Beer Forum

Anyone have any tips about how to make beer more frothy? I am making beers with nice heads on them, but I want to know how to increase the frothieness. A nice thick milky head the sticks to the side of the glass until the last drop. A nice thick head that will almost hold a soft peak after you touch it to your lips. I'd appreciate any help anyone can offer.

the easy answer is...it depends

depends on the beer.....in a stout ad some roast barley.....in a lager add some cara pils.....


what sort of style are you brewing

Some things that might help:(my 2 cents...)

You need to get things into the beer to aid w/ the head retention. As was stated above, Roasted barley, Carapils, I like to add a little wheat malt (lots of protein). This will increase the proteins and glycoproteins to help w/ bubble formation/stability. More viscous beers have better head retention than thinner ones. All-malt beers are better at head retention than ones brewed w/ a lot of adjuncts (corn,rice) that would thin down the beer.

Keep things out of the beer that cause foam degradation. Soaps, fats and oils. Make sure that all the surfaces that contact the beer are clean of soap residue. Not only the glass you serve in, but ALL your beerware (carboys, tubing funnels,etc.) Don't use ingredients in these beers w/ a high oil content. (Oats,coffee,chocolate,etc.) Trub has a lot of lipids and fatty acids in it. (needed for yeast metabolism and flavor contribution) But you don't want excess in your finished beer. Rack off the trub/yeast cake as soon as the primary fermentation is over. A good reason to start using a secondary fermentation vessel.

Lastly,many Belgian beer glasses (Chimay) have an enucleation site ( A small spot that looks etched into the glass) at the very bottom. This allows the CO2 to continuously break out of solution at a slow rate. This keeps a head on the beer the whole time it is in the glass. This acts to boost the aroma/taste of the beer. Try a clean Chimay glass.

Cheers, Dr Scott

Doc...you're awesome!

enough said,
justin

Dr. Scott you are great! I too use wheat malt in many of my beers. CaraPils is also often added. The biggest thing I did to aid head retention was make sure my glasses were "beer clean". If you use wheat and or CaraPils the beer clean glasses will help alot. Don't use soap to clean and you could even go as far as using salt to clean.

pvignola wrote:"beer clean". If you use wheat and or CaraPils the beer clean glasses will help alot. Don't use soap to clean and you could even go as far as using salt to clean.

"Beer Clean" is a great term. One more "pearl" to use in the quest for making great beer!

Cheers, Dr Scott