Adding Maltodextrin at bottling

[Juilin]

I brewed a cream stout and am ready to bottle it! It tastes awesome, but I'm worried about head retention. I'd been told that adding a some (4oz) of maltodextrin at bottling would help with that problem.

My question is this: Should I boil the maltodextrin and the priming sugar both? And do I need to account for the added fermentables being put into the brew when calculating my priming sugar?

 

[biggben]

From what I've researched malto dextrine is not fermentable. I recently bottled a smooth dark ale that called for malto and I just combined it with the priming sugar that I used for bottling. Had no problems got a nice mouth feel from it and it carbed great.

 

[airdusters]

From my experience maltodextrine does nothing for head retention, but does add quite a bit of body and very little sweetness.

Next time I'd add some torrified wheat to your mash if you want a good head.

 

[C-Rider]

I thought it was to be added late in the boil?

 

[biggben]

It can be added anytime up until bottling just be sure and boil it a little to kill off anything that might want to grow. I boiled mine with my priming sugar and then bottled my beer. like I said before no problems at all

 

[Juilin]

Thanks for the info. Didn't realize I was a bit off on my sources there. I really appreciate it!

 

[unionrdr]

According to Wikipedia,maltodextrin is commonly used in brewing to increase the specific gravity of the finished beer,since it cannot be fermented by the yeast. It reduces the dryness of the finished beer & increases mouth feel. It also has no flavor,& little to no sweetness.

 

[Brew_Meister_General]

It can be added anytime up until bottling just be sure and boil it a little to kill off anything that might want to grow. I boiled mine with my priming sugar and then bottled my beer. like I said before no problems at all

Sweet! I'll do the same then, but how much did you use to increase the gravity? I'm looking to increase mine by about 4 points.