Head Retention Problems

I use Briess golden light LME in my partial mashes as it has carapils in it. I add 2-4 oz of carapils to work with what I'm mashing, and figured that ought to get me into the ballpark.

My hazelnut was a 6 gal beer with 4 lbs of LME and 2 oz of carapils, and it has PLENTY of carbonation, but absolutely NO head retention. It disappears within seconds.

My mash temp got away from me sometime after about 30 mins where it had been below 155* but reached 180*. Is there something with this that could have killed my head retention? I know of nothing else that could be the problem.

My oatmeal coffee stout is having issues as well, though that mash temp worked out MUCH better as I kept an eye on it instead of watching MMA fights online…. I used 4 lbs of LME in it as well, and used 3 oz of carapils, but it doesn't even have much carbonation to give it a head.

My jalapeño cream ale is well carbonated, but has no head or retention thereof, but this seems to be an issue with jalapeños having an oil that will do this.

I've given these 2 beers a very long conditioning time (up to 6 weeks now at ~70*) and allow them a week in the fridge.

I'd look into your glassware. If you wash your glasses in the dishwasher, make sure you're NOT using a rinse aid - they are known to be head killers. Glasses must be super clean to maintain a good head. Try hand washing them with OxyClean Free; some recommend hand washing with salt.

My glasses work great with commercial beers.

I've had problems waaaaay back when and began using wheat DME in my beers. Then I began using carapils.

I had been washing them in the dishwasher and then when the rinse cycle hit I'd pull them out and go over them with Star San and a sponge and place them back in to dry, but I stopped doing that and noticed that they do fine.

It would seem I had a problem with my buckets (I stopped brewing for a few months) or something with the brew day.

Detergents destroy head in seconds. So do oils. So what does that have to do with your beer? Hazelnuts have oils in them and so do coffee beans and rolled oats.

The soap doesn't seem to be a problem.

I didn't know that hazelnut extract had oils in it, nor did I know oatmeal did either!

I didn't use coffee, but used grains for the flavor. I drink tooooo much coffee as it is!

I think I used too much oatmeal in my beer too. It had a strange taste and mouthfeel that seems to be slowly improving.

Unless your doing something tragically wrong, there is no way your problem is lack of foam positive proteins so the extra carapils is really just making a too sweet beer.

Try adding more hops! that helps with head retention.

but I would look elsewhere. maybe take your gas side qd's apart, check your gas in line for gunk.

"maybe take your gas side qd's apart, check your gas in line for gunk."

???

Is the hazelnut extract and use of 2.25 lbs of oatmeal in a 6 gal batch not my problems?

The golden light LME is maybe 35% of these overall beers.

The oatmeal is about 19%.

Both of these stalled out and I had to stir in some sugar to kickstart them. Neither finished at the appropriate FG.

Use more cara pills


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How much is the limit?

And how would I figure in what's in the LME? I'd assume they'd use a mid level amount.

rodwha said:

"maybe take your gas side qd's apart, check your gas in line for gunk."

???

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Sorry, I assumed you were kegging, looking back at your post I see that you said nothing about this. If you ARE kegging, sometimes a little beer will get up inside the gas in tube or Quick Disconnect and can cause recurring infection problems and infection is one thing that can cause head retention problems.

After pulling my head all the way out of my arse I am looking again. I can think of no reason that 2.5 lb of oats in a 6 gallon batch would be a problem assuming you have enough diastatic malt in your mini mash to convert them. I've never heard of oats causing head retention problems.

So, Now I am going to assume you are bottling. how do you clean/sanitize your bottles?

Also, how is your temp control during fermentation? too high a ferm temp will produce fusel alcohols which are essentially oils and will absolutely kill head retention.

** EDIT TO ADD **

I really don't think adding carapils will help. I have made beer with just extract and never had any head retention problems.

I was hospitalized right after I brewed. SWMBO had to help with maintaining the temps, and isn't concerned as much as I am.

I ended up with stuck fermentations so I assume the temp dropped too low at some point, though I recall her telling me of low 70's.

These don't come off as fusely though. Maybe in smaller concentrations I suppose.

I soak bottles in Star San for ~5 mins and place on my tree until I'm ready.

Cleaning often isn't more than a good rinse, though I've had some in which I've used Oxyclean and a bottle brush. I often just toss the ones that look as though they have yeast stuck on the bottom as I'm overflowing with bottles now.

Though I've only tried a few bottles of each they are from different 12 packs so some may very well be brand new (first homebrew bottled).

I learned that if the beginning stage of fermentation is complete that I can likely get by on one lung and to wait a week as I want the temps kept!

The temps in the first few days are really key, after a week or so you shouldn't have any problem. But, if you were fermenting in a space in the low-mid 70's you very likely have some fusels. if the air was 72 at peak krausen (exactly when you don't want high temps) the beer was likely closer to 78-80.

fusels can cause problems before they reach the taste threshhold.

what was the FG by the way?

My temps are beer temp (fermometer).

I don't recall how long I was taking care of them, but I think it was just a few days. For the most part I think the bulk would be OK, but I usually maintain that temp for closer to 3 weeks (64-66*).

My first beer was nothing but fusel and just a couple of them would give the most awful hangover! Jet fuel for sure!

The hazelnut had it's mash temp jump up to 180* after about 35-40 mins. It's OG was 1.054 which was on target. The FG was 1.016 instead of 1.010.

The stout had a targeted OG of 1.060, but was 1.054. The FG was supposed to be 1.011 but was 1.018.

welp, I'm stumped.

Me too!

And this was my first 2 attempts at enlarging my partial mash. I hate bad beer...

I guess the only thing I've to add is to try with a really low ferm temp just to see what happens.

pitch at ~60 and don't let it rise above 64 until 2 weeks in. don't secondary and just bottle when it hits terminal gravity.

How much carapils becomes too much? I had always thought that 1/2 lb in a 5 gal recipe was about as much as one would want, which is why I don't add much to my recipes when I use Briess golden light LME in sa partial mash, but I noticed a 5 gal recipe from a magazine that used 1 full pound.

All I can tell you is that I have never used carapils. hence my insistence that your problem is not related to the amount you are using. I have made some bad beers and I have the score sheets to prove it but none of them had head retention problems.

I never made an extract beer with decent head retention (or good body for that matter). Nearly every all grain I've made has both though. Coincidence?

Dunno, but these last 2 were mostly mash, and that's when i had problems. So your coincidence question is counter productive here as is your attitude.

Yeah, I brew AG, but used to do extract. I've made extract beers with great body/head retention. I can't stand the "extract sucks :B" people.

Not everyone can do AG for a number of reasons. Don't be a jerk.

How much carapils is considered the max one would want to use?

rodwha & Hopinista,

Both of you misunderstood the tone of my post. I wasn't bashing extract. I was just commenting that *I* never had success with extract in terms of head retention or body. Maybe I was a ****ty extract brewer? Probably. That doesn't mean it can't be done, which is why I was ending my post with a question to solicit others for feedback.

What are your tricks for making a great extract beer? I'm sure there's more to it than just adding more and more carapils (which btw, is an ingredient I *never* use in AG and don't have head retention issues even with 100% base malt brews).

schematix said:

rodwha & Hopinista,

Both of you misunderstood the tone of my post. I wasn't bashing extract. I was just commenting that *I* never had success with extract in terms of head retention or body. Maybe I was a ****ty extract brewer? Probably. That doesn't mean it can't be done, which is why I was ending my post with a question to solicit others for feedback.

What are your tricks for making a great extract beer? I'm sure there's more to it than just adding more and more carapils (which btw, is an ingredient I *never* use in AG and don't have head retention issues even with 100% base malt brews).

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Ah I see, well no harm done, I just hate seeing new brewers take s__t for using extract.

I think it mostly comes down to late additions (I never used carapils when I brewed extract)

Say I was doing a 5 gallon batch with 8 pounds of extract in a 3 gallon boil, 3 pounds of dme(rarely lme) would be in for the whole boil, and the rest would go in at flameout. It makes much more of a difference than people know

Sorry if I misunderstood your post and intent.

I've struggled with head retention in the very beginning and began using wheat in my beers, and the problem was solved. But wheat just doesn't belong in many beers so I was told to switch to carapils. But I also used extract made with carapils (pilsen and golden light).

I did a mini mash with rye for a pale and though my numbers were lower than usual (I hit them this time) it went well and was a very good beer. Since I felt I could hold the temp well enough (BIAB) I decided to push it and mashed 8.25 lbs, and maybe I should have taken smaller steps or something as I had temp problems and now head retention problems.

Most of my extract beers were good enough to sit with average examples. Good beer, but nothing special, though I have made a few that were excellent examples, as well as some terrible ones. Overall I had maybe an 80% success ratio as far a a good beer, and maybe 10% at either end of the spectrum.

It all baffles me, and also makes me wonder why it is that all grain recipes don't seem to suffer nearly as much. All extract is is a concentrated wort made from all grain, so I'm not sure how it's any different.

My pot and utensils get hand washed and then run through the dishwasher on the light cycle using hand washing dish soap (a few drops) as it doesn't leave a residue like I see with typical dishwasher soaps.

My buckets and other gear get washed in OxyClean.

Maybe there's something with my cleaning?

My bottles typically just get well rinsed and dried, but if I see stuff in there I'll either scrub it with OxyClean or toss them.

Everything but my pot and brew spoon get soaked for 3-5 mins in Star San before use.

Maybe it's my filtered tap water. It's the bulk of my water, though I'll usually add 1 gal of RO for dark beers and 2 for light beers (my water is very hard).

My pot is only 5 gals so I can't boil more than 4, and it's too damn hot and buggy here for 9 months to brew outside, though I absolutely love how the house smells all day long on brew day!

I don't care to get too in-depth with dealing with water chemistry as I have enough to deal with, and it would get fairly complicated with a bunch of pots going I'd think, not to mention more to clean up. So I enjoy partial mashes for those reasons.

I do have my eye on a 8 gal pot though….

rodwha said:

How much carapils is considered the max one would want to use?

Click to expand...

If you want to look into it further I would recommend the Breiss website as it contains great info on each of their malts. Especially with specialty grains they provide good guidance about how much grain to use for which effect. To answer your question per Breiss, you only need 1-5% of your grain bill to be Carapils to get the head retention effect.

As an aside to the extract myth. My first ever brew was an extract and I had excellent head retention and lacing.

Not sure why I didn't notice this before as I'm pretty sure you mentioned it. If you're having issues maintaining temps on these batches with head retention problems and the temps are dropping into the 130s or even the lower you could well be zapping your foam positive proteins by doing what amounts to an extended protein rest. If you're only using a relatively small amount of extract the proteins in that might not be enough to make up for it.

so some new ideas on what to check:

make sure your thermo is well calibrated, if you can check it against a NIST certified thermo at mash temps as even a freezing/boiling check doesn't ensur accuracy at ~150.

try a nice ordinary bitter where you can mash in at say 158 or even 160. that way, even if you lose 10 degrees you won't drop into protein rest range.

Keep an eye on your pH during the mash.

just some more thoughts.

You may have just figured out my problem as I was struggling with my mash temp from the beginning.

I started at 165*, but it dropped into the high 140's, and was hard for me to get the temp back into the mid 150's. I checked every 3-5 mins for about 1/2 an hour, and slowly turned the heat up a 1/4-1/2 of a point (the knob registers 1-9 for temp control), and it was then that, allowing it to sit a moment my temp became 180* on my hazelnut.

My stout didn't seem to have this problem according to my notes as I had done a better job keeping it between 150-160*. My OG was low and FG was high.

Both beers had stalled out, and I assume that, while I was in the hospital and SWMBO was "taking care" of them for me, that the temp got into the 70's and so she put a lot of frozen bottles into the cooler, which may have been too much. I did add sugar and gently stirred, but it didn't seem to do much for the stout.

It's ben quite some time, but the other day I tried another and the taste has improved, though there's not much carbonation at all. I had run out of corn sugar (2.9 oz of the 4.3 I needed) and so used some brown sugar. I didn't use quite enough, but it should be much more than it is.

that would explain the low OG and high FG, 165 is really pushing it and 180 is, as they say in monty python, RIGHT OUT! you essentially performed a mashout and denatured most if not all of your enzymes right there.

Yea. It's surprising that it's maturing OK.

I see the many mistakes with the hazelnut, but it doesn't make sense why I'm having problems with my stout. Outside of fermentation temps I did a good job from what I can tell.

luckily most conversion occurs in the first 20 minutes at sach temps so even if you burned all your enzymes at 180 most of the conversion had already happened.

Try3/4 of a pound


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To begin with I have to assume how much Briess used in their extract. The way I am approaching it is that they used 5%, their max. So if I use 1/2 extract I'll use 3% in my mash, though I have considered assuming their number is lower, but does that really alter my added amount enough to concern myself with? And does using 7-8% make it noticeable?