Does anyone here brew commercially?

How does water hardness impact haze (protein-polyphenol complexes) staying in suspension? Do you have any technical articles you can reference (e.g., link) on this topic?

Cheers!

 

A water filter will not remove water minerals.

Cheers!

P.S. I have homebrewed Juicy/Hazy IPAs using my filtered tap water which has a hardness of 324 mg/L with no issues of the permahaze settling. I should caveat they are 5 gallon batches and I bottle condition vs. keg.

 

Yeah, I gathered that. Needless to say there is something(s) different going on and hopefully someone will come up with the answer(s).

Your idea of brewing with distilled water (and salt additions) is a worthy experiment to see whether the cause is the commercial brewery's water source. If that batch also has issues with the permahaze settling too quickly then it is onto step B (whatever that is).

Needless to say but the best solution is to sell all of your beer in less than a week!

Cheers!

 

No, not directly.

Working from general concepts and anecdotal observations with my own brewing.

“The calcium cation is the principal ion that determines hardness. It promotes clarity, flavor, and stability in the finished beer. The magnesium cation also contributes to hardness and affects the mash pH, but to a lesser extent than the calcium. The sodium cation doesn’t contribute to water hardness. In small amounts (<100 ppm) it is benign, but at larger concentrations, it can cause the beer to taste minerally or metallic”.

I’d like to find something material but have not been able to find anything technical.

What we do know is Calcium aids in hot break, precipitating carbonates and oxalates. Hard water is also associated with dryness as opposed to roundness in mouthfeel.

So when it comes to brewing NEIPA, I would think, and have had good success lately, with using filtered water with low hardness and using NaCl and MgSO4 for salt additions.

Just my .02

 

If you ever locate a technical article that specifically addresses hard water and brewing Juicy/Hazy IPAs I would be interested in reading it.

I have homebrewed Juicy/Hazy IPAs using my filtered tap water which is not soft and I have not had issues with the permahaze dropping out.

Cheers!

 

That's what she said.

 

It would certainly make sense that more minerals in suspension would lead to more precipitation of proteins.

 

Get yourself some Tanal A...

 

In the mean time rock them kegs back and forth a bit

 

This won't directly solve your problem, but if you listen to the latest episode of The Session on the Brewing Network, towards the end of the show a pro brewer relates how he struggled to get haze to persist in his IPAs. The guy's name was Vinnie something or other. It seemed like he was a pretty talented brewer. Perhaps you are in good company. But what do I know? If you had the audacity to serve me a clear beer, I'd probably respect you in the morning.

 

What if you try taking some source water from your commercial brewery back home to homebrew with? If the haze drops out of that homebrew batch, it would seem the water is the culprit. If the haze stays in that homebrew batch, it would seem the commercial equipment/process is the culprit.

 

I can write a lot on this subject, but it's not conclusive. After writing this whole thing, I want to apologize in advance about the formatting and info dump.

I brewed on a pilot system for a summer and never had the ipa dropping clear issue.

On our 10 bbl brewhouse, different story. Ferment beer, dry hop, looks hazy, gradually goes clear. I have 2 dissolved oxygen meters in house. One reads ppm for pitching, one reads ppb for all things post fermentation. We purge all vessels post fermentation down to the lowest reading on the DO meter. Generally seeing ~40 ppb in the can. The issue has persisted with 3 different yeast strains (wyeast 1187, wlp 007 and wyeast 1099), but gets progressively worse as yeast generations go on. All of these were actually sourced from the Brewing Science Institute in liquid form.

Our dry hops are dosed through a valve on top of our fermenters from a purged vessel. We've tried different methods of recirculation at various temperatures. Let's say there is no doubt we have good contact between the hops and the beer.

I have 2 theories that I don't have the ability to confirm. I'll just add quickly that we try to take very good care of our yeast. We dose zinc into wort in the fermenter. Our yeast is harvested, fed and cleaned right around final gravity. The yeast is stored at 34F and reused within 2 days.

1. There is excess oxygen being dosed into the wort prior to pitching, causing oxidation and somehow impacting haze stability. Problem: I've tried lowering our oxygen dosing to no avail. At a certain level (low) the beer will remain hazy, but fermentation does not go to completion.

2. Something about the health of the yeast (good or bad) is causing strong flocculation, which is pulling the hop oils and polyphenols down to the bottom of the tank.

Other tidbits (randomly ordered)

At the Craft Brewers Conference in Denver this year there was a presentation on "the secrets of the NEIPA." The presentation was great in some ways, but lacking in the fact that it was given by a researcher, with no supplemental info from brewers. He found that the majority of haze in 12 different ipa samples could be attributed to proteins typically found in wheat and oats. Majority of haze being ~90% with yeast and polyphenol making up ~5% each, and the exception of one sample that was very yeasty. These samples were shipped directly from breweries all located in New England.

My talks with other brewers basically conclude, add more wheat, flour, oats. While I agree that will make the beer more hazy, I don't think it makes the ideal ipa (based on my favorite IPA brewers) and I also don't think the people I spoke with are outstanding brewers.

Our recirculation involves pumping beer, which shreds the hop material. I've looked a lobe style pumps that are more gentle. I'm considering adding hops to a separate vessel and moving the beer on top of the hops. This is more similar to the method I used on the pilot system. I preferred the hop character I was achieving using the transfer on top method. On a pro scale we are talking a lot more work and more oxygen, so I prefer if I don't have to go that route, but I'll be trying it soon.

Last bit, which originally made me think about O2 levels pre pitch is that I don't have this problem at all when using dry yeast with no O2. Right now, for hoppy beer, I use dry and only reuse once. Our haze is as permanent as any brewery I've seen this way.

Hope this shines some light on the issue. I don't think the answer is simple and I know from CBC that a couple of the big breweries (Bells and Brooklyn) don't have all the info on the subject. If I were you, I'd look at pitching fresh dry yeast.

 

Great post, great insights.

The quoted part above was interesting and contradictory to my experience. I’ve eliminated all oats/wheat from my homebrew recipes and I’ve seen an improvement in the color, haze retention, and hop flavor.

 

Same. It’s totally unnecessary. American 2row, touch of Carafoam, and a small amount of something for color is all you need. There’s plenty of protein in your typical American 2row. Have you looked at the COA from your maltster? I know many of the craft maltsters in the US shoot for lower protein content than the stuff coming from Rahr/Briess.

Dry hopping after fermentation is complete and soft crashing to pull as much yeast before adding hops also for me creates better haze stability. The more yeast you can remove then more likely the good stuff is to stay in solution. The more flocculent the yeast the better as well.

How are you dealing with all that bicarbonate? Got to take a decent amount of acid to get that town to a manageable amount no?