Brewing for Clarity
"Clarity is the starting point of all success."
W. Clement Stone
W. Clement Stone
What Makes a Beer Clear, and How Can We Achieve It?
Unless you’re doing a blind tasting - and who does that? - most of us judge a beer first of all by how it looks. In BJCP competition judging, the ‘appearance’, which includes three elements, the beer color, foam characteristics and clarity, is worth a mere 3 points out of 50, but first impressions when you’re served a beer may count for more than that! So let’s talk about clarity.
Haze comes principally from the presence of proteins, polyphenols and yeast cells. Proteins, primarily coming from malted grains, are essential for mouthfeel, yeast nutrition and foam stability. Polyphenols are organic compounds which derive from malt and hops in the brewing process and are critical to mouthfeel and flavor, and contribute to antioxidant properties, but also bind with proteins to cause haziness. So making clear beer is really about managing, avoiding or removing these at different stages. Production breweries may use filtration or centrifuging before packaging, but those aren’t so practical at home-brew scale. So what can we do to help make clear beer?
The suggestions below come from fellow PrimeTimers. They relate principally, but not entirely, to all grain brewing, and are presented in the order of the brewing process.
Choosing a Recipe:
Avoid high proportions of anything with high protein (oats and wheat in particular, also rye, corn, rice, chit and 6-row malts), as this tends to generate haze, however it does help with head retention.
Avoid dry hopping, which contributes to polyphenols.
Use recipes that have been well developed and tested - or experiment!
In the Mash Tun:
For recipes with higher protein content such as wheat or rye beers, conduct a ‘protein rest’ for 15-30 minutes in the range of 115-130F (ideally around 122F), before raising the mash temperature for saccharification. This initial step breaks down large protein chains into smaller components, helping to reduce haze and improve beer clarity.
Recirculate (vorlauf), at least a gallon of the wort for 10-20 min at the end of the mash period before starting to run off (lauter), to the kettle. This allows the grain to settle and form a filter bed to clarify the wort. Don’t stir the mash at this stage. If you get a stuck mash and have to stir, let it settle and recirculate again before running off. Rice hulls will help avoid a stuck mash.
Keep sparge water below 170F and ideally around 5.5 pH to avoid extracting tannins which are polyphenols that cause astringency and contribute to haze.
Lautering slowly both improves extract yield and wort clarity, try a rate of ~16 oz per minute or 50-60 min for 7 gal of wort.
Use a filter bag, mesh or fine screen between the mash tun and kettle to catch any grain husks as boiling these will again extract tannins.
Use Brewtan-B to minimize oxidation and help knock out protein and clarify the beer both in the mash and at the end of the boil.
In the Kettle:
Stir vigorously when boiling starts and sudden foaming indicates the ‘hot break’, both to prevent boil-over and to encourage proteins to clump & settle out.
Use a hop spider or fine mesh bag in the kettle for your hop additions to retain the vegetal matter. Whole hops make for clearer beer too (best in a bag so as not to clog the outlet spigot).
Add ‘kettle finings’ such as a Whirfloc tablet or Irish Moss in the last 10-15 minutes to bind the haze-forming proteins so they drop out.
Cooling the Wort:
Cool the wort as quickly as possible to encourage a strong ‘cold break’ to settle suspended matter. This also minimizes the time in the ‘danger zone, when bacteria can take hold.
When cool, stir for a few minutes, or ‘whirlpool’ if your system allows, and then allow the ‘trub’ to settle for 20-30 min (even better 30-60 minutes), before racking to the fermenter.
Brewtan-b, Silafine and Clarity-Ferm can all assist in minimizing haze and help drop ‘trub’ out of the wort. Research these for proper dosage and timing.
Transferring to the Fermenter (Knock-out):
Transfer slowly to avoid disturbing and transferring the ‘trub’, and discard the first half pint or so until running clear.
If you can rack from the top of the kettle you won’t have to wait so long for the trub to settle!
Rack through through a sanitized fine strainer or filter bag to collect any ‘trub’ you didn’t leave behind.
In the Fermenter:
If you're doing anything with fruit, add pectic enzyme at 1/2 teaspoon per gallon prior to fermentation (24 hours prior?).
Choose a high flocculating yeast strain, e.g. Wyeast 1968, WLP002 or SafAle S-04, if it’s consistent with the beer you’re brewing.
Avoid or do minimal dry hopping. Ignore this if you’re making a Hazy, of course!
When fermentation is complete (see note* below), for ales ‘cold crash’ i.e. drop the temperature quickly to 32-35F and hold at least overnight, better still 2-3 days. This is easier if you’re using an old refrigerator as your fermentation chamber.
For lagers, or if you’re bottle conditioning, drop the temperature slowly, say 3-4F per day, to avoid shocking the yeast so they keep working.
Ideally cold crash under CO2 to minimize O2 exposure as the beer cools and contracts, sucking in air, since oxidation can lead to a grayish haze as well as degrading flavor. A balloon filled with CO2 is one way to do this. Another is a hydration bladder connected via a T-fitting to your CO2 bottle.
One of our members writes: I used to do secondary fermentation (transferring the beer to a new fermenter around day three of fermentation), but have stopped doing this due to worrying about messing with yeast and adding oxygen. I now let primary fermentation go for about a week, then increase temperature, and let it finish fermenting for about another week. I then cold crash in the fermenter for a few days and then transfer to a keg, making sure I stop with about 3 inches of beer above the yeast. For the transfer, I think this depends on your fermentation vessel, if you're using a conical or not, and how you transfer. Since I often use a conical, I dump the trub post primary fermentation and then let it set for a few more days to settle out more, and then do another dump to make sure everything runs clean when I transfer. I usually dump the first 1/4 glass of beer or so when I first start transferring as well just to get the settled crud out of the valve before the clear stuff starts flowing.
Post Fermenter / Packaging:
Longer is better prior to bottling / kegging for clarity, but longer wait times can also increase O2 exposure; it depends on style. For a cider you might let it sit and clarify for a year, but you wouldn't typically do that with a beer (there are exceptions).
You can add finings post cold-crash to settle out for 2-3 days prior to carbonation, e.g. Gelatine, Isinglass, Polyclear, Silafine, BioFine. (check instructions for preparation and dosing rates).
Use a floating dip tube to pull beer from the top vs. bottom of a keg (requires a special keg lid with a hose barb on the liquid line).
After kegging, store the keg cold for a couple of weeks prior to tapping and moving to kegerator
Try to not move your kegs once they are in place so any particles will settle out and not come out when poured.
Bottling yeast can help clean up beer and help things to settle tightly to the bottom of the bottle. Keeping bottles cold helps with this as well. Note if you’re adding yeast at bottling it’s advisable to keep the bottles warm, say 70-75F, for a couple of weeks for the yeast to do their thing before moving to cold storage.
Additional Thoughts
Patience is a virtue, one or two months ‘lagering’ @ <40F in a keg or in bottles clears almost anything! Often kegs will fall clear after a few weeks in the kegerator. The last few beers are usually much clearer than the first few!
‘Chill haze’ is temporary and disappears with a few degrees rise in temperature, easily determined by simply warming a glass in your hands for a few minutes.
Haze comes principally from the presence of proteins, polyphenols and yeast cells. Proteins, primarily coming from malted grains, are essential for mouthfeel, yeast nutrition and foam stability. Polyphenols are organic compounds which derive from malt and hops in the brewing process and are critical to mouthfeel and flavor, and contribute to antioxidant properties, but also bind with proteins to cause haziness. So making clear beer is really about managing, avoiding or removing these at different stages. Production breweries may use filtration or centrifuging before packaging, but those aren’t so practical at home-brew scale. So what can we do to help make clear beer?
The suggestions below come from fellow PrimeTimers. They relate principally, but not entirely, to all grain brewing, and are presented in the order of the brewing process.
Choosing a Recipe:
Avoid high proportions of anything with high protein (oats and wheat in particular, also rye, corn, rice, chit and 6-row malts), as this tends to generate haze, however it does help with head retention.
Avoid dry hopping, which contributes to polyphenols.
Use recipes that have been well developed and tested - or experiment!
In the Mash Tun:
For recipes with higher protein content such as wheat or rye beers, conduct a ‘protein rest’ for 15-30 minutes in the range of 115-130F (ideally around 122F), before raising the mash temperature for saccharification. This initial step breaks down large protein chains into smaller components, helping to reduce haze and improve beer clarity.
Recirculate (vorlauf), at least a gallon of the wort for 10-20 min at the end of the mash period before starting to run off (lauter), to the kettle. This allows the grain to settle and form a filter bed to clarify the wort. Don’t stir the mash at this stage. If you get a stuck mash and have to stir, let it settle and recirculate again before running off. Rice hulls will help avoid a stuck mash.
Keep sparge water below 170F and ideally around 5.5 pH to avoid extracting tannins which are polyphenols that cause astringency and contribute to haze.
Lautering slowly both improves extract yield and wort clarity, try a rate of ~16 oz per minute or 50-60 min for 7 gal of wort.
Use a filter bag, mesh or fine screen between the mash tun and kettle to catch any grain husks as boiling these will again extract tannins.
Use Brewtan-B to minimize oxidation and help knock out protein and clarify the beer both in the mash and at the end of the boil.
In the Kettle:
Stir vigorously when boiling starts and sudden foaming indicates the ‘hot break’, both to prevent boil-over and to encourage proteins to clump & settle out.
Use a hop spider or fine mesh bag in the kettle for your hop additions to retain the vegetal matter. Whole hops make for clearer beer too (best in a bag so as not to clog the outlet spigot).
Add ‘kettle finings’ such as a Whirfloc tablet or Irish Moss in the last 10-15 minutes to bind the haze-forming proteins so they drop out.
Cooling the Wort:
Cool the wort as quickly as possible to encourage a strong ‘cold break’ to settle suspended matter. This also minimizes the time in the ‘danger zone, when bacteria can take hold.
When cool, stir for a few minutes, or ‘whirlpool’ if your system allows, and then allow the ‘trub’ to settle for 20-30 min (even better 30-60 minutes), before racking to the fermenter.
Brewtan-b, Silafine and Clarity-Ferm can all assist in minimizing haze and help drop ‘trub’ out of the wort. Research these for proper dosage and timing.
Transferring to the Fermenter (Knock-out):
Transfer slowly to avoid disturbing and transferring the ‘trub’, and discard the first half pint or so until running clear.
If you can rack from the top of the kettle you won’t have to wait so long for the trub to settle!
Rack through through a sanitized fine strainer or filter bag to collect any ‘trub’ you didn’t leave behind.
In the Fermenter:
If you're doing anything with fruit, add pectic enzyme at 1/2 teaspoon per gallon prior to fermentation (24 hours prior?).
Choose a high flocculating yeast strain, e.g. Wyeast 1968, WLP002 or SafAle S-04, if it’s consistent with the beer you’re brewing.
Avoid or do minimal dry hopping. Ignore this if you’re making a Hazy, of course!
When fermentation is complete (see note* below), for ales ‘cold crash’ i.e. drop the temperature quickly to 32-35F and hold at least overnight, better still 2-3 days. This is easier if you’re using an old refrigerator as your fermentation chamber.
For lagers, or if you’re bottle conditioning, drop the temperature slowly, say 3-4F per day, to avoid shocking the yeast so they keep working.
Ideally cold crash under CO2 to minimize O2 exposure as the beer cools and contracts, sucking in air, since oxidation can lead to a grayish haze as well as degrading flavor. A balloon filled with CO2 is one way to do this. Another is a hydration bladder connected via a T-fitting to your CO2 bottle.
One of our members writes: I used to do secondary fermentation (transferring the beer to a new fermenter around day three of fermentation), but have stopped doing this due to worrying about messing with yeast and adding oxygen. I now let primary fermentation go for about a week, then increase temperature, and let it finish fermenting for about another week. I then cold crash in the fermenter for a few days and then transfer to a keg, making sure I stop with about 3 inches of beer above the yeast. For the transfer, I think this depends on your fermentation vessel, if you're using a conical or not, and how you transfer. Since I often use a conical, I dump the trub post primary fermentation and then let it set for a few more days to settle out more, and then do another dump to make sure everything runs clean when I transfer. I usually dump the first 1/4 glass of beer or so when I first start transferring as well just to get the settled crud out of the valve before the clear stuff starts flowing.
Post Fermenter / Packaging:
Longer is better prior to bottling / kegging for clarity, but longer wait times can also increase O2 exposure; it depends on style. For a cider you might let it sit and clarify for a year, but you wouldn't typically do that with a beer (there are exceptions).
You can add finings post cold-crash to settle out for 2-3 days prior to carbonation, e.g. Gelatine, Isinglass, Polyclear, Silafine, BioFine. (check instructions for preparation and dosing rates).
Use a floating dip tube to pull beer from the top vs. bottom of a keg (requires a special keg lid with a hose barb on the liquid line).
After kegging, store the keg cold for a couple of weeks prior to tapping and moving to kegerator
Try to not move your kegs once they are in place so any particles will settle out and not come out when poured.
Bottling yeast can help clean up beer and help things to settle tightly to the bottom of the bottle. Keeping bottles cold helps with this as well. Note if you’re adding yeast at bottling it’s advisable to keep the bottles warm, say 70-75F, for a couple of weeks for the yeast to do their thing before moving to cold storage.
Additional Thoughts
Patience is a virtue, one or two months ‘lagering’ @ <40F in a keg or in bottles clears almost anything! Often kegs will fall clear after a few weeks in the kegerator. The last few beers are usually much clearer than the first few!
‘Chill haze’ is temporary and disappears with a few degrees rise in temperature, easily determined by simply warming a glass in your hands for a few minutes.
It's so much more than great beer.
