Permanent Murk

[BlackSands]

Just got back from the UK and was keen to get stuck into the NZ Bitter I bottled just before I left.  It's been conditioning for four weeks now.  It's a good tasting beer, BUT....   it's seriously hazy -  even at room temperature, in fact the murkiness is so thick you simply can't see through it at all.   I've been searching articles trying to find an explanation  - it's the first time I've experienced a permanent haze like this?  It's an extract brew, steeped grains and some late hops - a beer that I threw down so that I'd have some stock on hand when I got back.  It was CC'd for three days.   Coopers lager + 1.5kg LME, steeped grains were GF crystal, biscuit and a small amount of carafa III.  Short boil Taiheke and Wai-iti hops. M36 yeast slurry.

Anyone got any ideas?      

Edited August 11, 2019 by BlackSands

[ChristinaS1]

Welcome back Blacksands. How was the trip to the UK? Did you have any nice brews over there?

Isn't biscuit supposed to be mashed? In that case maybe the haze is unconverted starch? Or is it yeast still in suspension? A three day CC isn't that long, but if it has been conditioning in the bottle for four weeks, you'd think it would have settled....How many times have you reused this yeast?

Cheers,

Christina.

[Otto Von Blotto]

Yes, it is meant to be mashed. Unconverted starch is one cause of permanent haze, and it sounds like the likely issue in this case given the grains weren't mashed. There's nothing you can do about it short of maybe filtering the beer to remove it. 

Edited August 11, 2019 by Otto Von Blotto

[BlackSands]

Biscuit malt (Gladfield)... mashed?  Are you sure?  It's a specialty malt not a base malt...   https://www.gladfieldmalt.co.nz/our-malts/#biscuit-malt

 

5 hours ago, ChristinaS1 said:

Welcome back Blacksands. How was the trip to the UK? Did you have any nice brews over there?

Isn't biscuit supposed to be mashed? In that case maybe the haze is unconverted starch? Or is it yeast still in suspension? A three day CC isn't that long, but if it has been conditioning in the bottle for four weeks, you'd think it would have settled....How many times have you reused this yeast?

Cheers,

Christina.

UK trip was fine... well, apart from the actual travelling part itself which I absolutely loathe.  It's a long way from NZ - two back-to-back 11 hour flights is no fun!  Got quite hot there too - hit 37ºC in Oxford at one time... not what I was expecting to experience in the UK!   But hot weather was a good excuse to sample many fine, and not-so fine English ales   

I only CC'd this one 3 days because I needed to get the brew bottled up before I left.    

[ben 10]

The Beersmith entry says recommend mash

[BlackSands]

Yeah...  I just clicked to what the others were getting at,  while it's a kilned specialty malt unlike crystals it obviously has unconverted starches that need a mash with a base malt to convert!  Doh!

Too late now but I wonder of ClarityFerm would have cleaned this up? 

[ChristinaS1]

18 minutes ago, BlackSands said:

Biscuit malt (Gladfield)... mashed?  Are you sure?  It's a specialty malt not a base malt...   https://www.gladfieldmalt.co.nz/our-malts/#biscuit-malt

 

 

Anything with a mealy endosperm ought to be mashed.

As far as I know the only specialty malts that don't need to be mashed are crystal malts and the dark roasted malts, from chocolate malt through black malt, plus roasted barley, because they don't have much starch left in them. In the case of crystal malts, they are mashed inside the grain, before roasting, and in the case of roasted malts, the starch is mostly burned off. Chocolate malt obviously has more residual starch than black patent, or roasted barley, but not enough to cause an issue.

There are quite a number of specialty malts that should be mashed, such as dark Munich and Brown malt.

Cheers,

Christina.

 

[Otto Von Blotto]

2 hours ago, BlackSands said:

 

Too late now but I wonder of ClarityFerm would have cleaned this up? 

I can't say for sure but I would suspect not. Those types of clarifying agents don't have any effect on permanent haze, or if they do it's very minimal. 

I had a batch of pilsner that suffered from permanent haze but I'm almost certain it wasn't unconverted starch. If it was it'd be the only one in over 100 batches. Anyway, both isinglass and polyclar didn't do anything. 

[BlackSands]

Out of interest I did a bit more searching. Some suggest trying a product called 'Beano" which contains Alpha Galactosidase,  Also, others have suggested adding Alpha Amylase. While these enzymes work optimally at higher temps (e.g. mash temps for AA) there's still some activity at lower temps i.e. fermentation temps.   I guess the concern would be that adding enzymes to the beer would dry it right out?  I'm thinking these enzymes will just keep on munching away until there's no sweetness left at all...      

[ChristinaS1]

Yes, you can use enzymes. But you'd have to open all of your bottles, dump them into a FV, treat it, and then rebottle. 

You'll have to let the brew sit until the enzymes have broken down everything they can and the gravity stabilizes. With alpha amylase you might still end up with some residual sweetness, but Beano will dry it right out and turn it into a Brut IPA... Meanwhile any dryhops you used will be loosing their aroma and flavour.

Maybe just pretend you are drinking a NEIPA.  

Cheers,

Christina.

Edited August 12, 2019 by ChristinaS1

[BlackSands]

16 hours ago, ChristinaS1 said:

Yes, you can use enzymes. But you'd have to open all of your bottles, dump them into a FV, treat it, and then rebottle. 

You'll have to let the brew sit until the enzymes have broken down everything they can and the gravity stabilizes. With alpha amylase you might still end up with some residual sweetness, but Beano will dry it right out and turn it into a Brut IPA... Meanwhile any dryhops you used will be loosing their aroma and flavour.

Maybe just pretend you are drinking a NEIPA.  

Cheers,

Christina.

I wasn't planing to try fix this brew.  It's not worth the hassle just for the sake of clarity!  But the experience has led onto some useful info.  

The beer looks like mud, but it really tastes quite good.  I'll do it as a partial mash next time...   I was in a hurry to get a brew down before I went overseas so quickly did this extract version.