how to increase the "head"

[partonken]

ive been making beer for awhile but cant seen to get a good head on the beer after i pour it in a glass. Ive tried a product from the UBREW place and still no luck! When i brew 20 litres i put in 1 cup of dextrose and then bottle, maybe i should put in more. When i ferment i usually bottle as soon as the batch has stopped so to make sure there is lots of yeast for secondary fermentation. Any ideas?? Cheers

[theholymackerel]

Add a little oatmeal or wheat to yer grainbill. That will help give a thicker head with better retention.

[rangaz]

Also, you could try mashing at a higher temp like 67-70C

[rubber duck]

There are so many ways to get better head retention. The first two posts are good, I like cari pils because it works well with all the beer styles I do, it's kind of a cure all for me.

[Gr8brewer]

Do you wash your beer glasses in dish washer? Perhaps your DW is leaving residue rinse/drying agents can ruin a good head.

[partonken]

hey, theholy mackeral. Do you add the oatmeal cooked or just out of the bag during the primary fermentation? I have been using the kits for years and the head is always lacking. thanks

[still crazy]

If I make my wife oatmeal.......

who knows where I was going with this

[rubber duck]

hey, theholy mackeral. Do you add the oatmeal cooked or just out of the bag during the primary fermentation? I have been using the kits for years and the head is always lacking. thanks

I use it right out of the bag, rolled barley will work the same way.

[rangaz]

If you're using kits, you're fighting a losing battle, more dextrose should help though. I struggled to make a good beer from them for a long time but eventually gave in to all grain brewing (I put up a post recently). It really allows you more flexibility and produces a beer faaaaar greater in quality. If you're not willing to go the full way with all grain, look up a mehtod called partial mashing.

[Samohon]

Having done the Kits and All-grains for brewing beer, I finally settled on the partial mashing method for some of my beers, but I still do a few all-grains now and again...

Having read your original post a couple of times partonken, I understand that you add your cup of dextrose to your 20L of beer. I never used to do this when it came to bottling. Instead I primed the sterile bottle with ¼ tsp of brewers priming sugar and then capped... This method always gave me a great head on my beers when poured... I also left the bottles for a minimum of 5-6 weeks...

Now I just place the sugar into a King Keg and wait the same time, so much easier...

Hope this helps man...

[EscarpmentDew]

I'm not familiar with Ubrew but I think it is safe to assume they use malt kits. Malt kits are great and I use them myself, but they do make things a little tricky in some ways. The malt kits are never pre-hopped as far as I know, and hops add a lot of qualities to beer such as head retention. Try a partial mash when you are ready to experiment a little. Actually, the increase in work can be virtually nothing at all. Check out this website: http://www.absolutehomebrew.com.au/?page_id=27" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow. If you notice the paragraph about whole hopping you will notice that the additional work is as easy as dropping about an ounce of your favorite hops into your hot wort. There are other things you can try, but this is probably the right one to try. If this doesn't improve your predicament than substitute dry malt extract for dextrose, and attempt to age your beer for longer. The list goes on.

[Aces High]

There are so many ways to get better head retention. The first two posts are good, I like cari pils because it works well with all the beer styles I do, it's kind of a cure all for me.

+1 on the cara pills, It gives better head retention and also gives it a better mouthfeel. I recently went back to using a kit and a kilo (malt/dextrose mix) cause I was short of beer and time, I found the beer was really insipid and thin, if that makes any sense.

Get a kit, use some carapills, then do a boil and add hops, its a pretty easy intermediate step before you look at all grain and will make a massive difference to your beer. The brew websites will give you some good ideas

[chriscahill]

other idears is to try cans from other ranges even the boxed up ones try substituting ur yeast for a high quality one i find the yeast stran has a large impact on flavor also brewing temp how many days in a fermentor sorry i started on beer i get a good one find a local home brew stor (good one) im lucky mine help me and they now give me freebies as long as i bring some stuff in for them to try but cam gets me to do things that he has not tryed just to see how it works so see what you can arrange us home brewers are allways learning if u need other idears ask away

[ginjo]

I haven't found oats to increase head but a little wheat does.

[maheel]

you could also try a fresh wort kit like these as a step towards all grain
the beer from these is top notch
http://www.craftbrewer.com.au/shop/default.asp?CID=88" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

you could also consider BIAB (brew in a bag) to try all grain.
http://www.biabrewer.info/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

if you have a large stock pot (20L+) you can start all grain very cheaply with BIAB using the NO-chill method
assuming you have access to getting grain from the HBS (home brew shop)

it's surprisingly very easy to make very good beer.
Yes it's a little more $$ than tins of goo but the beer is so much better
but i am talking quality craftbeer not the the megaswill like Fosters, XXXX, VB, Budwiser, Coors type rubbish

[travis]

I decant my beer into a 40 pint barrel with dissolved 3oz of sugar & leave for 2 months minimum to mature. I have 5 barrels in line maturing, the 5th barrel is for drinking & the 1st is just out of the fermenter & so on.

If you want a really thick & creamy head with body, I fill a soda siphon with the beer, hit it with the gas cartridge, pour a glass of beer & give it a squirt with the siphon; this will turn the beer into a creamy glass of beer.

Travis

[chriscahill]

I decant my beer into a 40 pint barrel with dissolved 3oz of sugar & leave for 2 months minimum to mature. I have 5 barrels in line maturing, the 5th barrel is for drinking & the 1st is just out of the fermenter & so on.

If you want a really thick & creamy head with body, I fill a soda siphon with the beer, hit it with the gas cartridge, pour a glass of beer & give it a squirt with the siphon; this will turn the beer into a creamy glass of beer.

Travis

is this in a keg sorry different slang im guessing and must give a try might save me fermenting with glucose about 2 tsp

[loneswinger]

So many responses and most are good.

+1 to Carapills, Wheat, or Oats. My favorite though which was not mentioned is unmalted Rye (coarse ground flour). I get excellent head retention and lacing throughout the pint, the emptied glass could be used as a ruler.

-Loneswinger