Does anyone know if hopbursting makes the beer less clear?
I recently made a APA with only late hopadditions and it came out looking more like a NEIPA.
Clarity depends on a ridiculous number of factors. Adding a bunch of non isomerised alpha acids is definitely going to affect that since isomerised alpha acids cross link with minerals (mostly calcium and magnesium) and proteins, precipitating them out eventually, as well as being important in the creation of foam. In addition, unless you used hop oil for your hop bursting, you added a whole bunch of polyphenols which flip polarity depending on the temperature. Some of these are important in the creation of chill haze, but they’re also important in precipitating out the protein that causes it during the boil. Since you didn’t add bittering hops, that didn’t happen and you’ve likely got a whole bunch of haze causing proteins in there.
On the plus side, it’s just beer. If you enjoy it, drink it. Clarity only really matters if you’re trying to compete in a specific style category and even then, it’s only worth a couple points at best.
What do you mean by hop bursting? Dry hopping? Omega yeast have done studies on dry hop timing and resultant haziness (or lack thereof) in finished beer.
I do not add any bitteringhops. I added at 15 m 5m 0m and then dryhopped.
What yeast are you using? Actually, would be helpful to just see the whole recipe.
Ok, some of this is in Swedish but you should understand the important stuff
American Pale Ale
Typ: Helmalt IBU : 40 (Tinseth) BU:GU : 0.74 Färg : 14 EBC Kolsyresättning : 2.4 CO2-vol Densitet innan kok : 1.048 Original Gravity : 1.054 Final Gravity : 1.011 30l Kastrull + lauterhelix Satsvolym : 20 L Kokvolym : 28 L Volym efter kok : 25 L Mäskvatten : 18.08 L Lakvatten : 17.49 L Lakvattentemperat.: 76 °C Satslakning : 1.05 L + 16.44 L Koktid : 60 min Total vattenvolym : 35.57 L Totalt utbyte: 60% Mäskutbyte: 72%
Extraktgivare (5.69 kg) 3.986 kg - Pale Malt 6.5 EBC (70%) 1.139 kg - Munich I 15 EBC (20%) 342 g - Carapils/Carafoam 3.9 EBC (6%) 228 g - Melanoidin 59 EBC (4%)
Humle (167.1 g) 30 min - 11.9 g - Columbus (Tomahawk) - 14% (… 15 min - 11.9 g - Centennial - 10% (6 IBU) 15 min - 11.9 g - Columbus (Tomahawk) - 14% (… 5 min - 11.9 g - Centennial - 10% (3 IBU) 5 min - 11.9 g - Citra - 12% (3 IBU) 5 min - 11.9 g - Columbus (Tomahawk) - 14% (4… 1 min - 11.9 g - Centennial - 10% (1 IBU) 1 min - 11.9 g - Citra - 12% (1 IBU) 1 min - 11.9 g - Columbus (Tomahawk) - 14% (1…
Torrhumle (dryhop) 3 dagar - 20 g - Centennial - 10% 3 dagar - 20 g - Citra - 12% 3 dagar - 20 g - Columbus (Tomahawk) - 14%
Övrigt Mäskning - 2 g - Calcium Chloride (CaCl2) Mäskning - 5 g - Gypsum (CaSO4) Mäskning - 2 ml - Lactic Acid 80% Lakning - 1.72 g - Calcium Chloride (CaCl2) Lakning - 4.29 g - Gypsum (CaSO4) 15 min - Kok - 0.5 g - Protafloc 15 min - Kok - 1 tsk - Yeast Nutrients
Jäst 2 pkt - Fermentis Safale American US-05
Mäskschema High fermentability 72.9 °C - Inmäskningstemp 67 °C - 60 min - Temperatur
So looking at the recipe (which I’m happy to say was far easier for me to understand given how little Swedish (read:none) I know), nothing in the grain bill or the yeast selection should affect clarity. Therefore I have to assume it is the “hop bursting” that is the cause of the haziness. It looks like you have 83.3g total (just under 3oz for any Americans reading) in the last 5 minutes of the boil, not to mention another further 60g (~2oz) as a dry hop. My guess is because the hops are added so late into the hot side, a large quantity of the hop oils is making it into the beer (note: this is certainly not a bad thing!), where they are binding to proteins in the wort to form what is known as colloidal haze. This is a fantastic scientific paper which goes extremely in depth into the properties of haze in beer and the causes of them.
My recommendations for you to help minimize the haze would be firstly:
- To lower the amount of carapils/carafoam since it seems that dextrin (which are unfermentable) can possibly be a culprit for contributing to haze.
- Possibly to do a 10-15 minute protein rest (at around 43°C (119°F)) before bringing the wort up to the saccharification rest (between 61-71°C (142-162°F)) to lower the protein content of the beer somewhat which also should help. (Note: this will likely have a detrimental effect of head retention)
- Adding gelatin to the final beer before packaging can be very effective at removing certain types of haze. See here for more info
Thank you for this reply! I have learned much from it
What do you mean by “hopbursting”?
This article describes it:
