Extreme Head on my Hef

[Jason1781]

I brewed a Blood Orange Hef and it came out pretty good as my first hef. My question is about the head. I can pour 1/3 of the bottle into a glass, and the glass will be 90% foam and I have to wait 5 minutes for it to settle. If I pour it gently, it will be half the glass and still takes a while to settle.

Is this normal for a hef, or any homebrew in general? Did I add too much corn sugar?

It was a 4.5 gallon batch and I used 4 oz of priming sugar. 2 weeks in primary, 1 week in secondary, and 3 weeks in the bottle.

 

[homebrewer_99]

I don't see anything wrong with the formula, could be one of two things.

I always rinse my glasses in cold water prior to pouring in the beer. Could be the dry glass causing the excessive bubbling.

Or, you're pouring too fast. Do you tilt your glass at 45 degrees and pour down the side of the glass or right down the middle? Use the side.

 

[FlyingHorse]

Foam = CO2 coming out of solution.

The two biggest contributing factors are (1) how much CO2 is in the bottle and (2) the temp of the beer (the colder the beer, the more CO2 will dissolve and stay in solution.

You can't do much about #1, and (assuming your fermentation was complete when you bottled) it doesn't sound like you over-primed.

For #2, try chilling the beer and the glass in the freezer for 20-30 minutes before you serve it. It should pour with less foam, and then you can let it warm up to drinking temp in the glass (maybe save a bit in the bottle to add later and "rebuild" the head if it dissipates during the warming)

 

[ShortSnoutBrewing]

Hefes are by style a higher carbonated beer. You should get a nice thick long lasting head with hefes. Just be a little more carful when pouring. Pulling from a tap, my blood orange hefe gets a nice thick head of about 2" (sometimes more if I'm not paying attention).