[HopDen]

Have you ever checked your boil ph? Kettle finings and the break reactions work better at a lower ph, an acid adjustment with 10 min left in the boil to get you to ~5.0-5.2 has been said to help and I have noticed a difference for me. Maybe that could be a variable since it all depends on recipe.

Also higher calcium levels seemed to have helped my beers as well. I used to always target at least 50ppm Calcium Injave been driving that up closer to 100 lately.

I also check my post boil pH but not always. I have found that boil pH rises from mash pH. Anywhere from a consistent mash low of 5.2 on a pils rising to 5.4-5.5 and on occasion 5.7 post boil but that might be from an extended boil. This is according to notes.

To my point though, on that pils and actually most of my very soft water profile beers I don't go over a Ca of 22-25ppm. and I have achieved clear beer
both employing time/gravity w/o biofine and the use of biofine. YMMV though and I was by no means suggesting you are wrong in your approach. If that is your results and they work, great!!

I have noticed that similar rise in boil ph as well, but can't explain it when my typical mash ph is ~5.3. That is what had me looking into the kettle acidification near the end of the boil to get me to the recommended lower ph. I don't think it's as common as it was before, maybe I see little to no drop but not as much the rise but it certainly had me scratching my head in the past.

I will check the boil pH on my next batch of Pilsnerand correct it to 5.1 to compare how it affects clarity.

[HighVoltageMan!]

There is no magic bullet to beer clarity. It might be helpful to find out what type of turbidity you trying to avoid. Once you know that you can target the problem. Clear beer is something I believe is important and it requires a lot of knowledge, skill and good brewing practices to achieve. Targeting you boil pH is important, low pH will help with protein coagulation, but if your total tannins are high from the grain or a high pH in the mash or a high pH on your sparge, you turbidity will persist. Good brewing practice throughout the brewing process goes a long way in helping to have a brilliantly clear beer in the end. There are 3 main types of haze. Temporary haze (yeast in suspension), permanent haze (starch, bacteria or prolonged cycled chill haze, oxidation, etc.) and chill haze.

It's likely your fighting chill haze, which means you need to reduce either proteins or tannins (polyphenols) or both. To check for it, the beer will clear as it's warmed. Chill haze is a weak hydrogen bond between proteins and tannins. The combination of the two bonded molecules diffuse light, when they are warmed the two molecules separate. Filtering does not solve this problem. It's best to use some form of clarifier that targets polyphenols or proteins. PVPP targets only polyphenols, leaving the proteins in tact. Gelatin targets proteins, polyphenols and yeast. It's a broad spectrum clarifier that is indiscriminate. Gelatin is a sludge hammer approach, but it works really well for homebrewers. Isinglass and Biofine Clear all work similar to gelatin. Extended lagering helps a great deal because the tannins tend to drop out over time in cold conditions (near freezing).

Rather then guessing at the problem/solution it would be best to find out exactly what your up against, otherwise your just using a shotgun approach to trouble shooting your problem. That could waste a lot of time and energy.

[Village Taphouse]

There is no magic bullet to beer clarity. It might be helpful to find out what type of turbidity you trying to avoid. Once you know that you can target the problem. Clear beer is something I believe is important and it requires a lot of knowledge, skill and good brewing practices to achieve. Targeting you boil pH is important, low pH will help with protein coagulation, but if your total tannins are high from the grain or a high pH in the mash or a high pH on your sparge, you turbidity will persist. Good brewing practice throughout the brewing process goes a long way in helping to have a brilliantly clear beer in the end. There are 3 main types of haze. Temporary haze (yeast in suspension), permanent haze (starch, bacteria or prolonged cycled chill haze, oxidation, etc.) and chill haze.

It's likely your fighting chill haze, which means you need to reduce either proteins or tannins (polyphenols) or both. To check for it, the beer will clear as it's warmed. Chill haze is a weak hydrogen bond between proteins and tannins. The combination of the two bonded molecules diffuse light, when they are warmed the two molecules separate. Filtering does not solve this problem. It's best to use some form of clarifier that targets polyphenols or proteins. PVPP targets only polyphenols, leaving the proteins in tact. Gelatin targets proteins, polyphenols and yeast. It's a broad spectrum clarifier that is indiscriminate. Gelatin is a sludge hammer approach, but it works really well for homebrewers. Isinglass and Biofine Clear all work similar to gelatin. Extended lagering helps a great deal because the tannins tend to drop out over time in cold conditions (near freezing).

Rather then guessing at the problem/solution it would be best to find out exactly what your up against, otherwise your just using a shotgun approach to trouble shooting your problem. That could waste a lot of time and energy.

Thank you for that.  On very, very rare occasions I will have stubborn haze that will not clear no matter what.  This is probably less than 1% of the time and I consider that to be a bacterial contamination.  On the batches where I have "clearish" beer, it gets clearer as it warms so I think my biggest issue is chill haze.  The "cold time" thing is strange to me because I make a lot of lagers and some sit in the on-deck fridge for 3 months and then might make it to the draft fridge where they might take another two months to drink but slight haze exists throughout.  I will also mention that my clarity used to be more consistent and satisfactory and it's only in the last 12 months (give or take) that I have seen this which is why I mentioned the boil rate.  I was concerned enough about it to send a sample to Ward and my results were very similar to what I have seen from Ward over the past 20 years... very consistent water composition.  I wondered if something drastic changed in my water to create this issue but it doesn't seem like it. 

[denny]

Same malts as before you saw this? 

[hopfenundmalz]

Pilsner Urquell "boils" at a bare simmer I'm told.  They have pretty good clarity.

Do they filter their beer?  Could the beer be clearish and then finely polished with a filter which would get the remaining schputz out of the picture?

AFAIK, they don't, but that's AFAIK

Their beer is ultra clear so maybe soft water + long boils + "everything else being perfect" is enough.  I see a lot of crystal clear commercial beer and I don't lose much sleep over that because I assume they have some sorcery to get the beer looking like that.  Sometimes my beer looks like that and other times it does not.  But I see other homebrewers getting very clear beer so I wonder what the variables are.  Cheers.

PU is filtered and pasteurized.

It is a great to get the unfiltered unpasteurized versions when they rarely appear in the US. Or if you take the brewery tour you can drink a glass straight from the wooden Lagering tanks, and that has some haze, and is wonderful.

[denny]

Pilsner Urquell "boils" at a bare simmer I'm told.  They have pretty good clarity.

Do they filter their beer?  Could the beer be clearish and then finely polished with a filter which would get the remaining schputz out of the picture?

AFAIK, they don't, but that's AFAIK

Their beer is ultra clear so maybe soft water + long boils + "everything else being perfect" is enough.  I see a lot of crystal clear commercial beer and I don't lose much sleep over that because I assume they have some sorcery to get the beer looking like that.  Sometimes my beer looks like that and other times it does not.  But I see other homebrewers getting very clear beer so I wonder what the variables are.  Cheers.

PU is filtered and pasteurized.

It is a great to get the unfiltered unpasteurized versions when they rarely appear in the US. Or if you take the brewery tour you can drink a glass straight from the wooden Lagering tanks, and that has some hate, and is wonderful.

If you hate it, why drink it? 

[hopfenundmalz]

Pilsner Urquell "boils" at a bare simmer I'm told.  They have pretty good clarity.

Do they filter their beer?  Could the beer be clearish and then finely polished with a filter which would get the remaining schputz out of the picture?

AFAIK, they don't, but that's AFAIK

Their beer is ultra clear so maybe soft water + long boils + "everything else being perfect" is enough.  I see a lot of crystal clear commercial beer and I don't lose much sleep over that because I assume they have some sorcery to get the beer looking like that.  Sometimes my beer looks like that and other times it does not.  But I see other homebrewers getting very clear beer so I wonder what the variables are.  Cheers.

PU is filtered and pasteurized.

It is a great to get the unfiltered unpasteurized versions when they rarely appear in the US. Or if you take the brewery tour you can drink a glass straight from the wooden Lagering tanks, and that has some hate, and is wonderful.

If you hate it, why drink it? 

Terrible typing. Fixed.

[Village Taphouse]

Same malts as before you saw this?

Generally yes.  I am a creature of habit and so I use a lot of the same malts.  Swaen and Best Malz are common here but I will occasionally take a flyer on something like this Full Pint Pilsner from Briess.  Weyermann Vienna and Munich are also common here.  I might see one batch with these malts come out clear and the next one have some haze and I have not seen something like "All these Swaen batches were clear and all of these Best Malz batches had haze".  Nothing like that.  I know I shouldn't hang my hat on boil vigor but it could easily fit into what I'm seeing especially since I boil in the garage and walk away.  Yes, I check it every 5-10 minutes and sometimes it's at a low simmer while other times it's really boiling hard.  The control on my outdoor burner is not very fine so the dial is just in the same-ish spot that I always set it to.  It's something for me to focus on going forward.  If I have a vigorous boil coming up and get good hot break but the beer ends up cloudy or clearish, the problem lies elsewhere.

[beersk]

Same malts as before you saw this?

Generally yes.  I am a creature of habit and so I use a lot of the same malts.  Swaen and Best Malz are common here but I will occasionally take a flyer on something like this Full Pint Pilsner from Briess.  Weyermann Vienna and Munich are also common here.  I might see one batch with these malts come out clear and the next one have some haze and I have not seen something like "All these Swaen batches were clear and all of these Best Malz batches had haze".  Nothing like that.  I know I shouldn't hang my hat on boil vigor but it could easily fit into what I'm seeing especially since I boil in the garage and walk away.  Yes, I check it every 5-10 minutes and sometimes it's at a low simmer while other times it's really boiling hard.  The control on my outdoor burner is not very fine so the dial is just in the same-ish spot that I always set it to.  It's something for me to focus on going forward.  If I have a vigorous boil coming up and get good hot break but the beer ends up cloudy or clearish, the problem lies elsewhere.

I know some people get into the specifics about malt lots and stat sheets, etc. There could very well be differences between the malt lots in the sacks you're getting that could cause haze issues in one over the other. I know I had a sack of Briess Synergy select a couple years ago and all the wort created with it was hazy. And with the low o2 process, it really creates a nice clear wort pretty quick over my non-low o2 process and even then that malt gave me hazy wort every time. I don't recall the beer ever having huge haze issues though.
But like mentioned before, do these beers tend to clear up when you let them sit warm? And you're using BtB now I believe. I've heard many complain that that creates a persistent haze in finished beer. Maybe you could skip the boil addition. I don't use it in the boil anymore either, only the mash. But then again, I'm using a stainless steel chiller.

[Village Taphouse]

Same malts as before you saw this?

Generally yes.  I am a creature of habit and so I use a lot of the same malts.  Swaen and Best Malz are common here but I will occasionally take a flyer on something like this Full Pint Pilsner from Briess.  Weyermann Vienna and Munich are also common here.  I might see one batch with these malts come out clear and the next one have some haze and I have not seen something like "All these Swaen batches were clear and all of these Best Malz batches had haze".  Nothing like that.  I know I shouldn't hang my hat on boil vigor but it could easily fit into what I'm seeing especially since I boil in the garage and walk away.  Yes, I check it every 5-10 minutes and sometimes it's at a low simmer while other times it's really boiling hard.  The control on my outdoor burner is not very fine so the dial is just in the same-ish spot that I always set it to.  It's something for me to focus on going forward.  If I have a vigorous boil coming up and get good hot break but the beer ends up cloudy or clearish, the problem lies elsewhere.

I know some people get into the specifics about malt lots and stat sheets, etc. There could very well be differences between the malt lots in the sacks you're getting that could cause haze issues in one over the other. I know I had a sack of Briess Synergy select a couple years ago and all the wort created with it was hazy. And with the low o2 process, it really creates a nice clear wort pretty quick over my non-low o2 process and even then that malt gave me hazy wort every time. I don't recall the beer ever having huge haze issues though.
But like mentioned before, do these beers tend to clear up when you let them sit warm? And you're using BtB now I believe. I've heard many complain that that creates a persistent haze in finished beer. Maybe you could skip the boil addition. I don't use it in the boil anymore either, only the mash. But then again, I'm using a stainless steel chiller.

The issue I see is that I will have one batch made with Swaen Pilsner malt (for example) be clear as can be but the next batch with malt from that same sack is clearish or cloudy.  I have also made ultra-clear beers with BTB added in the strike water and the boil (and also cloudy batches that way) and I have heard other brewers say that BTB added to the boil created a haze in all their beers.  I'm also using an SS chiller.  I don't want to put too much emphasis on the fact that we're all working in variable environments but we all use different malt, have a different crush, mash differently, use different water (big variable), use different water additions, check pH differently, boil differently, chill differently and we're all at different experience levels too.  In some cases I hear a theory and think... "it doesn't feel like it" and other times I think, "Mmm, could be something there".  All of this has also made me crank up my cleaning and sanitation as well which is a good thing.  Everything that can be boiled or can contain boiling water (like flasks) get the treatment (plus they're sanitized in IO-SAN or STAR-SAN).  Everything is taken apart, examined, cleaned, sanitized, etc.

[denny]

Pilsner Urquell "boils" at a bare simmer I'm told.  They have pretty good clarity.

Do they filter their beer?  Could the beer be clearish and then finely polished with a filter which would get the remaining schputz out of the picture?

AFAIK, they don't, but that's AFAIK

Their beer is ultra clear so maybe soft water + long boils + "everything else being perfect" is enough.  I see a lot of crystal clear commercial beer and I don't lose much sleep over that because I assume they have some sorcery to get the beer looking like that.  Sometimes my beer looks like that and other times it does not.  But I see other homebrewers getting very clear beer so I wonder what the variables are.  Cheers.

PU is filtered and pasteurized.

It is a great to get the unfiltered unpasteurized versions when they rarely appear in the US. Or if you take the brewery tour you can drink a glass straight from the wooden Lagering tanks, and that has some hate, and is wonderful.

If you hate it, why drink it? 

Terrible typing. Fixed.

Not nearly as bad as mine!

[denny]

Same malts as before you saw this?

Generally yes.  I am a creature of habit and so I use a lot of the same malts.  Swaen and Best Malz are common here but I will occasionally take a flyer on something like this Full Pint Pilsner from Briess.  Weyermann Vienna and Munich are also common here.  I might see one batch with these malts come out clear and the next one have some haze and I have not seen something like "All these Swaen batches were clear and all of these Best Malz batches had haze".  Nothing like that.  I know I shouldn't hang my hat on boil vigor but it could easily fit into what I'm seeing especially since I boil in the garage and walk away.  Yes, I check it every 5-10 minutes and sometimes it's at a low simmer while other times it's really boiling hard.  The control on my outdoor burner is not very fine so the dial is just in the same-ish spot that I always set it to.  It's something for me to focus on going forward.  If I have a vigorous boil coming up and get good hot break but the beer ends up cloudy or clearish, the problem lies elsewhere.

Keep in mind that malt will vary from lot to lot, even if you buy the same brand and type.  Do you get a lot analysis when you buy a bag of malt?

[BrewBama]

...I've heard many complain that [BtB] creates a persistent haze in finished beer. Maybe you could skip the boil addition. I don't use it in the boil anymore either, only the mash. But then again, I'm using a stainless steel chiller.

I didn’t know BtB was causing haze.  I haven’t had any issues using it in mash and boil.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[beersk]

...I've heard many complain that [BtB] creates a persistent haze in finished beer. Maybe you could skip the boil addition. I don't use it in the boil anymore either, only the mash. But then again, I'm using a stainless steel chiller.

I didn’t know BtB was causing haze.  I haven’t had any issues using it in mash and boil.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

That's what I've read, hasn't been my experience either, but I still don't put it in the boil because with a SS chiller, I don't really need to. Everything else is stainless as well.

[Village Taphouse]

Keep in mind that malt will vary from lot to lot, even if you buy the same brand and type.  Do you get a lot analysis when you buy a bag of malt?

I do not bother looking at the lot analysis mostly because I don't know what I'm looking at nor would I know how to pivot based on that information.  Also, the fact that I could have a clear beer and a cloudy beer from the same sack of malt tells me that the problem would probably still occur regardless of the sack of malt.  Is that reasonable?  If two batches from the same sack could be so different then the issue is not because I'm not looking closely at the lot data.