Poor Head Retention/Ashbeck

[hemanresu]

I'm a novice looking for suggestions to improve my results.I started brewing in April this year and have done 7 batches so far 2 pils,2 kolsch ,a wheat beer, a saison and a cider. The first 2 batches were not great but after switching to Ashbeck I am now really chuffed with the beer i can make in my kitchen.Only one aspect lets the beer down..the head dies really quickly in the glass.This is true for all the beer I have done including the wheat beer with 50% wheat malt.

I have been using the Ashbeck water without any salt additions and was wondering if there are any tweaks I could do there to improve matters (I cant get to grips with the water calculators despite repeated attempts)

 

[Mavroz]

If I Use standard glasses the head on my beer drops quite quickly. But... so does the Wold Top in my local.
If you want a good head on a pint of your own ale, have you ever tried a nucleated pint glass?

 

[hemanresu]

Thanks Mavroz

have bought a couple off ebay

 

[strange-steve]

I don't think the water is causing the head retention issue, but rather than using Ashbeck as-is, try adding half a teaspoon each of calcium chloride and gypsum per 10L of water. You might find it improves your brews somewhat.

 

[hemanresu]

thanks steve

i was hoping to get some water treatment suggestions
im brewing tomorrow so i'll give that a try

 

[foxbat]

Flaked barley or torrified wheat will improve head formation and retention. I've used torrified wheat at 10% to good effect. Flaked barley is meant to be the best of all of them though I'm not sure of the percentage you can go up to without it affecting the taste. @Gunge is a big fan of FB, maybe he'll comment.

 

[Gunge]

Flaked barley or torrified wheat will improve head formation and retention. I've used torrified wheat at 10% to good effect. Flaked barley is meant to be the best of all of them though I'm not sure of the percentage you can go up to without it affecting the taste. @Gunge is a big fan of FB, maybe he'll comment.

10% flaked barley will do the trick. I get thick, creamy heads with low carbonation. Forget tales of it tasting odd or causing haze; you've got to go berserk with it for that, and I've yet to hit the threshold.

 

[Mavroz]

What stage would the flaked barley be added and what is the 10% of?
Thanks.

 

[Gunge]

What stage would the flaked barley be added and what is the 10% of?
Thanks.

10% of total grist weight ie. 4000g of grist would comprise of 400g flaked barley, added right at the start of mashing with everything else.

 

[Mavroz]

Ah,thank you. This isn't a possibility with anything other than AG brewing then? It couldn't be done with brews in kit form?

 

[Sadfield]

Ahh. The ubiquitous 10% Flaked Barley suggestion. Given the OP has stated that a 50% Wheat Malt beer has no head retention, I'd suspect 10% Flaked barley won't go anyway near solving the problem.

My first suggestion would be checking your glassware. Dirt or traces of detergent will kill foam. Do you use a dishwasher? I'd buy a glass and wash it with just water to see if this is the issue. After that I'd start looking at mash pH and boil vigour.

 

[Gunge]

Ahh. The ubiquitous 10% Flaked Barley suggestion. Given the OP has stated that a 50% Wheat Malt beer has no head retention, I'd suspect 10% Flaked barley won't go anyway near solving the problem.

'When in doubt, get the flaked barley out'!

 

[Sadfield]

'When in doubt, get the flaked barley out'!

Ha Ha, **** I forgot @Gunge can hear someone type Flaked Barley from over 1000 miles.

Seriously though, what will 10% Flaked Barley offer that 50% Wheat Malt doesn't?

 

[Cwrw666]

When I started AG 3 years ago a lot of my brews had trouble with head retention, now I never seem to have a problem. And I have no idea why. It's not the water. It's not the ingredients. It's certainly not whether the recipe has wheat/flaked barley in it or not.

 

[cushyno]

When I started AG 3 years ago a lot of my brews had trouble with head retention, now I never seem to have a problem. And I have no idea why. It's not the water. It's not the ingredients. It's certainly not whether the recipe has wheat/flaked barley in it or not.

Do you think you have changed the way you sanitize and sterilise or the products used over the last 3 years? Could it be related to better cleaning or rinsing before bottling/kegging?

 

[JonBrew]

I've experienced head formation/retention issues in recent brews and have gathered the following in terms of possible causes:

• Unhealthy fermentation - apparently stressed yeast can leave behind/create lipids which can cause an issue. The fix is to pitch lots of healthy yeast and control your fermentation temperature etc
• Poor cleaning/sanitation of equipment and bottles
• Linked to the above point - Using something like fairy liquid as a cleaner (as alluded to above in terms of detergents that leave behind oily deposits etc)
• Dirty glassware
• Mash issues (albeit I've read that in theory at single infusion at 65-70 degrees for an hour should be all you need with today's highly modified malts)
• Under carbonation (bit obvious)

I'm sure there are more I've yet to come across.

Water I've not encountered as a potential issue but some minerals such as calcium and magnesium are important for yeast health. Focusing on this however could be taking away from the above which seem like more likely causes.

The takeaway from everything I've read is that if you nail all of the above you shouldn't need to add anything like wheat/flaked barely to your recipe to get good head formation and retention.

 

[Cwrw666]

Do you think you have changed the way you sanitize and sterilise or the products used over the last 3 years? Could it be related to better cleaning or rinsing before bottling/kegging?

No, I only ever sanitise with boiling water.
Bottles I let stand full of concentrated washing soda solution for a few hours then rinse out with water. Before bottling sanitise with boiling water. I suppose the washing soda is relatively new - leaves the bottles sparkly clean and it is only an alkali.

 

[Mavroz]

One thing I notice when cleaning bottles plus soaking labels off of bottles with percarbonate is I get a build up of limescale/calcium on the bottles.
You can physically feel the outside of the bottles were a little on the abrasive side, so it must also be on the insides.
The soaking is only for maybe 48 hrs, I do live in a very very hard water area.
To remedy this I put 50% citric acid in with the soak solution now and this seems to clear the limescale / calcium deposits..
Before bottling I always wash the bottles in a sanitize wash in the dishwasher and rinse the insides immediately before bottling with a starsan solution.
Hope this may help.