Soperbrew was in town last night so he came over and we sampled a bunch of my beer, including several that I had not yet tapped into. Well my Bohemian pilsner had a head on it that was rich and creamy and rock steady.
I've yet to brew a Bo Pils that I've felt truely hits the style. They typically taste more German, and lack the grainy/bready flavor. Well in my lastest attempt I thought I'd use 1 lb of home toasted pilsner malt (~45 min @ 325 F) and see it that would help (5 gal. batch). I also added 0.5 lbs of wheat to the 7 lbs of regular Pils malt. I often add 0.5 lbs of wheat to many of my brews, and never get a head like this. Soperbrew mentioned that he had made a beer with some home toasted malt and he said that one too had an amazing head.
Additional testing will be required, but I'm thinking this might just be a great way to boost head formation. Has anybody else experienced this?
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I've only used home-toasted Maris Otter and didn't notice any major improvement...but that's MO and not Pils (i.e. lower protein).
I recently bought some Castle (Belgian) Pils and it has a great bready flavor and is great for real light colored brews imo. EDIT: I have been using a lot of Weyermann Bohemian Pils (I bought a 55# sack and am almost finished) and to me it does taste more 'German-malty' as opposed to bready.
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Last edited by SpanishCastleAle; 03-26-2010 at 05:16 PM.
What I experienced was that when I used to bottle my beers they often lacked in head & head retention. Then I made Dude's LWPA (which has home toasted malt in it) and the head was outstanding. Having said that, the recipe does call for some flaked wheat as well.
I have/ had been using ~4ounces of malted wheat to help out with head retention.
I threw 4ozs malted wheat in as usual with my first batch of Dude's LWPA and I had more head than I knew what to do with. I had head in the morning, piles and piles of head, all over the house. It was really good head too, not that weak sauce frat boy stuff.
Head retention can have more to do with your brewing process than the actual ingredients. Read more here on how the process has a profound impact on your head retention.
Toasted malt = awesome head?
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