What's up with the head retention on my Wit?

I brewed up a Wit awhile back and put it into my fridge this past week. Taste is great and the carbonation level seems good, but I'm not getting any real head or head retention with it. It will have a head on it only if I try and pour a head (not tilting the glass) but it will have large CO2 bubbles and then quickly fade and disappear. I don't use a rinse agent in the dishwasher, so I don't think that is the problem. At first I thought it just wasn't quite carbed up enough, but I can taste the carbonation on the sides of my tongue and see lots of small CO2 bubbles escaping up through the beer. I naturally carb my kegs and the keg was holding pressure before I put it in the fridge.

The recipe was:
9.67# Pilsen 2-row (from Canada Malting)
7.2# Flaked Wheat
1.8# Flaked Oats
Hallertau at 60 and Saaz at 5

Also had 2 oz coriander and 2 oz of dried bitter orange peel (which I rehydrated during the mash).

I did a protein rest at 127 (was shooting for 122) then direct heated the mash up to 154. Mashed out after an hour at 168 and sparged.

Could the protein rest have negatively affected the head retention? Or could it have been the rehydrating of the orange peel? In the past I've used regular 2-row Pale malt instead of the Pilsen and have had a tremendous white fluffy head with this beer. So could the Pilsen malt have a cause in this? I just brewed a tripple using a lot of this same Pilsen malt. I hope it doesn't have this problem as well.

Any thoughts?

The head is made of protein, so doing a rest was most likely the problem.

Ok, that's good to know. I won't do that again....

Isn't a protein rest more or less required with the adjunct percentage being that high? I'm brewing a similar recipe today, so I'm thinking I might try doing it as a single infusion instead of using a protein rest like I normall do, but I'm a little concerned about the efficiency I'm going to end up using that approach.

-D

Could also be oils from the orange.

Llarian said:

Isn't a protein rest more or less required with the adjunct percentage being that high? I'm brewing a similar recipe today, so I'm thinking I might try doing it as a single infusion instead of using a protein rest like I normall do, but I'm a little concerned about the efficiency I'm going to end up using that approach.

-D

Click to expand...

Many European malts benefit from a protein rest. Many American malts don't. Why not ask Canada Malting if a protein rest is necessary?

-a.

ajf said:

Many European malts benefit from a protein rest. Many American malts don't. Why not ask Canada Malting if a protein rest is necessary?

-a.

Click to expand...

The issue isn't the malt, its the ~50% unmalted flaked wheat.

-D

I would blame the oats myself. Flaked wheat provides quite a bit of protein but I've read (and my oatmeal stouts attest) that larger amounts of oats hinder head retention.

Hmmm. That's a good point. I might pull the oats from my next Wit and see if that fixes the problem. I do like that mouthfeel they provide though.

-D