delayed head

[gregoreckbrews]

The last 2 beers I brewed and bottled have both suffered from the same strange issue. After the normal 3 weeks or so, the beer has the expected level of carbonation. The bottle hisses when opened and the mouth feel of the beer is completely normal carbonation. But there is absolutely no head. I even poured one bottle from high above the glass such that it was traveling nearly 2 feet before it ever came into contact with the bottom of the glass. All I get is the same type of oxygen bubbles you would get from pouring even water from that high up.


Then after about 2 months of bottle conditioning, the head finally shows up, and it is perfectly normal. No extra carbonation. Just the same beer but now with head.

Any ideas what could cause this? I am pretty baffled. Never had a problem like this before. There is only one thing I can think of: I went through a deep cleaning of my plate chiller and discovered some pretty nasty stuff in there. I had always boiled my plate chiller the day before brewing so no worries of infection, but maybe some gunk in the plate chiller somehow effected the head creation process?

Since cleaning the plate chiller, I have brewed 2 more beers, but both were kegged instead of bottled. They do seem to have normal head after 2 weeks carbonating in the keg though.

 

[MrHopScotch]

Did you do your deep clean before or after these beers? If it was after, I wouldn't be shocked if something oily was making it difficult to get decent head retention. If it was before, then some residual soap or cleaners could certainly do something like this.

The fact that it went away suggests it was probably something subtle that was less noticeable once the beers had time to carbonate. Time doesn't change the amount of protein in your beer.

 

[gregoreckbrews]

I did the deep clean after the 2 bottled beers with delayed head creation. I had the same thought as you: Maybe something oily caught in the plate chiller was creating the problem.

I once added grapefruit zest to a beer and made the huge mistake of allowing the zest to pass into my plate chiller. The zest completely clogged the plate chiller. Maybe some residual zest caught in the chiller after cleaning was the culprit.