Chill Haze Problems

[Fraserfolly]

I am having problems with Chill Haze in my Pale Ale's

I have a small micro here in South Africa and apart from the haze i have no issues with the beer.

I get good clarity out of the tun (60 minute mash), a good boil and break. Prior to packaging i fine with gelatin for 7 days at 5 Celsius then run the beer through a sheet filter at a course 5 micron. I then pitch fresh yeast and sugar for bottle conditioning.

I had a chance to speak with the trade brewer for SAB-Miller over here and he seems to think the problem is in the mash and protean related. The malt i am using has a regular nitrogen content so i don't think that's the problem.

Any help or advise?

Thanks Fraser

[TL Services]

Chill hazes are protein-polyphenol complexes that become insoluble at low temperatures. Both components originate from the wort stage and both are necessary for a haze to form.

The proteins that are invariably the culprit are those that are proline-rich. These tend to be very soluble at ambient-to-elevated temperatures. Those of a smaller molecular weight are highly soluble and can remain solubilised despite copper finings giving an apparently good break.

Total nitrogen isn't a particularly good measure of malt, since it doesn't identify the proteins present; really you need total soluble nitrogen and free-amino nitrogen data as well, to get some idea.

Another contributor to chill haze formation is high dissolved oxygen level; this will catalyse the formation of the insoluble haze complex.

What testing have you done to establish the nature of the haze? eg. try forcing a sample to throw a haze (24 hours at around 0 deg C) then see if it diminishes as the sample is warmed up (take bottle out of fridge and put into a bucket of warm water). This might sound basic stuff, but it's useful to begin to understand what's happening.

As regards addressing the issue, talk to your copper fining supplier as they will have met the problem before and should be able to advise on a suitable finings regime; they will have reams of information (or should have!) on different copper finings and their best application.

[Fraserfolly]

Thanks for the quick reply

The beers have brilliant clarity at room temp, and the haze forms once the beer is chilled in a fridge, it goes away again when the beer is warm.

I do try to keep splashing and O2 pickup in the wort to a minimum prior to yeast pitch, but its something i could work harder to control. I was lucky enough to have visited the malting where the malt i use is produced along with a few other craft brewers over here, they stated that a protean rest was not necessary with there Pale Malt as this was something i had considered doing along with a longer mash to reduce the protein content.

Should i just suck it up and live with the haze? As i say everything else is fine with the beer.

[TL Services]

There's certainly no reason why you should have to 'live with' the issue - do speak to your finings supplier as they should be able to suggest something effective...and if they can't, use another supplier!

One brewery I used to work for had haze problems every time we went over to the new season's malt, so if you've only recently started to see haze formation, it might be worth exploring with your malt supplier.

[froptus]

Hi there,

I would recommend filtering colder. 5 C is too warm. Get the temperature closer to 0 degrees C.

Good luck

[jebzter]

5C is definitely too warm. I crash everything to 1C, and let it rest there for a few days. Clear beer every time without filtering.

[brewmaster 2011]

Hi there,

I would recommend filtering colder. 5 C is too warm. Get the temperature closer to 0 degrees C.

Good luck

I secont that. If you are fining or filtering at 5c, the chill haze will not form chains large enough to be taken out. let the beer stat at 0c for atleast 24 hours before filtering.

[rudge75]

If you don't form the chill haze yourself post fermentation, how can you remove it?

-1c to 1c. for crystal clear beers, as the others here have said.

If you can't achieve it, it's time to look at souping up your glycol supply system with a bigger compressor, insulated lines, +/or simply turning down the thermostat on the glycol tank. Check your % of glycol to water in your system as well, as a higher % (within reason) will help you achieve lower temperatures without freezing up the system.

[dick murton]

Second cold storage at minus 1 C for at least a couple of days prior to dfiltering at the same temperature. This also means, ideally, cooling the filter and associated prefilter pipeworketc down to say 2 deg C with chilled water prior to bringing the beer on. Ideally you would chill to minhus 1, but since the water would be frozen.....

Also second speaking to the finings supplier re, if absolutely necessary, using kettle, finings, and auxillary finings as well as isinglass, and getting the dose rates optimised for each type of beer.

You may also want to check mineral additions - unlikely if everything else is OK, but it might just be oxalate or other hazes due to low calcium in the mash, and to a lesser extent the sparge.

[GallowsHillBrew]

We've also had problems...

Generally we make bottle conditioned beer and have not really had chill haze problems.
At the end of last year we picked up an issue with kegged beer at a festival where the cooling chambers were set really cold.

We use Caledon Malt from SAB Maltsters. As far as I know it has a fairly high protein content.
So we've introduced a protein rest in the mash process. This has already helped a lot!!

We are still experimenting with other solutions...

[Fraserfolly]

Thanks for the info

Thanks for your help guys.

I will try crashing down to 0 today prior to bottling on Thursday.

It may or may not be interesting to note i only have this problem with my lighter beers.

Fraser