Extract brew chill haze issues

Brewing Processes
1

I’m a partial volume stovetop extract brewer with just three batches under my belt (on my own equipment anyway). I’ve noticed significant chill haze in the beers I’ve produced so far. The beers are a normal unfiltered cloudiness during bottling, but chilling these beers (a hoppy red ale and an IPA) results in significantly increased cloudiness, even though the yeast bed is left behind in the bottle. Is chill haze a common problem not to be worried about or is there some simple solution I’m not aware of?

Thanks everyone.

2

Give us a little more information on your process.

Are you using Irish moss in the boil?  How long are you letting the beer sit in the fermenter?  Are you using just a primary or racking it to a secondary after the primary fermentation is done.  Also, how are you chilling the wort down after the boil (I’m assuming an ice bath)?  How long is that taking you to get it down to pitching temps?

3

Thanks for the response tygo. I am not using Irish moss in the boil, or any other clarifying agents for that matter. I’ve dry-hopped both of these beers, so I’ve been fermenting one week in primary and dry-hopping one week in secondary. For future non-dry-hopped beers I will bypass the secondary and extend primary fermentation times as needed to achieve full and stable attenuation. As for cooling, I use a copper immersion chiller, which takes 15-20 min. to chill from near boiling to 67F.

Thanks again for any help.

4

Everything there sounds okay to me.  I would try using a clarifying agent like whirlfloc in the boil.

5

I’ll give that a try.  Thanks for the suggestion.  Do these clarifying agents clear out the proteins responsible for causing chill haze or do they mainly clear out cloudiness that is present at all temperatures in the beer?

6

They help precipitate proteins out of the beer.  It should help with chill haze.  You could also try fining with gelatin in the fermenter if you continue to have problems.

7

Whirlfloc works well when added towards the end of the boil about 15 minutes.

Chill haze is a common occurrence but not necessarily a problem. Time conditioning in cool temps helps clear it up. Or not. Gelatin found in the supermarket is used by some brewers to sweep away the haze- but they’d be better at answering your questions about the method.

Generally it isn’t something to worry about. A facet to tackle when the other more important “issues” are conquered or adapted to.