Too much head?

[Buffalobrewer89]

Don't burn me at the stake! I know this will be blasphemy but my honey hefewizen and caribou slobber have major heads. To the point where I pour maybe an inch into the glass and have to wait forever for the head to dicipate. This normal or did I do something wrong during brewing. Also is there a way to lighten the head, minus sticking my finger in the glass. (I don't want it completely gone, just maybe half )

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

you probably force carbed it, mine dies that every time I force carb, so just lower your pressure to 3 psi

 

[flars]

Excessive foaming during the pour can be caused by the fermentation finishing in the bottle.

 

[Wildcat_Brewing]

Sounds over carbed, let it warm up a little and pull the release a few times to let out some of the carbonation that comes out of solution. It happens to me when I try to carb it to quick but is usually better than waiting.

 

[Buffalobrewer89]

My beer is directly from bottles. As for "said no one ever" I prefer drinking beer, not foam with 10% beer which was why I asked the question.

 

[RM-MN]

Yes your beer is probably over carbonated. It may not be. There isn't sufficient information to tell.

If you bottle beer before it has completed fermentation and reached its final gravity it will continue to ferment in the bottle. When you add priming sugar that will also ferment in the bottle. Some kits give you a packet of sugar for priming that can be a little more than necessary. Add that to beer that wasn't quite done fermenting and you get major over carbonation and you beer foams too much. Always use your hydrometer to verify that the beer is done fermenting by taking at least 2 reading a couple days apart. If they don't match, don't bottle but wait a few more days and sample again.

It's also possible that your beer is perfectly carbonated but you are opening the bottles too soon and there is still suspended yeast or hop particles. These tiny particles will be nucleation points that allow the CO2 to come out of suspension too fast giving you lots of foam. The recommended time to wait from bottling is 3 weeks. This allows these particles to settle out.

 

[Buffalobrewer89]

Ahh okay. Thanks for the information

 

[brewcat]

My guess would be too much priming sugar. When I bottle carb I usually use under 4 oz. Most kits send at least 5 oz if not more. Next time use a priming sugar calculator.

 

[jalc6927]

Never

 

[AJinJacksonville]

I've had that happen a couple of times...most recently when I had to use table sugar in place of corn sugar. I added (what I thought) was 4.5 oz of table sugar...which ended up being a little bit too much. Not a terribly high head...but more than I wanted for sure.

I brewed the same batch again and cut back on the table sugar by a bit over .5 oz...and it is just right now.