First botched batch

A couple weeks ago I brewed my 20th all-grain beer. It was the American Pale Ale recipe from Brewing Classic Styles. It was the second time I’ve brewed it in as many months. It’s destined for the drain; the first batch of beer I’ll dump. It looks like mud water and tastes about as pleasant.

(For the record, I’m still enjoying bottles of the first batch; it turned out fine.)

The first I noticed something might be wrong was during the chill. Even though I was nearing 20C some 25 minutes after knockout, there was no cold break. To chill, I stir a whirlpool with an immersion chiller. Usually, when I get around 26C, I can see the cold break start to settle if I stop stirring. This time I saw no change in the complexion of the wort. It looked normal when boiling 20 minutes earlier but now that it was cooled it looked like muddy water. And after reaching an FG of 1.012 it still looks like muddy water (see pic).

The only thing that went differently from from when I brewed this a month earlier (other than a couple degrees difference in mashing) was a slight boil-over immediately after hot break. I see no change in my grains. They've been kept cool and dry. I used the same bottled water I always use. I had a new brass nozzle attached to the ball valve on my brew kettle, but surely that didn't cause it.

Is there some obvious cause for this that I’ve missed in the literature? Or do I need to do more painstaking forensic work?

Mofo said:

Is there some obvious cause for this that I’ve missed in the literature? Or do I need to do more painstaking forensic work?

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I think we're in for some forensic work. From your description, I can only come up with more questions.

Are there any other variables that could be in play? Perhaps a change in water? Warm temperatures affecting fermentation?

You noted that the mash temperature was off by a few degrees. Was this something that went over 70C for a while? I think you're more careful than that, but if it did, this could have reduced your enzyme content and you could be looking at starch in the beer.

Even though you didn't boil over, the boil should've been vigorous and you should have seen the first hot break, clearly. If not, this could be another avenue to the cloudiness. Also, lipids left from poor to no hot break can oxidize and cause off flavors.

Before dumping it, consider adding a souring culture and just letting it sit for a while. Lactobacillus and Brettanomyces can break down the starch and proteins, leaving a much more interesting beer.

We had a beer like that from one of club members.  It was a "cereal" (Captain Crunch with crunch berries) beer for a Cereal Beer Challenge.  When we had the judging, I named it Mud Puddle Porter.  It was the ugliest beer I had ever seen.

It tasted pretty good though and actually won the competition, despite it's appearance.  Appearance wasn't one of the judging criteria.  Creativity, Flavor and ingenuity in using the cereal were the criteria.

After 3 months in the keg, the beer finally cleared and was a beautiful, and very tasty porter.  Patience Mofo.  If it doesn't clear and doesn't improve, then I agree with Brewfun.  You can always try making a sour out of it.

A quote from the movie Galaxy Quest.  "Never give up, never surrender!"

It seems to me that your transfering a lot of grain fines from the mash tun to the kettle. I would look further back in your process to see if the false bottom or bazooka is letting too much grain fines thru.

The first thing that comes to my mind is the hops. American pale ales are typically well hopped and I have had instances where my hop forward beers are cloudy; not quite as bad as is indicated in your picture, but cloudy none-the-less. Could there have been an issue with the quality or makeup of the hops?

Questions:
1) at what stage in the brewing/fermenting/conditioning process is the beer in the photo?
2) were their any brewing salt additions and if so what were they?
3) were there any changes in the finning agents used in this batch from what you normally use?