Crummy Head retention and lacing!

Brewed a stout a few weeks back, force carbed it and for head and lacing! It taste fantastic, but I don't understand what went wrong. The head falls within 15 seconds, and virtually nothing clings to the glass. I uses wheat malt, and flaked oats so I thought that would help. After it was stable I tossed in a couple split and scraped vanilla beans for a couple weeks. They were in my grain bin from a porter I brewed in the fall so the weren't that old. I wonder if the oils from the beans could have done it? I'm confused because this is my first beer that turned out with poor head retention.

Bump!

Have you made sure there is no residual soap in your glasses? that will collapse your head. Just a thought. Do you have a loud tranfer during your brewing/fermenting process that could of used up your head forming proteins? As far as I know your flaked oats will add to a thicker mouthfeel, but that does not directly correlate to head. I remember reading about a protein rest helping head retention.

Much much flaked oats did you use? How much wheat?

Yeast pitching rate and fermentation procedure can have a huge effect on foam formation and retention. I'll post a link later.

I'd eliminate the glass first. Google "beer clean glass". Test your glass and if you still have a problem you can move on to your brewing technique.

Denny said:

Yeast pitching rate and fermentation procedure can have a huge effect on foam formation and retention. I'll post a link later.

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While you're waiting for the links from Denny, try a "salt scrub" on the glass. Just moisten the glass, sprinkle it with salt inside and scour it with the salt. Rinse well, and see if that helps.

Sometimes it's as simple as some residue on the glass!

I love flaked barley in my stout- it really seems to help with foam and head retention.

KaSaBiS said:

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Here's the link....

http://byo.com/stories/article/indices/35-head-retention/697-getting-good-beer-foam-techniques

Denny said:

Here's the link....

http://byo.com/stories/article/indices/35-head-retention/697-getting-good-beer-foam-techniques

Click to expand...

That's a great article, Thanks for sharing!

The oats are pretty oily- they are actually bad for head retention, although they do give a creamy mouthfeel. My oatmeal stouts have pretty lousy head retention unless I use a lot of flaked barley.