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.

  • baconeater@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    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