Does anyone here brew commercially?

I have brewed a few commercial batches, but have resisted the urge to do it full time. Feel free to PM me, but I'm thinking the pro board might serve you better, depending on the issue(s). That said, why not post the question(s) here too. I can think of a couple pros who post here fairly regularly.

 

Can you talk about some of the main approaches you have taken so far? Sounds like you have certainly been altering the recipe. Have you adjusted any other major variables?

What are some of the most major differences in the home vs brewery operations other than volume?

 

Are you serving from kegs or a serving tank? Also what temp do you store your finished beer and for how long?

 

Are you using lupulin powder?
In the article Researching New England IPA (NEIPA) Haze , Scott Janish writes about brewing two nearly identical beers with the only difference between them being one used pellet hops and the other lupulin powder. From the article:
".....the lupulin powder beer on the left is noticeably less murky than the pellet hopped beer on the right, despite everything else being the same in the two beers."
He doesn't say how old the beer is. Here's a link to the picture:
http://scottjanish.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/lupulin-vs.-pellet.jpg

 

Paging @honkey and @NeroFiddled.

 

Have you tried flipping your cloride:sulfate ratio? maybe 100:150? I use the profile using epsom salt (MgSO4) and get great haze. I'll use Mg up to 50ppm.

I'm not professionally brewing, but I do brew on a similar size system and I've never had a problem not being able to make a beer hazy, I'll BM you.

 

You might try dropping Mike Tonsmeire (@OldSock) a line, he is brewing plenty of hazy beers at Sapwood Cellars and he has always been really generous with advice.

 

Have you tried keeping hardness low? Reducing gypsum and CaCl additions or swapping them out completely to NaCl and MgSO4 to get your desired Cl & SO4 levels. Lactic acid to hit pH targets.

Also, what is your fermentation schedule including cold conditioning? Are you crashing the beer too cold, too long before packaging?

Have you tried upping DH additions to 3-4 lbs per barrel?

From what I’ve read so far, my recommendations:

- lower hardness of water if possible
- increase DH rate a bit
- agitate dry hops
- gentle, short cold crash
- use inline coarse filter from FV to BT to catch hop trub that would otherwise have dropped out better at harder crash temps

Are you agitating dry hops or are they just settling to bottom of cone? How much pressure does your tank hold?

You should be able to, towards end of fermentation, add dry hop charge, keep blowoff open for 24 hrs to purge any O2 introduced, then close blowoff, blow CO2 up through bottom port to rouse any settled hops, repeat daily with short bursts until your head pressure is around 5-10 psi or dry hop schedule is over (whichever occurs first) then go into your cold conditioning with gentle, short conditioning (40-42F) before transferring over to Brite.

Maybe you do this already? If so, there is no value added from my post lol

 

I have never heard/read about using a higher amount of sulfate than chloride when brewing a Juicy/Hazy IPA. The 'conventional' wisdom is to utilize something like a 2:1 ratio of chloride to sulfate with amounts typically along the lines of 200:100. Where did you get the idea to use a greater amount of sulfate vs. chloride?

Cheers!

 

Unfortunately I have no answer to this, everything seems right. I'm even using Chico/California ale yeast and having no problem.

I have had hefeweizens go clear in 15 bbl bright tanks over time but with kegs that shouldn't be an issue. My NEIPA is stored in kegs at 36F and 11 kegs will hold for 6 weeks without issue; nor is there a drop out of protein/yeast that needs to be pulled off when a new keg is tapped.

I can't imagine an electric system cranking out a boil that would really separate the proteins that much, and there's a lot of protein in that recipe! I like the touch of honey malt, BTW, I use that myself at a similar rate (3.6%).

I have medium hard water and haven't done anything with it so I can't suggest anything there.

I do use more hops in dry-hopping than whirlpool, and that might help. The only other thing I can think of is trying a no-boil but I've never done one myself and it's just a guess, or perhaps just a limited whirlpool and rest.

Sorry I couldn't have been of more help.

 

@TooHopTooHandle

Just saw your total hardness is 161.
That is pretty high.
If you are adding salts to this water then your hardness may even be extremely high. This could be affecting your haze drop.

 

I first tried it after reading this guys blog.
https://trinitybrewers.com/brews/ipa/julius-clone-treehouse-brewing-ipa/
I've brewed some of his clones, they do come out really nice.

 

Interesting.

I suppose there is more than 'one way to skin a rabbit'?

Cheers!