Headless Bitter

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DaveK

DaveK

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My first AG brew has been in the bottle now for 16 days, stored at room temperature. I just opened one up and its carbonated OK, but has absolutely no head at all. Flavour is OK, but it'd be much better with even a trace of a head!

The attachment shows the recipe (it was a Geterbrewed kit), what could i have done to get a bit of a head on it?

bitter_recipe.JPG
 
Some torrified wheat or some flaked barley might have helped, did you drink it out of the fridge? Because that won't help if it had little head anyway. Also how did you prime it? And is your glass shiny clean?
 
Opened straight from the crate (room temp), and was primed using carbonation drops (as I have a bunch of them). As I say - its fizzy enough - just no head! Oh - glass was nice and clean yeah.
 
Another couple of weeks might help it along, I've not used carb drops so I don't know how well they work but I've heard say that one per 500ml might not always be enough, does it taste good though that's the main thing!
 
It tastes OK - nothing special! I bought a load of the carb drops 'cos they were on offer at my LHBS - I've used them successfully on a couple of kits. With these ones you use 2 in a 500ml bottle, they're a little less potent than the Cooper's ones I think.
 
The carb drops won't be an issue unless it is just a tad under carbed.
The grist setup needs something with good proteins like wheat or cara. I personally use 8 to 10% wheat to give me the body I need.
 
Don't worry about it. Darn ere in the sarf our (Youngs) bitter was always pretty headless.Seems to be a 'northern thing' about 'must have a head':whistle::lol:
 
chub1 said:
Don't worry about it. Darn ere in the sarf our (Youngs) bitter was always pretty headless.Seems to be a 'northern thing' about 'must have a head':whistle::lol:
Click to expand...

Beer without a head??? That's like chow mein without noodles. Bonkers! Anyway it's too late for the OP for this brew but in future, flaked barley is what you need to add. Won't mess with the flavour like wheat does ( why do folk bang on about that?), but you'll get the head you're missing unless something is drastically amiss elsewhere.
 
So just chuck 10% flaked barley on top of my grain bill then? I'm brewing again on Thursday so I might order some up.
 
chub1 said:
Don't worry about it. Darn ere in the sarf our (Youngs) bitter was always pretty headless.Seems to be a 'northern thing' about 'must have a head':whistle::lol:
Click to expand...

"Pretty headless" wouldn't be so bad. This has nothing at all, zip, nada!
 
Give it longer, it'll get there eventually. It's only just carbed up.

The one thing I found when I started AG brewing was my beers had hardly any head compared to kits and extract. But with time they got there eventually.
 
This kit was also my first biab and I also got no head. Or rather, a slight head that completely disappeared within a few seconds. Age made no difference. My next 2 brews however did and my most recent has got just the right amount.

See how it goes when you buy your own ingredients rather than a made up kit.
 
MyQul said:
You can buy flaked barley (or barley flakes as they call it) from Holland & Barrett, if just do a special order for flaked barley - saves the postage
Click to expand...

Too late! But it would have cost me almost as much in diesel and parking to fetch it anyway - so no big deal. Should be with me on Thursday - hopefully early so I can get cracking. Doing a "Northern Brown Ale" next :)
 
Jon75 said:
This kit was also my first biab and I also got no head. Or rather, a slight head that completely disappeared within a few seconds. Age made no difference. My next 2 brews however did and my most recent has got just the right amount.

See how it goes when you buy your own ingredients rather than a made up kit.
Click to expand...

That's interesting - maybe I didn't cock it up after all! I'm bottling my second brew tomorrow which is from Greg Hughes' "Spring Beer" - so hopefully that'll be a bit better. But I'll start chucking a bit of flaked barley in from now on I think, as I do like a decent head on me beer.
 
You could always try the syringe trick. I think I first read it on a post by @Myqul

I'm currently drinking a brown ale that's well carbed but has very little head. Just suck up 10ml with a syringe (I use an unused ink cartridge refil syringe) and squirt it back into your pint. You'll get a nice head that lasts all the way down.

It all sounds slightly more exciting than it really is though. :thumb:
 
Budgie said:
You could always try the syringe trick. I think I first read it on a post by @Myqul

I'm currently drinking a brown ale that's well carbed but has very little head. Just suck up 10ml with a syringe (I use an unused ink cartridge refil syringe) and squirt it back into your pint. You'll get a nice head that lasts all the way down.

It all sounds slightly more exciting than it really is though. :thumb:
Click to expand...

I might well give that a go!
 
Ha! I just opened another bottle, been in the fridge a few days and it had a head! Not for long like, it was gone in 30 seconds - but I captured the moment for posterity!

For some reason the pint is sideways, but you get the idea!

IMG_1521.jpg
 
Yea, pictures from iPhones and iOS devices are sideways. Their meta data is different from what this site supports.
 

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