My beer I make has good head, but I went to a small brewery the other day and I was amazed by there’s. It was really light and fluffy, kinda formed small peaks. Not sure if that’s the best explanation. So my question is, what does it take to get the really fluffy foam? I brew all grain.
Thanks
how much time do you have?
People have written doctorate theses on this, and the brewing community at large still can’t distill it down to a single factor…except maybe that proteins in the beer generally = foam.
Here’s a good article:
and a slightly more involved read:
http://www.amazon.com/FOAM-Practical-Guides-Beer-Quality-ebook/dp/B00FY8NFF0
OR you could add some wheat malt and carafoam (about 5% and 2% of the grist respectively) and call it a day 
1 Like
I agree with the wheat malt, I’ve been using it a lot lately but I think alot may depend on your water
What style of beer were you drinking that had the fluffy foam? Some styles are much more likely to produce this. Also the specific yeast can have an impact. I’ve gotten this kind of foam without any malt adjustments in moderately dry-hopped saison and IPA, with the foam almost like meringue.
I have also gotten the meringue like foam with different yeasts. A couple were WY 1332 for Caribou Slobber and WY 3068 for a Hefeweizen.
The beers where a blonde ale and an Amber ale.
I get that merengue kind of head on my pilsner using carapils in it. Doestn’ take much either. I only used 4 oz, 1.4% of the grain bill in my last 10 gal batch.
Here’s another good read from BYO. It’s a combination of process, ingredients, including, hops, and fermentation.
I was looking at their website today and noticed they have a tab on the beer page that shows fermentables and carapils is listed on most of their beers.
When I do my Big blonde ale I get that meringue head, when I do the little blonde I don’t and my difference is using sugar, and of course less malt…. Same yeast… Sneezles61
‘’
Not the best picture and the glass has condensation on it but it’s all about the head in this case. I pour down the side and still get this kind of head on the pils. 18 lbs avangard pils malt, 4 oz carapils, 1.5 oz carafa special III (for 10 gals) mashed at 152. Great lacing and decent head retention. Bittered with gr magnum, cz saaz at 30 and 5.
4 Likes
That looks fantastic!
Looks delicious.
Unfortunately, that was the last full pint pulled from the keg. Gotta get brewin’!
When my dad was brewing back in the 80s he got a tiny bottle of “detergent” from is LHBS that was specifically for head retention. I’ve never seen anything like this sold nowadays, not that I think it’s needed.
Personally I’m trying to dial back the size of my head. For some reason all my IPAs have way too much head.
I was wondering what’s the best way to mix sugar for a 5 gallon batch to insure good carbonation when bottling? My first batch turned out really foamy pretty much undrinkable?
I dissolve corn sugar in boiled water. Usually about two cups of water. Table sugar will give you the same results as corn sugar. Table sugar just needs a little more stirring in the kettle to dissolve completely.
I started out using this carbonation calculator. Now I refer to my notes on how the carbonation was for each batch. Sometimes I’ll adjust a couple of tenths of an ounce according to my notes.
Have your water at a low boil in the kettle for a few minutes to sanitize the kettle. Add the priming sugar off the heat.
I add the partially cooled priming solution to the bottling bucket then siphon the beer into the bucket. The circular movement of the beer with the siphon tube curled flat at the bottom mixes the priming sugar evenly. You can also gently stir the beer after siphoning with a well sanitized spoon to make sure if you wish.
Weighing the amount of priming sugar is much more accurate than trying to use a volume measure. I bought a $20 digital scale at Walmart for doing this. It is also handy to use the gram readout for dividing a package of hop pellets. Also used for weighing bread flour.
@flars I’m surprised you didn’t mention dominos sugar dots. You turned me onto them awhile back and I’ll never go back.
I think there is a difference between a nice foamy head and over carbonated fizzy head. I’ve had good luck adding wheat to my beer for head retention.
I was told to add cara pils to the grain bill, never heard of using wheat.
