toasting wheat

[Owly055]

I'm in the process of toasting malted wheat for my next brew. The plan is to toast a pound of wheat at low heat to a nice golden brown, and use it along with 4 pounds of two row. It smells wonderful! Like baking bread. I'm curious as to what effect this will have on flavor. Anybody else do this?

I assume that this will kill the enzymes in the wheat, so it's my intent to supplement the mash with a small amount of amylase.

I'm after flavor, and don't relish the cloudy character of wheat beers, so my intent is to do a protein rest. 20% of the grist is pretty conservative, so I assume that the enzymes needed for the protein rest will be present in sufficient quantity to do the job. Presumably they will be destroyed in the toasting process.


H.W.

 

[wingedcoyote]

If 80% of your mash is regular 2-row you probably don't need to bother with the amylase, it should convert just fine.

I would hesitate to do a protein rest. My experience has been that doing one with fully-modified malt creates an unpleasantly thin and headless beer. My experience is pretty limited though, someone who knows better should feel free to correct me.

 

[Owly055]

I hit 80% efficiency with a 30 minute mash using my toasted wheat. I went ahead and tossed in a small amount of amylase because of the short mash. I have a pound of the stuff, and occasionally use it when using questionable ingredients.
I forgot to add my second hops addition, and tossed them in when pitching.... so my IBUs will be down around 30 instead of the low 40's where I was shooting... oh well! It isn't the first time I've screwed up. The toasty flavor is not very distinctive at this point. I may increase the amount of toasted wheat next go around.


H.W.