Beer Head Retention

[yankinoz]

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

The problem may lie in ridding the bottles of detergents. I bottle and generally get big, lasting heads and good lacing, but the odd bottle has been flat. If you use bleach to clean glass bottles, all the liquid bleaches I've found in Australia have added detergents that seem to have been chosen for their persistence on surfaces. White King is especially bad that way. Working in a lab years ago, we were told three rinses suffice after cleaning, even if the glassware is subsequently used for analytical work, but those detergents were not persistent. I use six hard rinses with hot water after White King and five after other brands. That means moving the tap after diluting the bleach with cool to lukewarm water for the actual cleaning.

The dispersants used in some no-rinse sanitisers have been selected to not kill heads.