Ask The Brewmasters

Hi Everyone,
I'm hoping you can help me troubleshoot an issue.  We're sometimes seeing our hazy IPA's drop clear within just a couple of weeks, or even in the bright tank over just a few days.  This is a newish issue over the past year for us, so it's vexing -- people expect a certain appearance in these beers.  Here's some info:

*Typically our malt bills are very simple:  base malt plus 15-25% malted wheat and/or malted oats
*Dry hopping typically these days at end of fermentation with 3-5lbs/bbl of T90

Now, there is one obvious possible reason for this, which is that our yeast has slowly evolved into a different animal.  We have been top cropping and repitching our own house strain now for 300 generations.  It was originally a London Ale 3 type yeast.  The goal of our serial repitching being to evolve our own unique house strain.  Well, maybe we have evolved a strain that produces less stable haze.  Of course, I am hoping there is some other explanation because I love the character of our now-unique strain!  But I am at a loss.  It's frustratingly inconsistent.  Some things we've tried:

-playing with different pH at knockout and at DH
-dry hopping at various temperatures
-additions of dextrin malt to grist
-additions of raw wheat to grist
-removing late-fermentation dry hop additions, moving DH exclusively to post-ferm

Has anyone else dealt with hazy beers dropping clear and if so, how did you remedy?

There's certainly things you can do process wise to promote haze stability, but it's always kind of a crap shoot to keep any kind of consistency with haze levels and haze consistency.  Particles tend to aggregate over time and once that happens gravity will cause things to settle more and more.  Haas is selling a product called Hop Haze and it's the first product I've tried that actually seems to work as advertised.  It's not terribly expensive and produces a consistent result that seems to hold up well over time.  The one thing to consider is that it shouldn't be added right next to your carbonation source (ie pinpoint carbonator).  My vote is to keep making the beer you are making since you seem to be happy with the flavor and touch up the appearance using some Hop Haze.

https://www.johnihaas.com/hop-haze/

Hi Everyone,
I'm hoping you can help me troubleshoot an issue.  We're sometimes seeing our hazy IPA's drop clear within just a couple of weeks, or even in the bright tank over just a few days.  This is a newish issue over the past year for us, so it's vexing -- people expect a certain appearance in these beers.  Here's some info:

*Typically our malt bills are very simple:  base malt plus 15-25% malted wheat and/or malted oats
*Dry hopping typically these days at end of fermentation with 3-5lbs/bbl of T90

Now, there is one obvious possible reason for this, which is that our yeast has slowly evolved into a different animal.  We have been top cropping and repitching our own house strain now for 300 generations.  It was originally a London Ale 3 type yeast.  The goal of our serial repitching being to evolve our own unique house strain.  Well, maybe we have evolved a strain that produces less stable haze.  Of course, I am hoping there is some other explanation because I love the character of our now-unique strain!  But I am at a loss.  It's frustratingly inconsistent.  Some things we've tried:

-playing with different pH at knockout and at DH
-dry hopping at various temperatures
-additions of dextrin malt to grist
-additions of raw wheat to grist
-removing late-fermentation dry hop additions, moving DH exclusively to post-ferm

Has anyone else dealt with hazy beers dropping clear and if so, how did you remedy?

Jason, thanks for sharing your experience.  Are you seeing any sensory differences using the hop haze stuff?  I assume it's some kind of tannin like Tanal-A. Is astringency perception up?

There's certainly things you can do process wise to promote haze stability, but it's always kind of a crap shoot to keep any kind of consistency with haze levels and haze consistency.  Particles tend to aggregate over time and once that happens gravity will cause things to settle more and more.  Haas is selling a product called Hop Haze and it's the first product I've tried that actually seems to work as advertised.  It's not terribly expensive and produces a consistent result that seems to hold up well over time.  The one thing to consider is that it shouldn't be added right next to your carbonation source (ie pinpoint carbonator).  My vote is to keep making the beer you are making since you seem to be happy with the flavor and touch up the appearance using some Hop Haze.

https://www.johnihaas.com/hop-haze/

Hi Everyone,
I'm hoping you can help me troubleshoot an issue.  We're sometimes seeing our hazy IPA's drop clear within just a couple of weeks, or even in the bright tank over just a few days.  This is a newish issue over the past year for us, so it's vexing -- people expect a certain appearance in these beers.  Here's some info:

*Typically our malt bills are very simple:  base malt plus 15-25% malted wheat and/or malted oats
*Dry hopping typically these days at end of fermentation with 3-5lbs/bbl of T90

Now, there is one obvious possible reason for this, which is that our yeast has slowly evolved into a different animal.  We have been top cropping and repitching our own house strain now for 300 generations.  It was originally a London Ale 3 type yeast.  The goal of our serial repitching being to evolve our own unique house strain.  Well, maybe we have evolved a strain that produces less stable haze.  Of course, I am hoping there is some other explanation because I love the character of our now-unique strain!  But I am at a loss.  It's frustratingly inconsistent.  Some things we've tried:

-playing with different pH at knockout and at DH
-dry hopping at various temperatures
-additions of dextrin malt to grist
-additions of raw wheat to grist
-removing late-fermentation dry hop additions, moving DH exclusively to post-ferm

Has anyone else dealt with hazy beers dropping clear and if so, how did you remedy?

Hi Everyone,
I'm hoping you can help me troubleshoot an issue.  We're sometimes seeing our hazy IPA's drop clear within just a couple of weeks, or even in the bright tank over just a few days.  This is a newish issue over the past year for us, so it's vexing -- people expect a certain appearance in these beers.  Here's some info:

*Typically our malt bills are very simple:  base malt plus 15-25% malted wheat and/or malted oats
*Dry hopping typically these days at end of fermentation with 3-5lbs/bbl of T90

Now, there is one obvious possible reason for this, which is that our yeast has slowly evolved into a different animal.  We have been top cropping and repitching our own house strain now for 300 generations.  It was originally a London Ale 3 type yeast.  The goal of our serial repitching being to evolve our own unique house strain.  Well, maybe we have evolved a strain that produces less stable haze.  Of course, I am hoping there is some other explanation because I love the character of our now-unique strain!  But I am at a loss.  It's frustratingly inconsistent.  Some things we've tried:

-playing with different pH at knockout and at DH
-dry hopping at various temperatures
-additions of dextrin malt to grist
-additions of raw wheat to grist
-removing late-fermentation dry hop additions, moving DH exclusively to post-ferm

Has anyone else dealt with hazy beers dropping clear and if so, how did you remedy?

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Joe Grimm
Brooklyn NY
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