Crystal Clear beer By Ken Lenard

[Dave Savoie]

Producing Clear Beer

Some brewers do not mind that there beer is not clear.  Obviously, flavor should be the number 1 priority with aroma and maybe color being taken into consideration too.  I once read something like, "You first taste a beer with your eyes", which sounds ridiculous, but I have to say that I like my beer to be clear.  I like for my beer to look like "beer", not homebrew.  I am always thinking that ordinary beer-drinking people will already have a suspicious thought about homebrew in the first place... if it ended up looking like a cloudy mess, it certainly wouldn't help.  Clear beer is something I look for every time I make a beer.  I don't really make a lot of beers where clarity is not an issue (like hefes) so I try to get each batch clear and I look at various things along the way.

1. Use Irish Moss, Whirfloc or Supermoss in the boil kettle.  I used to use Irish Moss and I now use Whirfloc which works very well.  Some brewers have told me that Supermoss is even better.  These products allow for your break and hop material to settle in the brewpot while (and after) you chill your wort.

2. Leave the brewpot in an ice bath for 15-20 minutes after chilling.  This will allow everything to settle further.

3. Rack your wort from brewpot to primary, leaving most of the hop and break schputz behind.  I can normally rack about 3-4 gallons of ultra-clear wort from brewpot to primary.  Eventually I will get some of the solids, but it's better than just dumping the brewpot into the primary.

4. Make sure that your beer is done fermenting before you move it.  Once yeast is done fermenting your beer, allow it to settle a bit so most of it ends up on the bottom of the primary.  Not only will this allow for clearer beer, but it will also mean more yeast for you to harvest, if applicable.

5. Strongly consider using a secondary.  Many brewers do not want the additional hassle of a secondary fermenter.  It can be an extra place to pick up contamination and it's one extra step that you need to make and many brewers simply do not want to do it.  But the secondary is THE place where the beer gets it's clearest.  I like a secondary for a few reasons.  First, you can add a gel solution to the secondary and rack the beer on top.  This will drag particulate down to the bottom of the secondary and produce brilliantly clear beer in almost all cases.  It also allows for extra storage of beer if you happen to have a lot of brewing going on.  Beer can sit safely in a secondary for a very long time and if the secondaries can be kept cool or cold, the beer will clear that much better.

6. Allow the beer to sit and clear before you bottle it or keg it.  You can have very clear beer and still have enough yeast is suspension to sucessfully prime bottles.  If you're going to a keg, just rack the clear beer and try to leave as much yeast in the bottom of the secondary as you can.

7. Check your mash pH and what ions are present in your beer and at what levels.  This is an area that could fill many books and I won't go into much detail here.  But if you're an all-grain brewer, you can get a jump on beer clarity at the point of mashing.  The appropriate level of calcium can promote clarity in beer and having the correct mash pH can also be a big factor in how clear your glass of beer eventually turns out.  There is more information on my BREWING WATER page.

8. If you keg, try adding a gel solution to the keg when the beer is cold but before it's carbed.  I will normally add gel to room-temp (or "cellar-temp") beer when the beer goes from primary to secondary.  But I recently learned that adding a gel solution to COLD beer will boost the effectiveness of the gel quite dramatically.  I typically have secondaries sitting at cellar temps for weeks or months until a keg opens up.  I rack one of those beers to a keg and then put it into my "on-deck" fridge overnight to get it cold before I carb it.  The next morning, I whip up some gel solution, pour it into that keg, seal it back up and then start force-carbing it.  This will cause a very large percentage of haze-causing compounds to drop out.  As a result, you may get 2-3 pints of heavily sedimented beer when the keg is first tapped.  But eventually you will be delighted by beer that almost looks filtered.  I have done this on my last 8-10 kegs and it makes a HUGE difference.  Many of my friends, family & neighbors have commented, Wow!  Look at that glass of beer!  Give it a try on your next batch.

It's possible that you can have very clear beer go into a keg or bottles only for them to cloud up when they get cold.  This is chill haze and some brewers will experience this more than others.  But going through the above steps will lessen the impact of chill haze.  Also, using a high-floccing yeast can also be a great tool in making clear beer easier to achieve.  Some brewers also suggest that a more vigorous boil will produce clearer beer or make the beer easier to clarify so... No wimpy boils!  Another good tip is to brew more often if possible.  If you have many, many secondaries filled with beer, you will be less anxious to get the beer from the secondary to bottles or a keg and that will allow the beer to sit longer and clarify.  I try to do these things on every batch I make.  I have had low flocculating yeasts like 1007 and 2565 end up producing brilliantly clear beers by following the steps here.

Pics using the above steps

http://www.freewebs.com/kenlenard/apps/photos/

[Shawn]

I think it's been pretty much universally-agreed that going to secondary for most beers is NOT advantageous for clearer beer, or anything else, for that matter.

[Dave Savoie]

the reason for secondary in this case is to use gelatin therefore your yeast cake would not have a layer of gelatin

[Shawn]

Yes, but before he gets into the gelatin, he seems to be suggesting that doing a secondary alone is what also aids in clearing beer.

[Dave Savoie]

what ever he does ends up in crystal clear beer so by following the steps he gives the end result would be crystal clear beer.
using a secondary was the staple for many years for me don't fix whats not broken  
Each person has there own process myself I do a secondary 75% of the time and it seems the only beers I do make that come out crystal clear have been when I used a secondary with Gelatin but that's just me mind you most of my primary's have been in buckets and I Xfer to secondary to be able to see the clarity and add the gelatin and not have to stir

for the most part I'm sure I would have achieved the same end result had I not used a secondary

[Hawoh]

I would agree with turfing the secondary habit...  from personal experience.

I went to secondary with everything for many years before I learned enough to realize I more or less just wasting time/process. The benefit of conditioning and clarity I believed I was getting just wasn't there. My beers are equally as clear now as they ever were when I did use a secondary.

[Shawn]

I agree 100% that adding gelatin will usually result in clearer beer. I'm just saying it's the gelatin that's clearing the beer, not transferring to secondary. The guy in the quote seems to be claiming that both affect clarity, not just the gelatin. Racking to secondary, if done properly, won't hurt the beer... but any time you move beer around is going to increase the risk of oxidation and/or infection, no matter how careful you are.

Whatever works for each individual brewer is fine... I just wouldn't recommend simply racking to secondary to a new brewer, I guess.

[Tony L]

But you will notice that 1 day after you move to secondary, you'll get a layer of yeast at the bottom that I doubt would have precipitated in 1 day in the primary. It probably has to do with the movement of the wort into secondary coagulating yeast clumps.

I use conicals now but I rarely did secondary when using carboys for ales. Lagers, yes, I secondaried.

[Dave Savoie]

I wonder if the action of transfering to the secondary gets the yeast riled up again and gets the last lil bit done

[Richard]

The presence of this thread makes this a "real" homebrew forum. Good work

[Richard]

On the subject of clearing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNrFj0Am92U

(using a mini-jet to clear beer prior to kegging).

Does anyone with 2 spare kegs fancy a little... experiment? I want to see what the trade-offs are (flavour versus clarity), if any (e.g. if filtering the beer doesn't screw up the flavour due to oxidisation).

(I have the filter and would provide the pads, and potentially the beer, for such an experiment). If anyone is particularly keen, I have an IPA at just this stage right now...

[Dave Savoie]

I would be willing to Filter a batch I have ready to go into the keg

[Richard]

I mentioned specifically two kegs so that we could compare filtered + unfiltered. You down with that?

[Dave Savoie]

but I also find gelatin will get the same result but beer must be cold first

[Richard]

Three kegs!