Head

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Fore

Landlord.
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Strasbourg, France
Or none.

In my new brew location, which happens to be a different country, none of my brews give good head. I didn't worry about this too much with kits, as I thought, "when I transition to AG, this problem will disappear". But it didn't. Thing is, not only am I AG'ing, I'm also paying quite a lot of attention to water treatment. At least the basics anyway, such as Alkalinity & calcium.

So I continued pondering. Perhaps it's the Oxi Clean, maybe I'm not rinsing well enough. Or maybe it's the grain bill. So I do have wheat on my next grain bill, and I do plan to rinse better.

But then while watching a you tube vid of a near boil over, I had a little eureka. I've never had anything like such a boil over, nowhere near. So I'm back thinking this is something more important, such as my water profile. So here my question... if I'm already treating my water, acid to reduce Alkalinity and calcium for yeast health, what am I missing that is causing the head to die?
 
Adjuncts like torrefied wheat or rolled oats should give a creamy head to your beer but no more than 10% of the grain bill, personally I use 5-7% in my AG brews.

It could be your water, there are others on here who know a lot more about water composition than me so maybe they can comment
 
Could be a few things, you said you never had near a boil over, just a sid ethought are you getting a vigorous boil?

Glassware, bottles and glasses use hot water old to wash and rinse and air dry or I use a microfiber..

and like as posted above trying some adjucts like toerrified wheat or carapils in your grain bill
 
Could be a few things, you said you never had near a boil over, just a sid ethought are you getting a vigorous boil?
Yes, really vigorous. Even so, at the moment of hot break, I can easily throw in hops without a second thought. I'm not fighting it like I read others do with water spray. That's what got me thinking my lack of head is more fundamental, not glassware or keg rinsing, but something to do with the water. I already treat with acid and add calcium, but maybe I'm missing something?

I could by-pass this problem by buying bottled water, but there is a cost to that, and in any case, I'd like to understand.

Carapils already in every brew done so far, but wheat is now in stock. I'm interested in how this goes but still think something more fundamental is at play.
 
Yes, really vigorous. Even so, at the moment of hot break, I can easily throw in hops without a second thought. I'm not fighting it like I read others do with water spray. That's what got me thinking my lack of head is more fundamental, not glassware or keg rinsing, but something to do with the water. I already treat with acid and add calcium, but maybe I'm missing something?

I could by-pass this problem by buying bottled water, but there is a cost to that, and in any case, I'd like to understand.

Carapils already in every brew done so far, but wheat is now in stock. I'm interested in how this goes but still think something more fundamental is at play.

If you think it is water I guess the only real way of knowing is to actually test this with bottled water on maybe a small batch just to see in the name of science
 
If you're using kettle finings, reduce the amount, you could be taking out your hydrophobic polypeptides, your head forming short chain proteins.
This could be due to lower proteins in your malt, this varies from batch to batch, this is why brewers always have full malt analysis with each batch intake to increase/reduce copper finings. I have seen 1.25% to 1.70% protein contents which I have refused at gate.
This is why there are hop products (in the form of pure alpha acid added down stream, before packaging, cask or keg/bottle) that increases head retention without adding bitterness, because its not boiled (therefore isomerised) and used in such small amounts, unlike changing a recipe to add some form of wheat, be that malt or torrefied.
I doubt its your water.

WBR
Hoppy
 
If you're using kettle finings, reduce the amount, you could be taking out your hydrophobic polypeptides, your head forming short chain proteins.
This could be due to lower proteins in your malt, this varies from batch to batch, this is why brewers always have full malt analysis with each batch intake to increase/reduce copper finings. I have seen 1.25% to 1.70% protein contents which I have refused at gate.
This is why there are hop products (in the form of pure alpha acid added down stream, before packaging, cask or keg/bottle) that increases head retention without adding bitterness, because its not boiled (therefore isomerised) and used in such small amounts, unlike changing a recipe to add some form of wheat, be that malt or torrefied.
I doubt its your water.

WBR
Hoppy

Ah thank you. Interesting. I add 5g Irish Moss with 15 min boil remaining. Perhaps I could reduce that as I suffer no clarity issues. Doesn't explain why I don't suffer any boil up at hot break. Maybe I'm just reading too much into unrelated things.

Interesting you doubt it's the water. I'll keep focus on the other aspects. Still interested to see how wheat and better keg rinsing will work.
 
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