No head on my Stout

[TheHappyHopper]

Greetings all - I brewed a Dry Irish Stout (from Norther Brewer) using the Specialty grains on 3rd May, left it in the primary for 15 days, used a secondary for 7 bottling on 25 May, using Fizz drops to prime my Grolsch bottles. I put a couple in the frig on 4 June, and tried one that Saturday. There was no head, but there was carbonation to the tongue yet visually the beer appeared flat. So I waited until today - putting another few in the frig on 10 June. Poured another out today and got the same result... no head, but carbonation to the tongue.

Do I need to wait another week for it to come good?

I will say that is has a nice flavor...

Thanks for any and all feedback...

So you bottled the 25th of May and then put a couple in the fridge on June 4th? That's only 10 days - most people recommend waiting 3 weeks for proper carbonation. When you put them in the fridge, you brought the yeast to a halt on increasing the carbonation.

What temperature are the bottles sitting at? 2-3 weeks is usually good for most beers if they are sitting above 70 degrees.

And what yeast did you use? I have noticed that the 2 times that I have used Wyeast's Irish Ale yeast, it took forever to carb (not sure why, but the bottles were sitting next to another batch that carbonated in less time just fine).

Now that it's been almost a month since bottling, I would try one that has been sitting outside of the fridge the whole time. Chill it for a day or two and give it a taste. If it still isn't where you want it, flip all of the remaining bottles on their heads and let them sit for a week or more. This will get the yeast stirred back up and hopefully kickstart them into doing their job.

 

[OkanaganMike]

Saw the updates here and wanted to chime back in. Mike, I've heard about cooking oats before usage but have never done that and I've brewed oatmeal stout 3-4 times now and head retention has been good for me. I've attributed that, at least in part, to the oatmeal. Maybe I'm wrong but I can't think of a reason that pre cooking would do anything better than mashing. And I'll throw in that I haven't done a low temp protein rest with the oatmeal either. Everybody goes in the pool at single infusion mash temp.

Precooking is required (I'd have to do more reading to get my facts right) on some of the oats and not others ie old fashioned oats vs quick oats due the different processing and gelatization of each (I make up my own words but you know what I mean )