THE BEER
Why is my beer flat?
Why doesn't my beer form a good head when I pour it?
Why is my beer too gassy?
Q. Why is my beer flat?
If your beer is flat in the bottle then it is most likely that secondary fermentation has not occurred or has only partially occurred. There are several possible reasons.
You forgot to add priming sugar to the bottle, or you didn't add enough (you need 3 g for 375 mL, 6 g for 750 mL and 8 g for 1 L).
The secondary fermentation temperature was so low that a much longer conditioning time was required and the bottle has been opened prematurely.
The fermenter was allowed to stand for a long time (weeks?) after fermentation allowing most of the yeast to settle. The result was that there was insufficient yeast in the bottle to provide a normal rate of secondary fermentation.
The beer was brewed with too much water and thus foam contributors from the malt have been diluted. This is probably not common but some brewers might strive for extra volume or a lower alcohol level by simply using excess water.
Perhaps a batch of faulty crown seals has been used.
On the other hand the beer may be good but your beer glass may be not be clean. Small amount of fats (from fatty foods, lipstick etc.) or detergents can kill the head and appearance of a beer very quickly.
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Q. Why doesn't my beer form a good head when I pour it?
Some answers to this are given for the question "Why is my beer flat?".
If we presume that your beer has sufficient gas (CO2) in the bottle then the problem is with the beer itself or with the cleanliness of your beer glasses.
The head or foam of a beer is a complex property and can be thought of in terms of its height, the size of the bubbles in the head, and the duration of the head (or its rate of collapse). A mixture of proteins from the malt determines these properties. These proteins might be destroyed if you agitate the wort too much during dissolving of the malt extract and filling of the fermenter. It is strongly believed that a head can only rise once. If you make the wort foam too much when mixing, if the fermentation is too fast and frothy, or if there is too much foaming during bottling, you mightn't get much head in the final beer. These precautions are probably more relevant to commercial brewing but they may relate to home brewing to some extent.
However the most likely cause of a poor head is the presence of fats, soil, detergent etc. in the glass following inadequate cleaning. It takes very little contamination to effect the head. Even if the glass was initially clean it might be effected by food residues or lipstick.
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Q. Why is my beer too gassy?
This shouldn't happen too often. Maybe a spoilage organism has taken over - but there will be other signs that this has happened, such as off-flavours.
It may be because you have added too much priming sugar to the bottle - for example you may have added 6 g into a 375 mL bottle instead of 3 g.
However most likely it is because you have bottled your brews long before fermentation is finished - and so your fermentation has continued in the bottle creating more CO2 than normal.
SAFETY NOTE: You may be happy to continue consuming the beer but I strongly suggest that you handle all the bottles while wearing safety goggles in case any faulty ones may explode!
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