Wheat to add head retention

I'm planning on brewing a Belgian Golden Strong Ale and was thinking of adding 1/2 pound of wheat malt to aid in head retention. But I don't want a haze from wheat. Thoughts?

is the haze in wheat beer from the wheat or the low floccuation of the hefeweizen yeast that is generally used?

I'm not sure.. just asking..

I did however brew a hefe as my first brew.. it was 100% Wheat DME and used a white labs hefe yeast..

it's clear in the bottle unless i swrill the sedement up at the end of the pour..

i'd like to know the answer too..

ws

I thought protein from wheat could cause haze when chilled. Not sure if 1/2 pound would give that much haze.

It very well may.. i don't know..
I was just always under the impression that the suspended yeast was what made the beer cloudy..

but for the record.. i could very well not know what in the world i'm talking about..

somebody bail me out here

ws

you can't go wrong with More Cowbell!!

I typically add a 1/3 to 1/2 lb of wheat to my APAs for head retention, and have added a lb. of wheat to a few different recipes without any haze issues. I'd say go for it.

By the way, I tried to use JeffG and you took it already.

5% of the total grist is not going to make your beer cloudy. You could probably get away with using up to 10% without it affecting the clarity of your beer. You may be able to go higher. From my personal experience, the most I have used in a non-wheat specific beer is 10% in a Porter. Typically I have found anything in the 3-6% range works is enough.

You could also add more cowbell too, that might help.

There's an article on the BYO website that gives a lot of good tips for head retention, none of which involve adjuncts. Perhaps someone can find it (byo is filtered here at work ). I'm not saying adjuncts won't work, I suppose based on empirical evidence they definitely do, but the amount of protein in malted wheat is only about 10% more than in malted barley, so it's not exactly a silver bullet.

I've used it in APA's and like it and will use it again, but if I had a grist I was really happy with I wouldn't add an adjunct in just for head retention.

Baron von BeeGee said:

I've used it in APA's and like it and will use it again, but if I had a grist I was really happy with I wouldn't add an adjunct in just for head retention.

Click to expand...

Interesting. I've added wheat in as an adjunct in EVERY single one of my AG beers, looking for head retention and I've always been slightly disappointed with it. Good info BeeGee. I'm going to go look for that BYO article.

It was in a BYO issue from this year...I'm pretty sure it was online, as well, but I'm not positive.

Edit...what the hell, I actually found it using Google's cache:
http://byo.com/departments/1410.html

Baron von BeeGee said:

It was in a BYO issue from this year...I'm pretty sure it was online, as well, but I'm not positive.

Edit...what the hell, I actually found it using Google's cache:
http://byo.com/departments/1410.html

Click to expand...

WOW...damn good info in there. Bad fermentations are the key culprit to headless beers. Hmmmm.....

Normally I wouldn't think there is a need for adding wheat, but given the amount of sugar in a Belgian Golden Strong Ale, I figure it might help. I skimmed BYO, the few articles I saw suggested it could help. (I have malted wheat vs. unmalted however.)

He seems to contradict on wheat a bit in his parenthesis:

My experience has been that, if you are having problems with forming a head, adding wheat malt doesn’t help. (On the other hand, if you are already getting decent foam, adding wheat can increase the amount and longevity of foam.) I’ve also noticed that many “low protein” beers form perfectly nice heads, counter to the idea that you need a lot of protein in your grain bill to form good beer foam.

Or perhaps he meant if you have no head (because of bad practices) adding wheat won't compensate for this. I always heard adding wheat "increases head retention" and the reason that I add it. Isn't that what he said here?

The article lost me at this point:

Protein Z is an albumin with a molecular weight of 40,000 Daltons.

Click to expand...

dB, I think what he's saying is that if you don't have good head generation (however briefly), then wheat won't help. However, if you get copious head (har har) on your beer but it doesn't last long, then wheat may help.

Frankly, I don't notice any better head formation on my wheat beers with 60% wheat in the grist than I do on many of my 100% barley beers. Sometimes my beers have good head, sometimes they don't...I don't think it's related to wheat or adjuncts in my case, just procedures. I even brewed a chocolate stout with 3.5oz of dark chocolate in it (not extract...chocolate!) which I was told would absolutely destroy the head...it foamed up and had head like a champ. My latest Hefeweizen, while quite delicious IMO, has somewhat dissapointing head characteristics for a beer with 50% wheat in the grist.

Honestly the biggest head retention problems for most brewers involves the serving vessel. If that thing isn't absolutely 100% free of detergent residue and oils, you won't have head retention at all.

Of course the brewing process is important.

I've always marveled at the brewers who can get away with not using cara-pils or clarifiers and stuff like that and have sufficient bodied, clear beers. Those are the things I'd like to master, as well as the obvious, the taste.

I always get nice head & retention from my IPA and Porter and always attributed it to the .5 wheat. I might give the IPA a test next time around and not add it. If it doesn't change anything then heck, I'll be saving $.80 a batch .

In retrospect, my snpa clone on tap has head that won't quit (no wheat). Takes forever to get a full pour from the tap if it's the 1st of the day. Desert thinks to self...

Use crystal Malt to Adds good hed retention and a slight caramelcolor and flavor.

For light beers use crystal 10 to Crystal 40 for those ambers or IPA use crystal 60 to crystal 120

Use 1/2 LBS to 1 LBS per 5 gal batch I have even gone higher in quanity. Wont cloud your beer

I had originally planned on using 1/2 lb of Crytal 10L, but since I had a 1/2 lb of Munich left from a prior batch I decided to use that instead (for more malt/caramel character). One BYO article suggested that Belgian Golden Strong Ales have copious amounts of foam, so I'm probably ok. The 1/2 lb of wheat couldn't hurt.

What's your recipe? Maybe there's something else in there that will look after the head for you. Many beers that have great heads don't add specific ingredients to achieve that.

11 lbs pale malt
1/2 lb Munich 10
1/2 lb malted wheat
2 lbs corn sugar