I'm planning on putting together some 'back to basics' summer session ales, using a single malt and torrified wheat for head retention. I'm thinking half a dozen batches of differing hop additions should give me a nice little range for the summer months. I'm currently thinking about 5-6% of the bill for the wheat, would anyone use more or less?
Torrified Wheat
- Thread starter Portreath
- Start date
Help Support The Homebrew Forum:
Sadfield
Landlord.
Do you have an issue with head retention Portreath? More or less depends on whether there is an issue to overcome. The amount is very specific to your own needs.
Adding 5-10% of unmalted grain is all well and good, although comes at a cost of only getting 90-95% of possible malt flavour in a beer.
Malt and isomerised alpha acids should be more than enough to achieve foam stability. TT, Fullers, Adnams, St Austell...none of these breweries list Wheat in the ingredients of their flagship pales, yet all have great head and lacing.
Adding 5-10% of unmalted grain is all well and good, although comes at a cost of only getting 90-95% of possible malt flavour in a beer.
Malt and isomerised alpha acids should be more than enough to achieve foam stability. TT, Fullers, Adnams, St Austell...none of these breweries list Wheat in the ingredients of their flagship pales, yet all have great head and lacing.
Last edited:
Thanks for the comments. Food for thought on both counts. Last weekend I put together two pale ales identical apart from one I used MO + 6% Torrified wheat, and the other MO + 6% flaked barley. So, to extend this experiment I'm going to put together the same pale ale but with 100% MO. So I should have three brews to evaluate, compare and contrast in a few months.
They certainly do on cask, bit don't you find that bottled versions of cask ales often lack a bit of head retention?
Oh, and another thing; I don't know if my taste buds are super sensitive to the taste, but when I used to use torrified wheat in my brews I was sure I could pick up a kind of shredded wheat taste.
I've swapped my usual horrified wheat for mildly upset barley flakes ...in my latest brew. That too is a simple pale ale.
Yes, I have noticed that while a tap drawn stout such a St Austell's Men a dhu has a really rich deep head, the bottle version is flat as a witches T*T
Ay @Clint I hear barley bothering could soon be made illegal!
Snowflake Britain eh!!
Sadfield
Landlord.
I'm pretty sure that's down to filtering, IIRC none of Landlord, London Pride, Ghostship or Tribute are not bottle conditioned.
Last edited:
Just playing devils advocate, who says they have to be adding wheat to aid head retention? Who's to know they aren't adding, for example, flaked barley?
(Though as others have already said, might be more down to the widget on the end of the swan neck when you have a point of cask vs. bottle beer.)
Sadfield
Landlord.
A fair point. However, I know for a fact that Fullers don't as I've seen their brew sheet for London Pride, ESB and Chiswick Bitter. And, TT proudly claim they use 100% Golden Promise in Landlord, I presume that is malted Golden Promise as I've never seen Flaked barley sold by crop variety.
The sparkler may change the appearance and carbonation. It won't alter the head retention properties.
