I’ve just recently started doing IPAs, so forgive the question, but is it normal for very hoppy beers to be cloudy?
How does timing/method affect things? That is:
Is the cloudiness only related to actual hop chunks?
Is dry hopping pellets (loose) worse than whole hops (bagged)?
Are whirlpool additions better (wrt clear beer) than dry hop?
Generally hoppier beers are cloudier. That’s because the tannins in the hops bind the proteins in the beer into larger “chunks”, which makes the beer cloudy. Given time and cold temps it will clear up.
[quote=“Denny”]Generally hoppier beers are cloudier. That’s because the tannins in the hops bind the proteins in the beer into larger “chunks”, which makes the beer cloudy. Given time and cold temps it will clear up.[/quote]this is what I’ve been doing. been working great so far!
I had the impression that if I could get a really good cold crash it would have cleared more. I just had lingering doubts that there was an infection involved, but that would be a bit of a first. Sample tasted fine, too. Plus a half pound of hops should keep most bugs in check.
So given that I couldn’t get it totally clear before bottling, you think just letting the bottles sit in the fridge after carbing will yield clear beer?
yep! it worked for my Citra APA, Dead Ringer, Wrong Direction APA, and another American IPA I did.
I certainly wouldn’t count on that.
Fair enough. I rely 98% on a retentive attention to sanitation that comes from a decade and a half of lab work, and 2% on the hops.
+1 on cold aging. A hoppy brew needn’t be cloudy — and in my opinion, it shouldn’t be.
But if you like the beer’s flavor, in the end a bit of cloudiness doesn’t really matter.
Strangely, some people have even come to expect it in a hoppy brew.
To me, it’s usually a pretty good indication that production may have been a bit ‘rushed’. Certainly not everyone agrees with that assessment…and thats ok too.
:cheers:
While I don’t expect my hoppy beers to be murky, a little haze is expected. When I see a commercial IPA that is CRYSTAL clear, it’s often an indication that it has had “it’s soul filtered out of it”
Or it’s so old by the time you got it that a lot of the hops dropped out.
FWIW, I’m more concerned with flavor than clarity in pretty much all my beers. For my hoppy beers, I want to drink them as fresh as possible. I always see a nice hop haze when the beer is right out of the fridge. If this is what you’re defining as cloudy, then I’d say it is expected (and desirable, IMO).
If what you’re seeing is something murky because hop bits are making it into your bottles, then line your bottling bucket with a paint strainer bag when you rack into it. This should catch most of the hop bits.
^ this
