Head

[pj_nut]

Hi
I am having trouble with the head on my brews.After opening a bottle the head disappears quite quickly.What am I doing wrong,any suggestions
pj_nut

 

[Wortgames]

Assuming your beer is carbonated (fizzy) enough, make sure your bottles and glasses are scrupulously clean - any traces of detergent in particular will kill the head quicksmart. Also grease will have the same effect - so watch out for lipstick


The next thing is to make sure your brew has some body - if you are brewing from kits try replacing the sugar with 'brew booster' or malt extract.

 

[Hoops]

pj

would be much easier to give you an accurate answer if you can give as much info as possible.
Are you a mash/mini mash/extract/kit brewer?
What ingredients are you using?
Are you kegging or bottling?
It's like asking for directions when we don't know where you're starting from.

 

[Aaron]

Hi
I am having trouble with the head on my brews.After opening a bottle the head disappears quite quickly.What am I doing wrong,any suggestions
pj_nut

[post="56978"][/post]​

Like has been said, provide more info.

Oh and don't cross post on multiple forum sites. Most people read multiple sits anyway.

 

[pj_nut]

Hi
I am using Morgans Bitter with Brewcraft no42 and bulk priming using 180g dexrose and bottling to 750ml
bottles
pj_nut

 

[Jovial_Monk]

Try priming with wheat malt instead of dextrose.

Use Brew Improvers with high amounts of malt extract

Jovial Monk

 

[vlbaby]

PJ,
i used to have similar prob when i was brewing kits. People would always give the same advice to make sure your glasses are grease free, check your carbonation levels were right etc etc. And all these things are true of course. But to be honest none of these things seemed to do the trick for me. What I eventually found was the number one cause of lack of head retention, was lack of body. Like JM said try some brew improvers, or some liquid malt instead of sugar. Later on , you might like to experiment with partial mashes.
Basically, the more malt you use and the less sugar, the more body and flavour your beer will have.

Good luck.


vlbaby.

PS. Use the forums to your best advantage. If that means posting in multiple forums, then go for it.

 

[pj_nut]

Try priming with wheat malt instead of dextrose.

Use Brew Improvers with high amounts of malt extract

Jovial Monk

[post="56994"][/post]​

Hi
you say try priming with wheat malt instead of dextrose. Do I use the same amount of wheat malt as dextrose
pj_nut

 

[Jovial_Monk]

You can do, tho that will give a bit less fizz as malt extract is only 62% fermentable. Then again, as you brew better beers you probably want to reduce the fizz.

JM

 

[Kai]

Personally, I've never noticed an improvement in head quality from altering the sugars used for priming. The quantities involved in priming are too small to be relevant, in my opinion.

From my observations, there are several steps involved in ensuring your beer has good head. Extrinsically, you need clean glasses, absence of detergent and so forth. Things like headmaster glasses are a gimmick that give good head on bad beer for a short time or less. Intrinsic factors are what's important, you need good beer to give good head. In my own beers I've found that a good head takes time to develop; after a few months in bottle almost all my beers will give a good, stable head.

 

[Kai]

AS far as the glasses go, yep they need to be clean, when I did my apprentice we were taught you need beer clan glasses, not clean beer glasses, this means they are absolutely clean, and DRY, not wet on the inside, get a good glass cleaner from a HBS or use Neo Pink, or even bleach, but what ever you use, rinse the glasses very well.

Why not wet on the inside? From what I remember, most pubs will stack away their glasses fresh out of the dishwasher with no drying at all. I've also heard that pre-dampening a glass can help reduce nucleation points that cause premature head.

 

[ozbrewer]

well if you have just spen time cleaning the glass, you dont want to put water in it, whats in the water from your tap?, could be anything,

but yes your correct, thats why the belgian style of poring os so good, but there water is chilled, and very clean. But for now this brewer needs to get the basics

 

[Kai]

Well, you need to put water in it to rinse the sucka... but coming from both Adelaide and the Riverland with skanky ass water (hyphenate that as you wish), I can see how leaving water on the glass can be bad... though that's not technically leaving water on it that's bad but leaving the crap that's in the water.

 

[ozbrewer]

yeah leave the skank outa you glass

 

[Aaron]

I have used DME to prime a couple of batches and they seem to have come out well. However, I haven't done the same beer with another primer to test the difference.

I would use 10-20% extra if you are priming with DME as compared to dextrose/white sugar. That seems to have worked for me.

Aaron