NorthStarBrewer
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- Sep 16, 2020
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Has anyone encountered an issue where the first several draws of a fully-carbed, kegged beer have a nice healthy head...but after a while, each new pour has poorer head retention?
The beer in question is a helles that was brewed about three months ago. I carbonated it to about 2.5 volumes, let it lager for a couple weeks in the keg before sampling, and pulled a dozen or so pints that had a large, foamy but not stiff head. It never left much lacing on the glass, but the head would stick around for quite a while. Then, fairly suddenly, that changed -- there's maybe a quarter inch of foam in each draw, and it virtually disappears within a minute or two. There's still plenty of carbonation, and I haven't changed a thing with my setup.
Does anyone know what could be causing this? The only thing I can think of is that the beer stratified while it was lagering in the keg, and those first few pulls contained more of whatever denser material settled at the bottom? The first few glasses were a little cloudier, but that's true of every beer I've kegged and none of them have had this issue. The helles is an extremely clean beer overall, and hardly any "gunk" made it out of the fermenter. Anyway, I'd love to solve this mystery!
The beer in question is a helles that was brewed about three months ago. I carbonated it to about 2.5 volumes, let it lager for a couple weeks in the keg before sampling, and pulled a dozen or so pints that had a large, foamy but not stiff head. It never left much lacing on the glass, but the head would stick around for quite a while. Then, fairly suddenly, that changed -- there's maybe a quarter inch of foam in each draw, and it virtually disappears within a minute or two. There's still plenty of carbonation, and I haven't changed a thing with my setup.
Does anyone know what could be causing this? The only thing I can think of is that the beer stratified while it was lagering in the keg, and those first few pulls contained more of whatever denser material settled at the bottom? The first few glasses were a little cloudier, but that's true of every beer I've kegged and none of them have had this issue. The helles is an extremely clean beer overall, and hardly any "gunk" made it out of the fermenter. Anyway, I'd love to solve this mystery!
