Clarity and Haze in Beer with Dr Charlie Bamforth - BeerSmith Podcast

Dr Charlie Bamforth joins me this week to discuss clarity and haze in beer as well as steps you can take to improve clarity through finings, conditioning and brewing techniques.
You can find show notes and additional episodes on my blog at beersmith.com/blog

[@rcbustanut2057]

Awesome info, very brilliant man. He was referred to me by another KZbin brewer. I love myself a NEIPA style beer and have brewed a couple batches successfully. I for myself, don't care if my beer is hazy or clear, it's all about the lower IBU & super juice bomb flavors. I have had beers that taste like this in both categories, clear & hazy. It's all about the flavor for me, not clarity. My NEIPA's that I personally brewed were super hazy, looked like a glass of Tropicana orange juice lol. They tasted amazing, no off flavors, awesome mouth feel & nice body with very good head retention. As far as polyphenols, I'm ok with those cancer fighting little guys lol.

[@TonyYates]

Some great points made there by the good doctor! Love listening to your interviews with him, and the way he robustly says "beer" gets me every time. Haha. There is some discussion in the community that, while some lesser breweries are adding starches and protein-rich grains to their wort, more popular breweries are possibly getting haze from added fruit purees to their beers - resulting in the juiciness factor. And of course there is the latest hot topic of yeasts with biotransformation properties (i.e. Conan, WYeast 1318, but not Cal. Ale and more). You may have had other guest touch on it recently (M. Tonsmeire maybe?). Anyway, get show! Cheers!

[@MrBeersmith]

In extreme cases I've heard of some breweries adding raw starch to the beer to make it cloudy. I've not tried brewing any intentionally cloudy beers myself though.

[@dornkrull22]

i hear some people add flour to kettle to have a haze that dont drop

[@magicalpancake]

Awesome! Big fan of Charlie Bamforth!

[@MrBeersmith]

Charlie is one of my favorite guests!

[@MSKChess]

He has a Scottish accent in his voice although its predominately English, I wonder if he spent time here

[@BrunoCasagrandaNeves]

Another great interview, thanks Brad. Dr. Bamforth brings so much to the table that my first impulse after listening is to share and discuss. I have listened to almost every episode by now, Dr. Bamforth and Randy "how-we-love-him" Mosher are my favorite guests! Cheers!

[@ctninh]

9:02. Still waiting for it to pass. In the meantime, many hazy boys are being brewed.

[@nickeckemoff7631]

It’s actually easy to make a hazy beer in home brew, but its more difficult to have clear. I think the appeal of hazy beer is commercial breweries trying to appeal as local small batch home brew...even though its not. After making plenty of beer and better understanding, I value clear beer. There is a space for funky hazy Belgium or barley wine styles of course.

[@chiarabarros1]

Bamforth is the one!

[@jcra4195]

Those hazy beer comments didn’t age well. Still love the Dr.

[@fefohood]

Who can tell me what's the name of the Austrian Author that Charlie mention doing a study with ?? I going to go crazy trying to find that paper.

[@dyanverduyn7805]

Brad, as always, thnx for a great show. I learn a lot by just listening to them :) One question I am left with here, is that Charlie speaks about invisible haze. Does this have a quality-negative result in the ending beer ? I regard hazyness as something visual only, I get that people might prefer clear beer, but if the hazyness isn't visible, than whats the problem with it ? thnx man !

[@larryrhoe2835]

Could someone address Ph when using RO WATER and what additions one might use considering the lack of buffering in RO WATER?

[@MrBeersmith]

RO water is very close to distilled water and has nearly zero mineral ions so typically you would use a combination of salts to achieve the base water profile you are shooting for. The big six water ions are here and the recommended ranges are in the BeerSmith program: beersmith.com/blog/2008/08/24/brewing-water-hard-or-soft/

[@sendoprey]

Can someone respond to this message if they find out whether extending the rest after VDK removal does anything. Cheers.

[@LJ-rz4zg]

interesting Cheers.

[@thomassjoberg5786]

I find Charlie to be a little old-fashioned and not welcoming new beer styles. It seems that all new styles cannot be cloudy but the ones that are by tradition is OK. I mean I love Charles but here I find a little bit of exageration, almost discriminatory/close mindedness towards beer styles innovation. Filtration was also something from industrial times where clarity was more important because Dissolved oxygen and storage couldn't be controlled as much as today. Taste matters the most to me and if cloudy beer means drinking within 2 months as opposed to 2 years shelf life I'm totally for cloudiness! Why a wheat iPa should be clear but a Weizen must be cloudy? Lets be honest who taste the best and who is not afraid to innovate between anheuser-Busch and Trillium? If Budweiser is better for some it is not a matter of taste but more an uneducated palate and maybe a vision stuck in the past... sorry to seem rude but I find a little sad some of the words used "chicken soup" or "messy stuff".

[@cricardol]

Thomas Sjöberg I agree with you, but I believe that he seems to dislike this trend because some breweries seems to add ingredients ( starches / flour ) not for the flavour, but for the Orange juice look

[@hazemcdanill8336]

This is funny Haze is my name

[@MrDinkinflicka]

Haze Mcdanill well sorry haze. apparently these old men hate haze. Don't worry the young people love haze. Long live haze!