Fading head

I've noticed something odd about carbonation and heading properties of most of my beers.

The beers usually have decent head and lacing at 2-3 weeks in bottle. As they age, however, heading and lace diminish; even though the beer appears well carbonated judging from bubbles coming out of solution.

Does this pattern point to some particular flaw in my process?

how do you clean the bottles and glassware?

If you can rule out everything oily or soapy, your beer could be developing an increase over time of proteolytic enzymes which can break down proteins associated with foam stability. The source can be decaying yeast cells or a mild infection of a bacterium or wild yeast. Maybe this isn't the most likely answer, but it is a possibility.

Bottle cleaning has been an ongoing search for a process that fits my lazy lifestyle LOL.

I had been rinsing just after pour and then letting them sit (capped) with a cleaning solution, such as PBW or OneStep. This was causing white scale and making a vinegar soak or scrub necessary. So now I am just rinsing thoroughly and re-filling with water and a few drops of Iodophor. The bottles soak until I get around to rinsing and placing them inverted in a box to dry. Maybe some of the beers were bottled with mineral scale?

I always sanitize with StarSan and a vinator on bottling day.

I've considered menschmaschine's suggestions as possible causes. I sanitize as thoroughly as possible before transferring the cooled wort. But I do brew in a pretty dirty environment and so try to keep everything covered when possible.

Maybe my next focus should be on keeping more of the cold and hot break out of the fermenter. I'm not sure what else to do.


Thanks,

Jim

Cleaning bottles.....


I am still somewhat new to this, timewise. I have about 20 batches under my belt, with no infections. This is how I clean/sanitise my bottles...

I am fully prepared to be flamed for this post BTW


First, I preheat my oven to 220 degrees

next, I soak my bottles in oxiclean for 20 minutes or so

I have a bottle brush from my LHBS that I cut the "loop" off of the end

This >cut< end is inserted into a cheap Black&Decker drill

once the botels have soaked, I insert the power drill powered bottle brush and pull the trigger on the drill (yes water and electricity do not mix...so sue me)

I then empty the bottle and rinse thouroghly

once all the bottles are done, I bake them at 220 degrees for 1/2 hour or so to sanitise.

Most IMPORTANTLY I allow the bottles to cool slowly ( I usually just open the oven door and shut the oven off) to eliminate the possibility of breakage.

I do this for my carboys, jar fermentors, beer and wine bottles...


no problems with infections or getting head

let the flaming begin

for the record, I cook for a profession, 165 degrees pretty much kills anything we brewers could be worried about. I do however, hate to use chemicals, so I avoid using them whenever I can.

No flames here. Sounds like your method is very thorough. My only reservation about oven sterilization is the possibility of thermal stressing or cracking. I guess the key is care in heating and cooling.