Improving foam longevity with egg white

[MehrdadMolavi]

Hi friends,

In order to increase the longevity and lacing of foam, I add 30 ml egg white to 1000 ml beer while bottle conditioning.
At the begining of bottling for second fermentaion , I dilute 30 ml egg white with 20 ml water then add the mixture by a measured syringe to my 1000 ml bottle of beer then shake it well and store in refrigerator.
I have uploaded the photos of my beer with and without added egg white after two weeks and compare them for 120 seconds duration, as you see, the longevity and lacing of foam with added egg white(photo#1) is much better than that of without added egg white(photo #2).
Also the moutfeel with added egg white beer is improved and there is no smelling of egg.

Good luck.

 

[Airborneguy]

This is a new one. I have never seen this before.

 

[pvtpublic]

Dry or raw egg whites?

 

[thiagoedwardo]

thats interesting, would be nice to test if with smaller ammounts.
The eggwhite was pasteurized?

 

[Miraculix]

This sounds like a good way to catch salmonella, if you ask me.

 

[Airborneguy]

Assuming this would be for competitions only, submitting a beer like this without disclosing the egg is wrong and if you do disclose it, judges may refuse to drink it.

 

[DBhomebrew]

OP is making themselves an alcoholic beverage in a place where our typical ingredients and supplies are difficult to obtain. Competition is unlikely.

Have y'all tried adding alcohol and carbonation to an available non-alcoholic malt beverage? Suggestions for improving mouthfeel and head retention in that circumstance?

@MehrdadMolavi, thanks for sharing your experience.

 

[Brushwood Brewing]

I read about this in Lars Marius Garshol's "Historical Brewing Techniques" book. Some farmhouse brewers add a whole raw egg (without shell of course) straight into the fermenter.

Thanks for sharing the result of your experiment!

 

[AlexKay]

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1094/ASBCJ-45-0027?journalCode=ujbc20

 

[mac_1103]

I wonder if anybody's ever tried whey protein, since it's so widely available?

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

Egg white is also used to create foam in other alcoholic beverages such as whiskey sour. I'm not gonna put it in my beer, but an interesting topic nonetheless.

Cheers

 

[day_trippr]

 

[Rish]

This sounds like a good way to catch salmonella, if you ask me.

About 1 in 20000 eggs have salmonella according to CDC, and usually not in enough numbers to be of issue for a healthy person. You can pasteurize at home by heating shell eggs to 140*F and holding for a minimum of 3.5 minutes according to USDA. Whether the very slight risk or the trouble is worth improving head retention and lacing is up to the individual. I sure as heck wouldn't care that much!

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

FFS, people.

Take the time to understand the quality and necessary precautions for cooking with eggs.

OP states OP is in Iran. Most of us are not.

American store-bought eggs are probably not the "farm house eggs" that Lars talks about.

Feel fee to "you do you" within with your home brew in your house. If you intend to send something to a competition, please make sure the risk of salmonella is zero. Not approaching zero. Zero.

 

[MehrdadMolavi]

Dry or raw egg whites?

Raw egg white.

 

[MehrdadMolavi]

thats interesting, would be nice to test if with smaller ammounts.
The eggwhite was pasteurized?

No it was not pasteurized, usually the alcohol in your fermented beer prevents it from spoilage.

 

[MehrdadMolavi]

This sounds like a good way to catch salmonella, if you ask me.

Yes it could be, but generally, the alocohol in your beer kills most bacteria, Salmonella,etc pathogenes while aging in the bottle for second fermentation.
Here is a link in this regard:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nadiaa...safer-than-drinking-it-fresh/?sh=53e5fed52e16

 

[MehrdadMolavi]

Assuming this would be for competitions only, submitting a beer like this without disclosing the egg is wrong and if you do disclose it, judges may refuse to drink it.

Yes, its up to the person to drink or not, although adding egg white for foaming is not a new method in history ☺

 

[MehrdadMolavi]

OP is making themselves an alcoholic beverage in a place where our typical ingredients and supplies are difficult to obtain. Competition is unlikely.

Have y'all tried adding alcohol and carbonation to an available non-alcoholic malt beverage? Suggestions for improving mouthfeel and head retention in that circumstance?

@MehrdadMolavi, thanks for sharing your experience.

Yes, I make my alcohol beer by non-alcoholic beer since only non-alcoholic beer are legal in my country, regarding the head retention, besides egg white, I suggest Quillaja extract.

 

[VikeMan]

I suspect that eggs whites might enhance foam retention because of their proteins, the majority of which are ovalbumin, which happens to be a glycoprotein. Glycoproteins from malt are known to enhance foam. I think there are some egg white powders available as supplements.

 

[MehrdadMolavi]

I read about this in Lars Marius Garshol's "Historical Brewing Techniques" book. Some farmhouse brewers add a whole raw egg (without shell of course) straight into the fermenter.

Thanks for sharing the result of your experiment!

Yes it's an old method, but according to my experience, egg yolk prevents making foam so I use only egg white.

 

[MehrdadMolavi]

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1094/ASBCJ-45-0027?journalCode=ujbc20

Thank you very much.

 

[MehrdadMolavi]

I wonder if anybody's ever tried whey protein, since it's so widely available?

Good idea, but it may affects the taste of beer alot, let's try it ☺

 

[MehrdadMolavi]

About 1 in 20000 eggs have salmonella according to CDC, and usually not in enough numbers to be of issue for a healthy person. You can pasteurize at home by heating shell eggs to 140*F and holding for a minimum of 3.5 minutes according to USDA. Whether the very slight risk or the trouble is worth improving head retention and lacing is up to the individual. I sure as heck wouldn't care that much!

 

[MehrdadMolavi]

FFS, people.

Take the time to understand the quality and necessary precautions for cooking with eggs.

OP states OP is in Iran. Most of us are not.

American store-bought eggs are probably not the "farm house eggs" that Lars talks about.

Feel fee to "you do you" within with your home brew in your house. If you intend to send something to a competition, please make sure the risk of salmonella is zero. Not approaching zero. Zero.

I use eggs provided in hypermarkets which are generally safe.

 

[thiagoedwardo]

Yes it could be, but generally, the alocohol in your beer kills most bacteria, Salmonella,etc pathogenes while aging in the bottle for second fermentation.
Here is a link in this regard:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nadiaa...safer-than-drinking-it-fresh/?sh=53e5fed52e16

you should consider the fact that the article said that you need something that has at least 20% alchool, so not most beers...
That said, i eat raw eggs and never had any problem. In movies americans always seem so afraid of things like that, apparently they are in real life too.

 

[AlexKay]

Those of us who were alive in the 80s and 90s saw some pretty major egg-related salmonella outbreaks. In the UK too, not just the US. It’s less of a problem now than it used to be.

And salmonella is no fun. Would I change my behavior to avoid a 1% chance of salmonella? You betcha.

 

[thiagoedwardo]

Yeah, i think it was just never a big problem here, so no one got the trauma. We do have some others, like most people here hate undercooked meat

 

[mac_1103]

I think there are some egg white powders available as supplements.

Most of the supplements I found are in pill form and have other ingredients that one might not want, but there is a product on Amazon that is 100% spray dried pasteurized egg whites. Seems a bit pricey though.

 

[Spivey24]

Cal me crazy, but I prefer #2. #1 makes me get a new glass with each beer. Lol

 

[MehrdadMolavi]

I suspect that eggs whites might enhance foam retention because of their proteins, the majority of which are ovalbumin, which happens to be a glycoprotein. Glycoproteins from malt are known to enhance foam. I think there are some egg white powders available as supplements.

Yes, the foam is made by the proteins and it also causes haze and turbidity and you can fine-tune it by adding some gelatine to reduce the turbidity.

 

[MehrdadMolavi]

you should consider the fact that the article said that you need something that has at least 20% alchool, so not most beers...
That said, i eat raw eggs and never had any problem. In movies americans always seem so afraid of things like that, apparently they are in real life too.

Yes you are right, the more alcohol the faster disinfection in a period of time, so if the amount of alcohol is low then you have to keep it longer in contact with pathogene to be more effective.

 

[MehrdadMolavi]

Those of us who were alive in the 80s and 90s saw some pretty major egg-related salmonella outbreaks. In the UK too, not just the US. It’s less of a problem now than it used to be.

And salmonella is no fun. Would I change my behavior to avoid a 1% chance of salmonella? You betcha.

We could use pasteurized egg white to reduce the risk.

 

[MehrdadMolavi]

Yeah, i think it was just never a big problem here, so no one got the trauma. We do have some others, like most people here hate undercooked meat

Dried egg white powder also increase the foam but you need to dilute it well before adding.

 

[Pablo Rocha]

Just add 50g of wheat flour during mashing and the problem is solved.

 

[Broothru]

This sounds like a good way to catch salmonella, if you ask me.

The commercially available packaged egg white, such as Egg Beaters brand 'whites only', would be pasteurized.

 

[Pablo Rocha]

Just add 50g of wheat flour during mashing and the problem is solved...

 

[Rish]

1% chance

1/20,000=.00005% chance.

 

[AlexKay]

1/20,000=.00005% chance.

As I was saying, it was much worse in the 80s and 90s than it is now. You kids don’t know how good you’ve got it…