I had head retention issues with many beers long ago and found out a few things, one being washing your glasses with dish soap. Since then I did a salt scrub on all of my glasses and have even using Star San to clean them.
For the most part everything has worked out fairly well. That is until we talk about my jalapeño ales. The head dissipates quickly. I was asked about cleaning, which I thought was stellar considering I’ve yet to have a bar hand tell me what they are using.
But today we went to a food truck park and Red Solo cupped it and I saw I kept a minimal amount of retention.
So how do you reset your glasses? I thought and with the time passed…
First off, chile beers sometimes have foam issues, as the chiles contain natural oils that can be detrimental for foam. Be sure to rinse your glasses very thoroughly with lots of hot water after washing (assuming you don’t already). And not fermenting excessively warm is a help to foam - I ferment most ales between 62-64F.
Did I imagine it or did Drew talk about techniques for minimizing oil issues in chile beers in a recent Experimental Brewing (maybe the Q&A episode)? Sorry I can’t be more specific – I listen to so many beer podcasts on my drives they start to run together…
I also have a head retention issue but due to advice from this board I am pretty certain it was due to ferm temp getting too high (I brewed an APA) and it caused some slight fruit esters. Somebody told me that it would likely result in head retention issues and they were right. Thankfully, the brew itself tastes pretty good. Not great, but definitely better than just drinkable. I am enjoying it.
