Beer Head Retention

[DarrenTheDrunk]

Hello Fellow Drinkers. I have been getting just so bloody much excellent advice from DazGore and again...want to acknowledge this so just to give the poor bugga a break, I was wondering what people think is the best additive (or other) way of retaining the head on a beer. I have been told that dry corn syrup is good and I know a chemical free glass helps but are there any other pearls of wisdom out among the wise ones of the amber fluid

 

[Aus_Rider_22]

Instead of dry corn syrup, go with a can of liquid malt extract. Whether it be light, amber or dark, depending on your intended beer style. Might be more expensive but will aid in head retention and a fuller body.

 

[DarrenTheDrunk]

Instead of dry corn syrup, go with a can of liquid malt extract. Whether it be light, amber or dark, depending on your intended beer style. Might be more expensive but will aid in head retention and a fuller body.

Hi Aus_Rider_22. Does your "name refer to Bikes, Surf Boards or Women...or all 3 !! If I may ask a coupla questions. I dont care about the cost as it is the QUALITY that matters to me...I am a drunk...not an alcoholic cos I dont go to meetings !! I am only really a social drinker but OMG...I am ever so sociable...I could go on but it will only bore everyone

Will this improve the head better than corn syrup (my question mark keys is buggered). When you say a "can" how many ml per 23l fermenter. Of course this will increase the % alcohol or (ABV) whatever that stands for but this part excites me... Finally, would adding both (corn and malt) be too much do you think. Have a great weekend fellow "Sociable Drinkers"

 

[Kev R]

I am making an assumption that you are a kit and kilo brewer, ie a can of pre hoped extract (Coopers ect) and a kilo of sugar.
Replace the sugar with the can of malt extract. I would recommend a can of wheat extract, they are usually 20 to 30% wheat and the rest barley malt extract. The wheat helps with foam and body.
You might have to adjust the amount to get the ABV that you want. Can't remember conversion.

 

[Vini2ton]

That coopers wheat extract used to go into a few of my K and K brews. If you want to get adventurous, you could steep and add some carapils. Maybe 100 to 150gms and see how you go. Look into mini-mashes. I get the feeling you will move to BIAB soon.

 

[DarrenTheDrunk]

I am making an assumption that you are a kit and kilo brewer, ie a can of pre hoped extract (Coopers ect) and a kilo of sugar.
Replace the sugar with the can of malt extract. I would recommend a can of wheat extract, they are usually 20 to 30% wheat and the rest barley malt extract. The wheat helps with foam and body.
You might have to adjust the amount to get the ABV that you want. Can't remember conversion.

Thanks Kev.
100% a K and K brewer and at this stage...no intent to change. Can you specify an exact product to buy. As the "professor" of brewing DazGore will confirm...I certainly am not the sharpest pencil in the pencil case. Cheers and Beers

 

[DarrenTheDrunk]

That coopers wheat extract used to go into a few of my K and K brews. If you want to get adventurous, you could steep and add some carapils. Maybe 100 to 150gms and see how you go. Look into mini-mashes. I get the feeling you will move to BIAB soon.

Holly shit Vinni.... Way too many acronyms in your post for me to understand but heads up for your reply (BIAB, carapils) and this is exacerbatd by the fact that it now 7.22pm and lets just say...already had a few "froffy" home brews to be able to understand...now before you are too critical...I only drinks on days that end in "y"

 

[peterlonz]

For relative beginners to home brewing it's hard to not recommend any Coopers Kit. Their products are consistent & their general purpose ale yeast ( that's in almost every Kit) is particularly robust & dependable. The first improvement over a standard K & K is to use two cans & forget the sugar. Just be aware bitterness will increase if both cans are hopped. Using Coopers wheat extract will not increase bitterness because it's not hopped. Brewing "all grain" is a hell of a lot more work although results are generally better than K & K. You can of course sort of go half way, use selected extra hops & maybe one Kg of grain.
Darren hope this helps but if you are bottle fermenting to achieve a head, maybe add a touch more sugar as priming. Pretty safe if you use the plastic bottles which are very tolerant of higher than usual internal pressure.

 

[yankinoz]

Wheat and dextrins help with head, supposedly wheat more for building, dextrins more for retention, but both work for me. "Dried corn syrup" is malto-dextrin, misnamed. If you take the advice of adding more extract, consider wheat LME or DME or for dextrins Munich LME or DME. I'm basically an all-grain brewer but often use Briess Wheat DME (from 65% wheat malt) to adjust OG and promote head formation.

Other standard tips are to raise carbonation a little if you have leeway to do so and to be sure you've got all the detergent rinsed out if you used any in cleaning.

Caution: if you do all the above, the head will take over.

 

[DarrenTheDrunk]

For relative beginners to home brewing it's hard to not recommend any Coopers Kit. Their products are consistent & their general purpose ale yeast ( that's in almost every Kit) is particularly robust & dependable. The first improvement over a standard K & K is to use two cans & forget the sugar. Just be aware bitterness will increase if both cans are hopped. Using Coopers wheat extract will not increase bitterness because it's not hopped. Brewing "all grain" is a hell of a lot more work although results are generally better than K & K. You can of course sort of go half way, use selected extra hops & maybe one Kg of grain.
Darren hope this helps but if you are bottle fermenting to achieve a head, maybe add a touch more sugar as priming. Pretty safe if you use the plastic bottles which are very tolerant of higher than usual internal pressure.

Hi Peterlonz. Your post has helped a lot. I never knew Coopers had a wheat extract however when I just googled it, it certainly is there. I think they call a wheat mould extract. If you think it will help make, I most certainly will give it a crack. I only just put on 2 brews yesterday which is a bugga because I could have added to them. But hey, all of the people in my house are never taking two steps back to get one step forward in terms of drinking beer… I should come clean and admit that I live alone… I totally agree with your final comment about the plastic bottles but I have collected a huge number of long necks and stubbies over a period of time because I believed that glass is better than plastic. Grhmblz (Grahame) recommended the plastic bottles over the glass for the reasons you are mentioning as well as to ensure you get a good seal. In my first three or four brews, which all happened at once, I mucked something up and had bottles exploding like nuclear bombs which was rather annoying but also a tad entertaining at the same time. The mistake I think clearly was that the fermentation hadn’t properly finished before I bottled. Whilst I am moving into the art of “kegging” at the moment with the ample technical support from clearly the professor “DazGore”, when you make a 23 L brew and kegs are only made to 19 L, then clearly there are a few litres that I bottle afterwards. To be honest, I cannot see at this stage me wanting to go on to the “full brewing” process as the results from the K and K are just outstanding. Never in my life, have I needed to ensure I drink a slab of stubbies that I purchased because it was getting close to “best before date”. But now, I have been brewing hundreds of stubbies and without a word of a lie, they are by far my preference over VB. I am sitting here now with a long neck of my preferred brew being the “beer makers” better, spiced up a bit to about 5.9%, and I could not be happier. Thank you very much for your post and it is certainly appreciated as are everybody’s input from this site. Kind regards… Darren

 

[DarrenTheDrunk]

Wheat and dextrins help with head, supposedly wheat more for building, dextrins more for retention, but both work for me. "Dried corn syrup" is malto-dextrin, misnamed. If you take the advice of adding more extract, consider wheat LME or DME or for dextrins Munich LME or DME. I'm basically an all-grain brewer but often use Briess Wheat DME (from 65% wheat malt) to adjust OG and promote head formation.

Other standard tips are to raise carbonation a little if you have leeway to do so and to be sure you've got all the detergent rinsed out if you used any in cleaning.

Caution: if you do all the above, the head will take over.

Hi Yankinoz. If I may clarify a bit, when you say use LME or DME, how much in terms of weight recommend over and above the canned extract? Also when you say “OG”, I’m sorry but I’m not exactly sure what that is referring to. Please do not be too harsh, because it took me 20 minutes to work out what LME and DME are and when I did, I was feeling “proud” and rather “advanced” of myself… Peterlonz suggestion about using two tins of extract (I think that’s what he meant) is not an issue for me because it is the quality of the beer that gets me all excited (yes, I live a rather boring life). What is your opinion on this. Whilst I like a little bit of spiced up alcohol percent, if two tins are going to give me 9%, the only ones that would be happy about that are, yes myself, and my liver specialist…

Thank you very much for your advice and I hope I have interpreted your “handle” accurately in you being an American in Australia. I hope you are enjoying this wonderful country. Kind regards Darren

.

 

[DarrenTheDrunk]

Hello all

okay, to add a response to my own question in the interests of information that may perhaps be useful for others, I just opened a longneck and it was the first time that I added half a kilo of dry corn syrup. It was bottled back in 26th of March 2020, and I must agree with the local homebrew shop that the corn syrup does make a difference. In the past I have only added 250 g and there has been a discernible difference. I still must add however, that the pore produces a beautiful head, but it doesn’t seem to hang around as long as it takes to drink the pint. Now… That either means no beer will hold a full head for an entire pint, and/or… I need to drink a hell of a lot quicker.

 

[Paddy Melon]

Hi Darren, I must say I enjoy your commentaries and think to myself "good on ya" for asking all your questions. When I started out I had some difficulties too but they are now second nature....well most of the acronyms are. I am also a K&K brewer and haven't gone past that because I am brewing beer that is fantastic to my tastes and the tastes of my neighbours. I much prefer my brews, with their additions, to the mass produced ones I was used to drinking. I'm not a yuppy type drinker I like a good pale ale that goes down quick in winter and a larger that goes down even quicker in summer. I really enjoy the Coopers European lager after it's been left sitting for at least three months, the Coopers Canadian Blond and the coopers Pale ale. To get them to a very drinkable state all I do extra to the instructions on the cans is add 1/4 of a can of extra extract boil, 20grams of saaz hops for 30 minutes in a solution of 250gms DME and 250ml of water and poor into my fermenter I then top up the fermenter to the 25 litre mark and that has done it for me.

 

[yankinoz]

Hi Yankinoz. If I may clarify a bit, when you say use LME or DME, how much in terms of weight recommend over and above the canned extract? Also when you say “OG”, I’m sorry but I’m not exactly sure what that is referring to. Please do not be too harsh, because it took me 20 minutes to work out what LME and DME are and when I did, I was feeling “proud” and rather “advanced” of myself… Peterlonz suggestion about using two tins of extract (I think that’s what he meant) is not an issue for me because it is the quality of the beer that gets me all excited (yes, I live a rather boring life). What is your opinion on this. Whilst I like a little bit of spiced up alcohol percent, if two tins are going to give me 9%, the only ones that would be happy about that are, yes myself, and my liver specialist…

Thank you very much for your advice and I hope I have interpreted your “handle” accurately in you being an American in Australia. I hope you are enjoying this wonderful country. Kind regards Darren

.

How much to add depends on volume of wort and the body and alcohol of the desired beer. Extracts also vary a little, but I'll offer some rough equivalencies you can plug into your recipes.

OG is original gravity. Water is 1.0. Anything over that reflects the weight of solutes in the wort.

I'll use Briess products as examples because they provide good technical data. A 1.5 kg can of DME is equivalent to about 1.2 kg DME.

One kg of any of their lighter-coloured DMEs contributes as much to OG as 970 g of sugar. Whereas cane sugar and dextrose are 100% fermentable, the solids in the DME are about 75% fermentable. Therefore, one kg of their DME contributes about as much alcohol to the beer as 730 g of sugar. A 1.5 kg can of their LME raises OG as much as 1180 g of sugar, raises alcohol as much as 880g of sugar. Very dark extracts yield slightly less fermentable sugars.

All brewing yeasts ferment cane and corn sugar fullly to alcohol, but do not do equally well with the mixed sugars in malt extracts. If your yeast is a poor attenuator, such as Windsor, a kg of DME or can of LME will raise alcohol by less than indicated in the prior paragraph, and your finished beer will be accordingly sweeter.



The parts of extracts that do not ferment to alcohol contribute variously to body, flavour, malt aroma and head retention, hence the advice of others above to substitute extracts for sugar. "

Hope this helps, but you might pull up some basic online sources such as Palmer's How to Brew and Brewer's Friend.

 

[DarrenTheDrunk]

Hello our “Yanky Mate”

thank you ever so much for your reply. Embarrassingly, I have spent a good solid 30+ years in the aquarium trade both as a serious hobby, and 20 years in business in that industry. And here I am, asking what “OG” means. Anyway, distilled water has a specific gravity of 1.0 whilst tap water and in fact even water from a water tank, rarely ever have a specific gravity of 1.0. Pardon me using the long form rather than the acronym’s because I am dictating this reply rather than typing it for many reasons (voice to text). I do, review what I put the paper, how ever there have been times in the past where some rather humorous, and some not so humorous, transcriptions have been made.

The reason that when you first make your wort which has a specific gravity greater than the ending specific gravity is quite simply because sugar, salt, any form of minerals make the liquid more buoyant. For example “the dead Sea” is so salty and therefore, objects float so much better such that you can almost sit upright on it. What happens during the fermentation is that the sugar (minerals) is converted into alcohol in which case the “buoyancy” of the wort is reduced thereby, reducing the specific gravity. Now I am not sure if what I have just said will help others understand how it works, but knowing me, I have quite possibly confused the living shit out of everyone.

I really like your comment about the ingredients that do not ferment actually add body to the product really cool. It makes a whole heap of sense. I really would like to thank you quite sincerely for your input and finally will add, I would will not take your advice about researching ANYTHING on the Internet as I am but a simple man, and it is the accurate and concise advice that I receive on this forum that is way more important than getting confused by researching various sites from people with varying opinions. I hope that makes sense.

Kindest regards

Darren

 

[DarrenTheDrunk]

Hi Darren, I must say I enjoy your commentaries and think to myself "good on ya" for asking all your questions. When I started out I had some difficulties too but they are now second nature....well most of the acronyms are. I am also a K&K brewer and haven't gone past that because I am brewing beer that is fantastic to my tastes and the tastes of my neighbours. I much prefer my brews, with their additions, to the mass produced ones I was used to drinking. I'm not a yuppy type drinker I like a good pale ale that goes down quick in winter and a larger that goes down even quicker in summer. I really enjoy the Coopers European lager after it's been left sitting for at least three months, the Coopers Canadian Blond and the coopers Pale ale. To get them to a very drinkable state all I do extra to the instructions on the cans is add 1/4 of a can of extra extract boil, 20grams of saaz hops for 30 minutes in a solution of 250gms DME and 250ml of water and poor into my fermenter I then top up the fermenter to the 25 litre mark and that has done it for me.

Hi Paddy Melon

thank you for your reply and your comments about appreciating my questions, because I am all too aware that I may be perceived as a “sponge” rather than someone who is prepared to contribute and help others. I can assure you that is certainly not me. Like yourself, I look forward to the time when I can offer genuine and useful advice to other people as they have done to me. I most certainly am not at that stage right now. As I think I mentioned in a previous post, I cannot at this stage envisage ever varying from the K & K brewing. I could not agree more, that as a lifelong consumer of VB, you have no idea just how far I will go to avoid having to drink a VB instead of something I brewed myself. I have mentioned this fact to a few friends, and whilst they did not say anything, I detect a sense that they think I am just talking crap because it’s something that I brewed. Oh how wrong they are. I am not sure if you have looked into “kegging” beer, but whilst I still have some huge issues in my learning process, both Grahame and particularly “DazGore” have just been bloody amazing in terms of their willingness to give me advice. “DazGore” I will refer to as the “Professor” because bugger me dead, his general knowledge and I must say, scientific understanding, of this hobby, is mind blowing. This is accentuated, by his willingness to impart that knowledge on to me. If only he lived closer,… Well possibly better he does not… Because I think we both would be socialize too much and be intoxicated seven days a week.

 

[Paddy Melon]

Darren I deliberately don't keg my beer because I would not be able to walk past a tapped keg. Bottles at least are capped and one step further from an easy grab. I know......I'm weak.

 

[DarrenTheDrunk]

Ha Ha Ha...fair point mate.

 

[Coalminer]

Here ya go Darren
https://aussiehomebrewer.com/threads/homebrew-acronyms.8623/

 

[scomet]

As mentioned before here on AHB what puzzles me is; the same beer can be bottled and kegged with the same level of cleaning, sanitation, and carbonation. The kegged beer pours perfectly the bottled beer while being well carbonated can pour totally headless!? I have noticed quite a few recent commercial 'bottled/canned craft beers' do the same. I’m still trying to figure it out, it certainly spoils a good tasting bottled beer having it pour without any head…. ps all-grain brewing

Cheers scomet