Wheat Beer, Mash

I'm looking at some Hefeweisen recipes, and I notice that some of them only mash at 150-154 or so. My impression was that wheat malt is undermodified and therefore requires a protein rest. What am I missing?

What are you missing? Simple. Most homebrewers don't like step mashing! You can brew good Hefeweizen by a single-infusion mash, so why bother getting all complicated?

It's not undermodification that makes a low-temperature rest a good idea. It's liquefaction and beta-glucanase activity. Adding a low-temperature "protein" rest will increase yield and decrease wort viscosity.

I tend to use Fix's 50/60/70C rest sequence for that reason.

Cheers!

Bob

What I'm hearing now is that regardless of modification, a step mash is a good idea? This would seem to imply that I'm just as likely to make a great beer w/ single infusion with undermodified malt and well modified malts... is that correct?

No.

Undermodified malt requires some special techniques to get good extraction and efficiency. Undermodified malt is actually pretty rare these days; you have to special order it, generally, unless you order from one or two big online houses. The overwhelming majority of malts are very well-modified, suitable for single-infusion mashing.

Step mashing is just another tool. A single tool can be used in a variety of ways. For example, a claw hammer can both pound nails in and pull nails out. A step mash is a method by which certain functions are performed in the mash. The functions may be required/desired for a variety of reasons.

I should have written, "It's not undermodification that makes a low-temperature rest a good idea in this specific example." I did not intend to implicitly or explicitly state a generalized rule.

Does that make it more clear?

Bob

Absolutely, thanks for clarifying. So, if undermodified malt is pretty rare, can I assume that if I get a white-wheat malt from austinhomebrew.com, for example, that it is well modified?

Yes. Unless the product is specifically labeled "less modified" or something - and these are, to the best of my knowledge always Pilsner-type barley malts - it is safe to assume they're well-modified.

Bob