I seem to be beginning a trend of no foam issues in several of my past few beers. The beer in question, a Belgian quad and my first highly carbonated beer*, pours like coke. It is carbed at about 3.2 volumes and seems to remain well carbed after pouring. However, any head present during pour is literally just CO2 bubbles and vanishes within seconds. Can someone point to where in my process I might be damaging my foam related elements? Or is there possibly something still in my serving setup?
My Process - I do BIAB with a Corona style mill set pretty tight. Usually get 80%+ mash eff. Full volume mash, no recirculation. I'm a squeezer. CFC chill then pitch. I have good temp control during fermentation (though this brew went high due to my negligence). Serve from keg at 40F with most beers using 12-14 psi "set and forget". My taps all have about 5 ft of line.
Recipe - Belgian Quad
OG - 1.095 - Actual - 1.090**
FG - 1.017 - Actual - 1.013
Belgian Pale Ale malt - 56%
Munich - 16%
Aromatic - 6%
Midnight Wheat - 3%
D-180 - 13%
Turbinado - 6%
Mash Schedule:
135F - 10 min (just cause I could)
147F - 35 min
162F - 25 min
WY3787 on starter - pitched at 65F then free rose to 83F (didn't mean to let it rise quite that high) before bringing it back down to 77F. Fermentation appeared very fast and healthy.
Aged for 6 weeks at 50F then chilled to 40F, set (and forget) keg pressure at 20 psi.
Beer glasses are washed in the dishwasher using those Cascade packs that for some insane reason people feel like eating. Most of my brews have decent head retention, so I don't think that washing/soap residue/rinse aid/etc is an issue.
*This was my first shot at a high carbonation beer. I'm mostly looking at my process instead of my serving setup, but a key difference here is that I carbed this brew to 3.2 volumes using 20 psi instead of the typical 2.5 volumes at 12-14 psi. Even if I serve at 20 psi instead of dropping it to 12psi to serve, I still get ZERO foam.
**I missed my OG short by almost 15 points. I tried to recoup some of that miss by adding a full additional pound of turbinado. So, instead of 1 lb as per the recipe, I had 2 lbs turbinado in the wort. Whats worse, this same issue happened a second time on my most recent brew, a Belgian Tripel, so I'm concerned about the quality of that beer too. (After 2 consecutive big misses, I realized that I did not fully understand one of my settings in the brewing software, which led to this issue, but that's in another post.)
***The tap I have this beer on is usually empty. I've served maybe one or two beers through it since making the kegerator. I was wondering if something in the line, or tap was causing the high carbonation, no foam issue, so I hooked that line and faucet up to another keg that has terrific foam retention. Seemed to have no problem, so I assume its the beer, not the serving setup.
My Process - I do BIAB with a Corona style mill set pretty tight. Usually get 80%+ mash eff. Full volume mash, no recirculation. I'm a squeezer. CFC chill then pitch. I have good temp control during fermentation (though this brew went high due to my negligence). Serve from keg at 40F with most beers using 12-14 psi "set and forget". My taps all have about 5 ft of line.
Recipe - Belgian Quad
OG - 1.095 - Actual - 1.090**
FG - 1.017 - Actual - 1.013
Belgian Pale Ale malt - 56%
Munich - 16%
Aromatic - 6%
Midnight Wheat - 3%
D-180 - 13%
Turbinado - 6%
Mash Schedule:
135F - 10 min (just cause I could)
147F - 35 min
162F - 25 min
WY3787 on starter - pitched at 65F then free rose to 83F (didn't mean to let it rise quite that high) before bringing it back down to 77F. Fermentation appeared very fast and healthy.
Aged for 6 weeks at 50F then chilled to 40F, set (and forget) keg pressure at 20 psi.
Beer glasses are washed in the dishwasher using those Cascade packs that for some insane reason people feel like eating. Most of my brews have decent head retention, so I don't think that washing/soap residue/rinse aid/etc is an issue.
*This was my first shot at a high carbonation beer. I'm mostly looking at my process instead of my serving setup, but a key difference here is that I carbed this brew to 3.2 volumes using 20 psi instead of the typical 2.5 volumes at 12-14 psi. Even if I serve at 20 psi instead of dropping it to 12psi to serve, I still get ZERO foam.
**I missed my OG short by almost 15 points. I tried to recoup some of that miss by adding a full additional pound of turbinado. So, instead of 1 lb as per the recipe, I had 2 lbs turbinado in the wort. Whats worse, this same issue happened a second time on my most recent brew, a Belgian Tripel, so I'm concerned about the quality of that beer too. (After 2 consecutive big misses, I realized that I did not fully understand one of my settings in the brewing software, which led to this issue, but that's in another post.)
***The tap I have this beer on is usually empty. I've served maybe one or two beers through it since making the kegerator. I was wondering if something in the line, or tap was causing the high carbonation, no foam issue, so I hooked that line and faucet up to another keg that has terrific foam retention. Seemed to have no problem, so I assume its the beer, not the serving setup.