I've been homebrewing for a long time, and I've had some bad batches. But, this is a reliable blonde ale recipe using wyeast whitbread with starter, and we have used that yeast a ton. It's always been high floccing. Normally this is a beer we can crank out fairly quick because it's 1.049 on the OG. It doesn't seem infected: smells, looks and tastes fine. It's just horribly cloudy (in the secondary glass carboy). Nothing weird in the grain: pilsner malt, some crystal, some carapils, pellet hops (galaxy and spalter). I need the beer for the 18th, so we repeated the brew yesterday and are giving up on the 1st batch-well letting it sit. we cold crashed it, and that hasn't pulled the yeast from suspension. We even used clarity ferm and whirlfloc. It's supposed to be clear. Mashed to no iodine color change. I haven't sampled and tested for protein, I do have a filtration system that we could use. Or, because we made a 2nd batch we could toss it. I'm just trying to figure out what the heck went wrong. My thoughts run to: 1. wrong or mutated yeast strain from wyeast (used the package). Maybe wyeast mislabeled? 2. infection/contamination with other yeast 3. lack of patience. (in case it was infection, we are using a different carboy, we switched sanitizers from star san to saniclean, pitched a larger starter, added some phosphoric acid to the mash to get the pH to 5.2-usually we don't bother, and did NOT use the clarity ferm this time). Not that it matters but here's our water profile from the city: Total Alkalinity (bicarbonate) = 96-108 mg/L as CaCO3 Total Hardness (consisting primarily of calcium and magnesium) = 140 mg/L as CaCO3 Chlorine (free) = 1.0-2.0 mg/L (on average, at any given time throughout the year, it will be around 1.50 mg/L) Sulfate = 29-35 mg/L Sodium = 6.9 – 10.0 mg/L
I do not think I would dump a beer or be afraid of serving it because of clarity. If it tastes good drink it!
If you are confident it is yeast that is the cause of the haze then adding some isinglass to the secondary will get this beer clear in a couple of days. I have no idea why this yeast strain would behave so differently for this batch. Cheers!
Thank you! I will test the wyeast test for protein. If it's not protein, I will try the isinglass to drop it. (As far as dumping it for clarity, I re-brewed it to get it done right-I'm not sure clarity is the only problem at this point without kegging or carbonating I'm assuming that's the only problem, and honestly I have a lot of beer and a lack of storage, so if it's off, I'd dump it, rather than drink something I'm not totally happy with-which is a luxury of having lots of beer sitting around: which at the moment is 2 ESB's, a lager, a Russian Imperial, a porter, a belgian and a brown, and now a 2nd batch of blonde).
I used clarity ferm so there shouldn't be protein chill haze. But there could be, I'm going to test for protein.
just coming back to comment on what I did when I came home. I drew out a sample, tested fg, tasted, smelled, and did the wyeast test for protein. FG: 1.010, smelled like hops, tasted normal. protein test: yeah, it's protein, not yeast. So, I wonder where all that protein came from. (I used clarity ferm). And, what can I do now to make it go away?
Long lager at low temps? It will probably drop clear eventually, but how long? As long as it tastes good, I would just serve hazy beer
It tastes fine. It's ugly! I brewed it for some people who aren't necessarily advocates, and I don't want to give them something that would be a turn-off, and we eat with our eyes first. That's why I repeated the beer. I probably will drink it myself though. I am totally baffled as to where it came from though!! It's castle pilsner malt (low protein, some munich, and some cara pils). I also used clarity ferm. I wonder if maybe the clarity ferm caused this?!? (shouldn't, but, who knows it's only weird ingredient in the beer). I'm feeling reassured that it's not the yeast behaving funny and that it's not contamination. Something must have been wrong with my process so that it didn't denature or something.
"I wonder where all that protein came from?" Well, it came from the malt, but why... ? Did you repeat the beer with Castle as well? If so, was it the same batch of grain? If there was something wrong with your process you'd see off-gravities or something odd in the pH. Very odd.
Here's what i think happened. I've made this beer 3 times before. This time I added clarity ferm. I tend to ferment this beer cold (because it's a hybrid/light/blonde), and normally that's not a problem. I think the clarity ferm started to work, shortened up the proteins and then when the main fermentation was over it dropped to a colder temp the clarity ferm stopped acting and left the proteins small enough to perpetually float. So, my plan is to take my beer back up, wrap it in my heat wrap with the temp controller to 74, and then maybe add more clarity ferm, if I don't reactivate the stuff in there by bringing the temp up. The repeat recipe is the same castle pilsner malt, etc. I did buy it from northern brewer in MKE instead of the LHBS in my neighborhood.
yeah I abandoned chilling since that wasn't working after 3 days at 40 it was utterly hazy. I'm pretty sure my test did show protein, not yeast. I'm thinking I did lack patience though. I heated the fermenter up to hotter than I was originally fermenting it at (now it's 74) and it's back to fermenting. In spite of the fact that I think it's protein, I'm actually considering that maybe it's brettanomyces?!? that kicked in? I'm not sure my FG: 1.010 was I thought low enough, if it goes really low, I'm pretty sure that's what happened. It still smells ok. I will pitch another bottle of clarity ferm in when I can buy some.
Whitbread 1098 OR 1099? I much prefer the 1098, but it is not as good a floccer as the 1099 if that is your regular yeast
