Head retention

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Capped
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Re: Head retention

Post by Capped » Sat Dec 12, 2015 7:44 am

Keep carbonation to the minimum and use flaked barley. Some folk (what percentage exactly, or are those that object to it being particularly vociferous?) don't like it but I don't know what the hell they're talking about. Tight,smooth,long-lasting heads with impressive lacing are what I get 100% of the time without giving it a thought anymore.

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orlando
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Re: Head retention

Post by orlando » Sat Dec 12, 2015 8:40 am

seymour wrote:
orlando wrote:...Oats have a high lipid content (fat) so be careful here as like washing up liquid it can rapidly deflate a head if overused...
Lots of great points, orlando, all of which I agree with except that one, no offense. You're right that oats have a higher fat content than most other cereal grains, but it never inhibits foam. Oats always improve head retention, lace, mouthfeel, and overall smoothness. There is no percentage of oats over which this ceases to be the case. I've drunk countless commercial oatmeal stouts with 5-15% oats, a recipe of mine uses 17% , Three Floyds/Mikkeller Oatgoop uses 25%, and fellow forum member Timothy's Renaissance Ale used 29% and had a mesmerizing foamy/lacy appearance. The higher the oat percentage of the grainbill, the deeper and more persistent the foam, period.

Wilf, on your next brew, replace 15% of your base malt with flaked oats or torrified wheat, shorten your mash duration, raise temp before knock-out, and you'll see. Cheers!
Never offended by polite and fact based criticism Seymour, wouldn't learn anything if I was. You did have me scurrying back to my source for that comment though. I have nearly always been impressed by BYO Magazine and was sure there was an article on this very subject. Alex Fodor had this to say
fats and detergents tend to destabilize the bubbles and cause the foam to collapse. This is why adjuncts that are high in fat including oats and eclectic brewing spices with high oil contents such as coffee beans tend to decrease foam.
I added chocolate as I have used cocoa nibs and again noticed less than stellar foam or stability. I have used oats in a an oatmeal stout, in fact my latest brew and this had a head that was not as good as beers made without, had a fabulous creamy taste though, which was the main reason for using them. I wonder whether there is a difference to whether they are raw, malted or torrified, I recall you are fond of toasting them before use, maybe this changes their character, little more research methinks.

One other comment for the OP, I noticed he said, rinsed his glass, if this is before pouring that too can interfere with foam, I have seen US based bar tenders rinse glasses before pouring highly carbonated beer and it seems to help getting it into the glass without losing too much beer.
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orlando
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Re: Head retention

Post by orlando » Sat Dec 12, 2015 9:35 am

Had quick trawl of some study papers on using Oats in beer and found two that may help point in the right direction. The first is from The Journal of the Institute of Brewing and one concerning foam stability in baking, so less specific to beer but indicative. So far I haven't found anything on the differences between how the oats are treated and this maybe where we find some differences in experience. The other variable of course is % used. My tentative conclusion is less is more for foam stability. :wink: I've also found anecdotal evidence but that isn't good enough here.
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Re: Head retention

Post by wilfh » Sat Dec 12, 2015 6:17 pm

Orlando interesting point about rinsing the glass but i guess that would only happen on the first one. Lots of great points that Seymour has already neatly summarised. Will try the oats first as have some. Thanks all. Wilf

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Re: Head retention

Post by Jim » Sat Dec 12, 2015 7:03 pm

I've also read that oats can adversely affect head retention - I have a feeling it was in a David Line book.

However, you can't argue with the evidence, and Seymour appears to have experienced no such problems with his own brews or with commercial equivalents. Maybe just another one of those folklore things that become 'the truth' by virtue of repetition! :)
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Re: Head retention

Post by Jocky » Sun Dec 13, 2015 11:46 am

Somewhat anecdotal evidence here - I did some research on this a while ago around toasting oats just by googling and looking at various home brew forums. It seemed to me that where oats had been toasted in a recipe, people very often reported poor head retention. Untoasted seemed to be fine.

I've not had any issues when using untoasted oats, but haven't used toasted yet.
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Re: Head retention

Post by seymour » Sun Dec 13, 2015 8:24 pm

orlando wrote:...Never offended by polite and fact based criticism Seymour, wouldn't learn anything if I was. You did have me scurrying back to my source for that comment though. I have nearly always been impressed by BYO Magazine and was sure there was an article on this very subject. Alex Fodor had this to say
fats and detergents tend to destabilize the bubbles and cause the foam to collapse. This is why adjuncts that are high in fat including oats and eclectic brewing spices with high oil contents such as coffee beans tend to decrease foam.

Excellent, we both enjoy a well-informed, worthy advocate! :) Yes, I've seen this article, and like you said, because of BYO Magazine's high reputation, people tend to just accept, repeat, and reprint anything it prints as gospel truth. But he's still wrong. What he says about fats and detergents is theoretically true, but what he says about oats in brewing is not. I don't need to scientifically explain away his science in order to confirm what is easily demonstrated in actual practice. And to be clear, I'm not talking about malted or toasted oats, but I am talking about any and all forms of pale unmalted oats.

You'll find the naysayers of substantial oats in brewing have not brewed with substantial oats, nor analyzed actual beers brewed with oats. Regarding your own Oatmeal Stout with less-than-desired head retention...perhaps you didn't use enough oats. [wink]

A quick Google search reveals these photos of Three Floyds/Mikkeller Oatgoop (containing 25% oats). Anecdotal? Perhaps, but nonetheless proven real. See for yourself. Even the ones where the head has begun to subside, look at that gorgeous sticky lace!

Image
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Here's my Blue Ribbon Stout with 8.5% oats:
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Here's my India Porter with 9% oats:
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And lastly, to prove my point, today I took three pictures of my recreation of 1943 Simpsons of Baldock X from the brewer's log, containing 17% oats. This Mild was George Orwell's fave at the time he wrote Animal Farm. So see? There's an historic precedent for this too, I'm not making it up. And no throw-away line in a BYO article can falsify it.

Immediately after I poured it:
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Again, untouched, 5 minutes after pouring. No swirling, not a nucleated glass.
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Again, 15 minutes after pouring. Darn good head retention, right?
Image

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Re: Head retention

Post by johnluc » Sun Dec 13, 2015 9:07 pm

I have read somewhere that never wash your glasses in a dish washer as the detergents or rinsing agents will kill the head.

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Re: Head retention

Post by guypettigrew » Sun Dec 13, 2015 9:45 pm

So how do you do that, seymour?

Keep beer in a glass for 15 minutes without drinking any of it, I mean.

You are one hero beer maker!

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Re: Head retention

Post by WalesAles » Sun Dec 13, 2015 10:14 pm

Guy,
I expect Seymour was supping a pint while watching that pint! :D
No way could I just look at a pint for 15mins! :D #-o

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Re: Head retention

Post by seymour » Mon Dec 14, 2015 4:13 am

guypettigrew wrote:So how do you do that, seymour?

Keep beer in a glass for 15 minutes without drinking any of it, I mean...
Well, the secret is...
WalesAles wrote:Guy,
I expect Seymour was supping a pint while watching that pint! :D
No way could I just look at a pint for 15mins! :D #-o

WA
Oh, yep, he got it! As you can see, the pour was so over-the-top foamy, the full pint bottle didn't fit in the glass. So while I waited, I poured the remainder into a different glass for immediate consumption. Plus, as you've surely noticed, I can be a real stubborn ass when I feel I have a point to prove. You know, regarding really essential, life-and-death topics, like...brewing with oats. :)

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orlando
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Re: Head retention

Post by orlando » Mon Dec 14, 2015 8:07 am

seymour wrote: Regarding your own Oatmeal Stout with less-than-desired head retention...perhaps you didn't use enough oats. [wink]

9.2%

I also made the point about carbonation and the support this gives, never the less those are impressive looking beers =D> , but my bet is they are over carbed for my taste. I'm surprised you didn't comment on the science based article in the JIB, is this an example of the real world not being the same as the lab? :D
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Re: Head retention

Post by Jocky » Mon Dec 14, 2015 8:44 am

Here's something else I've discovered recently about head retention - yeast matters, but not just in the way you think.

I did a beer recently, which had some issues, but it was the first time I'd used gelatin and it was sparklingly clear. It was also 8%. I'd worried about carbonation (can't be any yeast in there, can there?), but a recent experiment with a similar beer gave me confidence. But it had great head retention after just a couple of weeks.

I conditioned the beer at 21C in the bottle, but the main reason the head seemed to last was due to the lack of yeast in the bottle. By the time of pouring the yeast was only a fine dusting on the bottom of the bottle, providing small nucleation sites for the CO2 in suspension, which in turn meant that smaller bubbles were formed.

Smaller bubbles are more stable, and so form a longer lasting, creamier head.
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Re: Head retention

Post by Clibit » Mon Dec 14, 2015 9:44 am

Jocky wrote:Here's something else I've discovered recently about head retention - yeast matters, but not just in the way you think.

I did a beer recently, which had some issues, but it was the first time I'd used gelatin and it was sparklingly clear. It was also 8%. I'd worried about carbonation (can't be any yeast in there, can there?), but a recent experiment with a similar beer gave me confidence. But it had great head retention after just a couple of weeks.

I conditioned the beer at 21C in the bottle, but the main reason the head seemed to last was due to the lack of yeast in the bottle. By the time of pouring the yeast was only a fine dusting on the bottom of the bottle, providing small nucleation sites for the CO2 in suspension, which in turn meant that smaller bubbles were formed.

Smaller bubbles are more stable, and so form a longer lasting, creamier head.
I'm not quite understanding why smaller bubbles were formed? Cod there was less yeast on the bottom of the bottle?

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Re: Head retention

Post by Jocky » Mon Dec 14, 2015 11:54 am

Yes.

Purely from my own observations mind, not any kind of scientifically proven methodology:

What I've witnessed is that if you let more yeast in the bottle, it will clump together and form something akin to the moon's surface at the bottom of your bottle. All those lumps and bumps provide large nucleation sites for CO2, which leads to big bubbles and, in extreme cases the occasional gusher.

After fining the beer post fermentation though, there's less yeast in suspension. Visually clear beer can still contain 1 million cells per ml, and I'm told that you typically need only 100,000 cells per ml to carbonate, so there's plenty of yeast left to carbonate, but it means you end up with a fine dust of yeast on the bottom of the bottle instead of a rough surface. The finer surface means smaller (but potentially more) nucleation sites, leading to lots of little bubbles.
Ingredients: Water, Barley, Hops, Yeast, Seaweed, Blood, Sweat, The swim bladder of a sturgeon, My enemies tears, Scenes of mild peril, An otter's handbag and Riboflavin.

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