Beer Forum

Have you guys ever experienced negative head retention that you felt could be attributed to protein blow off. I have heard here and there rumors of the use of a blow off tube negatively affecting head retention. My recent batch of kolsch has defeated the ferm cap s and blown gook all over my fridge. This yeast has been pretty unruly in general. I had a 2 litre starter in a 1 gallon jug and it escaped the jug and got gook all over my kitchen counter. What is the concensus on blow off and head retention? I usually only use a blow off for german ales...kolsh, alt, weisse. I especially want these beers to have the best head possible.

I would think that if the foam forming proteins are blown off in fermentation, they are gone and you wont have as much head retention in the final beer.

Losing some beer to blowoff can change the proportions of anything that's not dissolved in the beer: insoluble hop oils from dry hopping can be lost for example. But the proteins that contribute to head retention are soluble, distributed equally throughout the beer. Blowoff shouldn't change their concentration.

Keep in mind commercial craft breweries, who almost always fill their fermenters up high enough to get some blowoff, but can still achieve head retention.