What Makes a Good Wheat for Brewing?

[colby_cheeze]

Hello all. I'm a BIAB brewer. Due to my job, I also happen to have access to dozens of different wheat varieties grown here in Kansas. I was thinking about malting some of these varieties and trying them out in some wheat BIAB brews. However, I'm not sure how to go about choosing what varieties to try out.

The folks I work with are familiar with wheat variety properties from the agronomic side of things, as well as how wheat variety properties and quality impacts the flour for bread, noodles, cookies, etc. However they're not so familiar with what would make a good wheat variety for beer. Do any of you have ideas on what would be important? Protein content is one thing to consider, and the more protein the more head the beer will have, and vice versa. However, is there anything else that would be good to know? Is there anything specific to BIAB methods that I should be aware of? Typically my wheat beers are half malted wheat, half 2 row, with or without some specialty malts for color and taste.

Also, are there any good reference books or websites you'd recommend for learning how to malt? I've never done it before.

Thanks

 

[colby_cheeze]

Moderators - could you please move this thread to the recipes/ingredients forum topic? Thanks.

 

[Homercidal]

There you are.

I have used mostly flaked wheat. It's unmalted, which is traditional for Witbier, and it's flaked, so it's pre-gelatinized.(sp?)

I've used white and red wheats as well, and I didn't think they worked as well as flaked. I'm not terribly interested in doing a protein rest if I didn't have to either, but others may find the extra step worth the effort.

That's about all I know about wheat. You may have many more varieties to choose from. You might want to try several and see how they taste side-by-side.