. I haven’t known Belgian yeasts to cause excessive cloudiness in general. They do take a while to settle, part of why they attenuate so well.
Lennie, what is involved in a protein rest?
Paul
No protein rest. I use Belgian Pilsener malt on about 80% of my beer. I’ve never had haze like this before.
Is this where a cold conditioning could help? I am trying a cold condition for the first time right now. I have heard it helps clarify the beer. I don’t know how long it takes it takes to clear but I plan on leaving it in there for at least 5 days.
Protein rest is 15min at 120-130F, lets the proteinases clip big proteins into smaller ones that are more soluble. Too much and you lose head-forming proteins and body. A well-modified malt isn’t supposed to need one since the proteinases were active during the germination step, but sometimes a malt is less modified and needs a protein rest.
Cold conditioning will cause the protein haze to show up, I guess if you wait long enough it might drop but it’d work better with gelatin.
If its not protein haze, then its got to be yeast or starch. And both of those tend to show up both warm or cold. Cant’ see why dry-hopping would cause haze, if anything it should catch some of the insolubles in the beer. Not every bag of malt is the same. Do you use Whirlfloc or Supermoss?
supermoss
I’ll live with it, but, the recipe is good enough I was going to make it in the regular summer rotation.
Might hit it with gelatin right after the dry hopping is done, that’d only add a few days to the process.
