Protien rest?

I finally figured out where and when to put what water treatments. This weekend I'm brewing a Wheat beer and I'm thinking about doing a protien rest. My MLT is a converted Rubbermaid and I was going to start with a thick mash and add water after the rest to bring up temp. Should I add all the treatment at the rest or wait until I get to actual mash temp or should I say to hell with the protien rest?

I don't think it will make much difference when you add the water treatments, but I think the protein rest is a waste of time. Modern malts don't need it.

Dos_Locos_Brewery said:

I don't think it will make much difference when you add the water treatments, but I think the protein rest is a waste of time. Modern malts don't need it.

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They don't need it, but many beers benefit from a brief (≤ 20 minute) protein rest in both head retention and mouthfeel even with modern malts.

I presume the OP brewed this over the weekend, so a little late... but if it was malted wheat, you didn't need the protein rest. If it was unmalted wheat, a protein rest is a good idea.

Didn't get to it this weekend. One of the critters got the swine so that put the kabash on plans. At least I got to watch the Bears game (HA). I'll try again this weekend. I've got rice hulls but I thought I'd still go with the protein to avoid stuck sparge with 50% wheat bill

FYI - here are a few quotes from John Palmer's How to Brew:

"In fact, using a protein rest on fully modified malts tends to remove most of the body of a beer, leaving it thin and watery."

"This rest should only be used when using moderately-modified malts, or when using fully modified malts with a large proportion (>25%) of unmalted grain, e.g. flaked barley, wheat, rye, or oatmeal. Using this rest in a mash consisting mainly of fully modified malts would break up the proteins responsible for body and head retention and result in a thin, watery beer."

The whole section of protein rests can be read here - http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter14-4.html

I have to look at “Essays in Brewing Science” tonight but Bamforth and Lewis state that of all the things that affect head retention protein rests have a comparatively small effect.

Palmer repeats a lot of stuff w/o necessarily having run experiments himself, as a result I wouldn’t put much into that statement. I hope Pjj2ba will chime in on this. He has run mashing experiments with various protein rests.

I have just done a side-by-side APA w/ and w/o protein rest b/c the MO that I was using had an SNR of only 36%. I did not notice a difference in mouthfeel or head retention.

I also don’t think that protein rests are necessary to avoid stuck sparges. I tend to brew my Weissbiers (70% wheat) w/o them and don’t get stuck sparges.

Kai

I am a fan of protein rests. I keep mine around 15 minutes and find the beers with a protein rest to have as good or better head retention and mouthfeel than those without. Palmer is talking about a prolonged protein rest (I believe) which I agree would likely not help your beer.

Boerderij_Kabouter said:

I am a fan of protein rests. I keep mine around 15 minutes and find the beers with a protein rest to have as good or better head retention and mouthfeel than those without. Palmer is talking about a prolonged protein rest (I believe) which I agree would likely not help your beer.

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Do you protein rest for certain styles/recipes with over x% wheat, oatmeal or flaked barley or for all your recipes?

I do a protein rest any time I use wheat, or do a decoction.

Unfortunately I had a lactobacillus contamination in one of my back to back brewed lagers with P-rest, versus none. That would have been more definitive. Both ened up being very tasty, but not comparable. However what I can tell from the rest of the lagers I brewed last winter is that a 20:20:20 min. mash (125:148:156 F) followed by a 170F mashout (immediate) will result in a beer with too much body for a German style Pilsner. Awesome though for a Helles or a Marzen, Bock etc. This year I'll keep the same temps and times but do 20:40:10 min., at least to start. Last year I kept the mash schedule fairly constant and was comparing hop varieties. I think this year I keep the hops more consistant and do more mash schedule experiments.

I've been doing protein rests lately with most of my ales too (only 10 min. though). I've been getting nice full bodied beers as a result with out having to up the amounts of specialty grains.

Definitely no problems with head retention. I'd like to say it's better, but need more data to say conclusively.

Boerderij_Kabouter is correct on Palmer. He's talking about long (45min.- 60 min.) protein rests that used to be common with less modified malts. So because Palmer says that long protein rests are bad, therefore, it gets interpreted by many as ALL protein rests are bad. He should have stated more clearly that LONG protein rest can be harmful, but not shorter ones. That is my one complaint about Palmer's book, it isn't written concisely enough. People can read exactly the same material and come up with different interpretations of what it means. Of course I'm a bit picky on this from my training as a scientist. I work very hard at my writing (at least for work ) to make sure that my choice of words can only be intepreted one way. Students appreciate this with test questions too!

If we do choose to do a protein rest, which proteolytic enzymes should we target? That is, between the carboxypeptidases and endopeptidases, I'm assuming we'll never realistically have a high enough mash pH for the aminopetidases and dipeptidases to be a factor. Per Kaiser's new pH article:

Endopeptidases are the protein equivalent of α-amylase; they break peptide bonds of proteins and peptides within the molecule. Carboxypeptdiases are like β-amylase; they break off amino acids from the carbonyl end of the protein molecules.

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So it would seem that one is giving us 'good' head retention/body proteins and the other is giving 'bad' head retention/body proteins (to put it very simply). True? Can we realistically (and significantly) manipulate these enzymes via pH?

FWIW, I recently brewed a couple of ESB-type beers and doughed-in to rest at ~133 F for 10-15 minutes then infused up to sacc rest temp (mid 150s) and they have a LOT of body and a metric crapton of head. I'm using cheapo pH test strips but I think my pH was a tiny bit on the low side.