Brewing, fermentation and head retention

[JohnB]

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this, but if an admin wants to move it along, then that's fine. My question relates to the differences between different coloured brews and how they retain the head. I find that darker brews, like brown ales have very little head, just a few fizzy bubbles which soon dissipate. Pale ale, and bitter holds its head fairly well. But dark porter beers often have excellent head retention, I can get lovely cob-webbing on my porter. Is there anything that I can do to give my brown ales at least a little bit of a head and to hold the head more than a few seconds?

I have another question which may relate. When I brew brown ale the fermentation is over, usually at around 1.011 or 1.012 really quickly, but my paler ales take an age to ferment. They work slowly and usually end up at about 1.008 but the extra length of time is disproportionate to the FG. I have just brewed a brown ale from 1.048 down to 1.012 in 4 days - it will remain there now for another 10 days, then left in-bottle for a month; and it will be excellent. I also have a bitter which has been going for about 11 days and this morning I checked it is down to 1.009FG - OG was 1.037 - it's still going steady! It'll probably not really finish for another 2 or 3 days at around 1.007 or 1.008. Incidentally the temp of both brews is 19.5 DegC. I'm using bog-standard English Ale Yeast from CML.

So - what affects head retention, please? Is there any solid reason why my brown ales go off like steam trains, yet my pale ales take so long and does this fermentation time change things drastically - like head retention?

 

[Dutto]

For a "head" on a beer I cheat!

Here's two photographs of the same pint of beer 10 seconds apart ...

They are the same Porter but the head on the second one will last quite a time and it will stick to the side of the glass as the pint is supped.

All I did was to pull about 2ml into a syringe and fire it back into the brew. It's an old trick but it looks good.

There are many things that affect head retention ranging from the initial contents of the pint to greasiness in the glass that it is poured into.

For me, it's easier to cheat than worry about it.

 

[pvt_ak]

Head retention is my single biggest weakness. I’ve never yet poured a pint that I would say has perfect head retention and I’m in a mission this year.

The syringe method above is a great trick !

I’ve also got a gadget (wand) that does the job !

 

[stz]

Head retention is a product of a few things. Not surprisingly proteins and dextrines, but also alpha acids. Your dark beers are going to be snided with dextrines and probably hops? Stouts are usually quite bitter. Your pales are probably full of hops, maybe a bit of carapils, dextrine malt, maybe some light crystal? Your brown ales are likely lightly hopped and might be a lot of malt with a touch of black malt or similar for colour?

Glassware is important too. Bars don't use soapy water.

Try adding 2-3% carapils to your recipies, 2-3% torrified wheat, 2-3% flaked oats. All of them or one or two, whatever they are used for the same job. Make your beers well hopped. Don't just use a few grams of a high alpha high cohumalone hop to bitter if you can use a good amount of a more moderate alpha hop. Isohumuloneis the best one, isocohumulone isn't as effective. More modern high alpha bittering hops can be high in cohumulone.

 

[Ghillie]

I think blasting anything into your beer to give it a temporary head is a sticking plaster fix and does not address the issue in any way whatsoever...

Things to consider:

1. Glass - Is it clean? Does it have washing up powder residue on it, is it the wrong type of vessel for the type of brew?

2. Wheats/oats - adding either of these can aid with head retention.

3. Hops - are their a lot of hops in your beer? Massive dry hopping as seen with modern IPA's can negatively impact head retention due to the high oil content. This is especially true when cold crashing hasn't been done/done properly and there is a lot of hop particles in suspension.

4. Carbonation. Obviously this has a massive impact on the head of your beer. Worth considering if you've calculated it properly or whether it is indeed right for style.

There's probably a million other things to consider, but that's a few that are worth looking into.

 

[JohnB]

Brilliant - thanks folks! I'm about to go and try that!

Excellent - it works a treat - teehee.

I've read a bit about head formation and proteins and starches, but it was way above me, so I guess I'll get my syringes out and stick one to the side of each glass!

Any thoughts on why my brown ale ferments so fast, yet my pales always take an age? Same yeast, same temp, no yeast nutrients used, no water treatment. Only difference might be mash temp, I mash a little hotter with the brown ales to try to get some dextrins for a bit of sweetness.

ATB,
JB.

 

[The Baron]

As above
one thing after reading a recent post similar to this people were adding Torrified wheat or flaked barley. Now I always add either torrified wheat or plain rolled oats of the supermarket type and overall I hve decent head retention but and this is the but I usually add up to 200 grams of and people were saying they could detect the flavours of the wheats etc in the beer and some even said they did not use it as they did not like the taste. I must have a terrible palate because I can not detect the torrified at this small level in my beers but I do get a decent head overall in my brews

 

[JohnB]

@Ghillie, I've been looking at one or two things actually and I had come across the hop thing, but I don't use many hops in my brews, and usually low acids like Fuggles. I hadn't considered the glass type (shape) but I usually rinse my glasses after they have been washed - in fairy! SWMBO insists on fairy.

Carbonation - yes can be a problem I admit to that, but this brown ale is bottled, really well carbonated, well conditioned (about 5 weeks now) and really an excellent brew if it was not for the head - some head - even just a few bubbles would be nice. But all I get is loads of fiz when I pour and then its gone.

 

[JohnB]

@the baron Re the wheat thing, I have been reading about it adding all kinds of things into the brew which help with head formation and head retention, I'm going to give this a crack with a couple of side-by-side brews of pale and brown ales. I had wondered about steel-cut oats which I use for making white pudding and black pudding and also I have loads of pearl barley.

Do you pre-gelatinize? or just dump 'em in as they are. One recipe I saw has them cooked out first - 5 minute boil the night before, then add them to the mash water and mix well first before dough-in.

 

[The Baron]

Eliminate the washing of your glass in any kind of washing liquid at all just rinse in warm water and drain do not let SWMBO near it. As regards glass shape tall and thin or tulip shaped(fluted like a wine glass) will help also but it does seem a mystery that it is carbed well must be contaminants in the glass killing the head?

 

[The Baron]

I use torrified wheat bought from the brewing shop and supermarket oats which are usually the quick type which I believe do not need pre boiling as the mash will do that P.s do not use too much porridge oats as it can cause a stuck mash. Search steel cut oats on the internet and I am sure there was a post if you can find it where people with more scientific knowledge than me debated this and will give you all the answers just can not remember the content

 

[JohnB]

Also weird that it is only my brown ales that are like this. My pale ales - ahhhhhh! Hang on just a minute. Brown ale is usually bottled and pale ales are always in a KK with top tap. Also the porter that I brewed (and one I am doing now) are in KK's as well. PET bottles are used for brown ale, and they have had either bitter lemon or tonic water in them - well washed (fairy again!) and sanitized (bleach and finally sodium metabisulphite) and drained before use. This is now making me think ... aunsure....... ... could it be the fairy?

 

[The Baron]

could it be contaminants in the bottles then?

 

[The Baron]

do not use fairy at all on your bottles if you rinse them after pouring a beer they just need a good rinse before use next time and sanitising. Experiment next brown ale put some in glass bottles aswell as pets and see if there is any difference

 

[Sadfield]

Water treatment, mash pH (and as a result boil and fermentation pH), foam stability and fermentation performance, are all closely connected.

 

[Ghillie]

@Ghillie, I've been looking at one or two things actually and I had come across the hop thing, but I don't use many hops in my brews, and usually low acids like Fuggles. I hadn't considered the glass type (shape) but I usually rinse my glasses after they have been washed - in fairy! SWMBO insists on fairy.

Carbonation - yes can be a problem I admit to that, but this brown ale is bottled, really well carbonated, well conditioned (about 5 weeks now) and really an excellent brew if it was not for the head - some head - even just a few bubbles would be nice. But all I get is loads of fiz when I pour and then its gone.

My pale beers have good head retention in a schooner glass. If I pour them into my ***** Tesco pint glasses, they look like they're not even carbed.

 

[JohnB]

@Sadfield I do check mash pH I have some fairly good water testing gear here, but I have been a bit loathe to start chucking chemicals in my beer! I usually get mash pH at about 5.8 - 6 which I know is a bit high and I have just once used citric acid to bring the pH down, I got down to a pH of 5.3 but I am sure I could taste it - fresh green apples - in the beer.Our water is from a chalk aquifer and as such is quite hard with calcium which is around the 250 mg/l (Calcium carbonate) mark. I have some tartaric acid arriving this week as it seems to be the dog's dangly bits for adjusting mash pH.

I'm going to ban the missus from the brewery! Everything gets lathered in fairy! I clean the barrels though, and only ever use a bit of WVP or chlorine/acid water and then usually campden tablet, drain and then star-san the tops and caps and my hands and just about anything else that looks like touching the beer on the cold-side. It could be the bottles! She is sat at the side of me reading this - so I have to be diplomatic.

I still love the trick with the syringe!

 

[Portreath]

I've had issues with the head dropping out of my bottled porters too. For now I barrel all of mine and don't have that problem any more. Plus I get out of spending ages faffing with cleaning and filling bottle too, happy days.

 

[JohnB]

I'm going to try a narrow erm ... dare I say it - Carling - glass.

 

[JohnB]

@Portreath it is only my bottles that are affected as well, not the barrels, so I am inclined now to wonder if it is a bottling thing. There is plenty of carb in there, when I ease a bottle top I get a rush of gas off the beer which fills the top of the bottle with CO2. But when it pours .. that's where the problem is, lots of fiz but no head at all.