Poor Head Retention/Thin Beer

[jstofer]

I seem to be having an issue with thinner feeling beer lately. Let me share my equipment/process to see if anyone can shed some light on this. I currently have a two tier stand. The top tier I utilize for my sparging. I do a quasi fly sparge from a kettle into my mash tun (no sparge arm...just keep the water above the grain and match the inflow from kettle to outflow from mash). It's a direct fire system. On my mash, I have a 15 gallon pot....it has a stand in it and there's about 2 gallons of free space prior to hitting "grain level." On the stand, I have a perforated plastic sheet (high temp, food grade) that acts as my filter. I have a port on top of the tun where I recirculate the mash water through the grain (tried continuous circulation and just when water is being heated). I'll stir a couple of times throughout the mash. I have been building my own water utilizing brew'n water. It doesn't seem to matter with the recipe. I had a scotch ale that I had a mash temp of 158 on and it still feels thin. My efficiency usually runs 75-80% and I'm hitting my OG to exceeding it. Anyone have any ideas what might be going on?

 

[Jayhem]

How is your carbonation? More carbonation makes a thin beer "feel" like it has more body.

What adjuncts (if any) are you using in your recipes? I like to include 0.5 lbs of carapils in my lighter beers for a bit of body and head retention. In my big beers and wheat beers I find that flaked barley or wheat really increases body and head!

 

[jstofer]

I utilize the priming calc in beersmith and carb to style...even my wheat beer felt a little thin and it had flaked oats in it.

 

[Jayhem]

I utilize the priming calc in beersmith and carb to style...even my wheat beer felt a little thin and it had flaked oats in it.

That's odd then. The wheat beer I'm drinking now has 1.5 lbs of flaked wheat in 5.5 gallons and had an OG of 1.041 and it is FAR from thin. the grain bill was 46% white wheat, 40% 2-row, 10% flaked wheat, 4% honey malt. It actually has more body than any wheat beer I've ever had. I did mash high though at 156F and my water profile is in the green on Brun Water's calc sheet for a wheat beer.

Do your beers finish really dry perhaps?

 

[narl79]

Add some caripils. I put 1/2 lb in most of my brews (5gl batches) and get a good head with out fail. If its dry mash a little higher and calibrate your thermometers. Mine were off for a few batches and they were way too dry.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Home Brew mobile app

 

[brick]

In my big beers and wheat beers I find that flaked barley or wheat really increases body and head!

This. I used a pound of flaked rye in a batch around thanksgiving and it drinks like gravy. The stuff is powerful. Try 5% of the grist to start.

 

[acidrain]

What are your final gravitys?

 

[thisisbeer]

Ya, final gravities could be important to figuring it out. You got be getting to much attenuation. On the other hand I read an article today about someone testing yeast pitching rates. He split a batch into three 1 gallon jugs. The over pitch had the same FG as the under pitch, proper pitch rate a couple points higher than both. But the over pitch had a way thinner body than the other two beers. Also most carbonation charts say something like 2.2-2.6. Are you carbing on the lower end or higher?

 

[jstofer]

My fgs are right on. I pitch starters according to yeast calc and I would say my beers tend to be on the low range for carbing

 

[thisisbeer]

You may try carbing a little more on the high side. See if that helps. It may be that you prefer a little more carbonation. I usually carb more to the high side for the same reason.

 

[jstofer]

I'll try that the next time....it's very puzzling. Went back and looked at my Scottish recipe and it had a pound of cara and two of caramel 60???)

 

[acidrain]

What is your final gravity? If it's lower that anticipated, that's why your beer is thin (dryer), and points towards a thermometer that's off. Should be the first thing you checked...

 

[jstofer]

Fgs run about 1.01....right on based on beersmith....i have three thermometers....one that runs on the outlet of the mash, one that probes the mash and then I utilize a digital to double check. The thermometers are all appropriately calibrated. Does anyone think that it could have anything to do with when I heat my recirc water up to 165 or so to bring the mash bed up temp? I have it figured out when I need to cut the heat to balance things out (both recirc water and grain bed end up at appropriate temp). I appreciate all the help as I want to get this figured out.

 

[jstofer]

I started going back over my notes and I'm thinking that my ph was too low. That is the only thing I can put my finger on. I'm going to try shooting for 5.5 to 5.6. I was shooting for the lower end prior to this. We'll see how this goes.

 

[narl79]

Let us know how it turned out. What do you use to raise your ph?

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Home Brew mobile app

 

[thisisbeer]

What was your ph in the first place?

 

[billl]

"I have a port on top of the tun where I recirculate the mash water through the grain (tried continuous circulation and just when water is being heated). "

Are you adding the grain and then bringing the mash up to temp? If so, you could accidentally be conducting a protein "rest" over a fairly large range of temps.

 

[tgmartin000]

Keep in mind that hops also aid in foam stability. I heard Matt Brynldson (sorry for mangling the last name) likes to add a 30 min hop addition to add hop body to the beer, to help increase head retention.

There is an episode of brew strong on head formation and retention, I listened to it once but need to go and re-listen.

ALso, like others have said, it could be your carb levels. I like to carb my beers higher than normal - like 2.5-2.6 vols for ales, a little lower for stouts, higher for pilsners, and even higher for belgians. 3.5 vols for my current golden strong.

Mashing too long will also cause overattenuation. I don't do a mash out, which is why I think my beers almost always attenuate more than beersmith says. If your grain bed ends up sitting at your mash temp longer than you're expecting, that can have an effect.