Which is better for stout head retention? 1kg of spraymalt, or brew enhancer?

[hatrickpatrick]

I'm making a Coopers Irish Stout kit, and my homebrew company offers a choice of fermentables when buying. One option is Coopers Brew Enhancer 3, which contains light malt extract, dextrose, and maltodextrin. It doesn't say what the ratios are, it just says "a high proportion of light malt extract combined with dextrose or maltodextrin", so I'm assuming it's somewhere close to 50/25/25.

The other option is 1kg of straight-up dark spraymalt, nothing else.

I already have a stout syringe, which lets you do a nitro pour without any nitrogen (apparently Guinness used to be sold this way years ago) and I've used it on some other non-nitro stouts with great success. So all I need to know is, of the two options (brew enhancer 3 vs dark spraymalt), which will give a longer lasting head? I'm aware that stout kits made with regular sugar tend to have heads which, even when using the syringe trick, disapate quickly so that there isn't much head left at all once you're half way through the pint. So I'm definitely going with one of these two options - does anyone have experience of either, and which would be better for a head which doesn't fizzle out quickly?

 

[flars]

I would go with the brew Enhancer 3. This one is designed to boost the ABV with the spray malt and dextrose while keeping the body of the beer from being too thin and dry with the maltodextrin.

Making sure your glass doesn't have any soap or spot remover residue is necessary for head retention.

 

[hatrickpatrick]

I would go with the brew Enhancer 3. This one is designed to boost the ABV with the spray malt and dextrose while keeping the body of the beer from being too thin and dry with the maltodextrin.

This is certainly what I've been looking at - I'm only pausing because my homebrew store recommends the dark spraymalt instead, and sells it as a default bundle. So I'm just wondering if there's any advantage to doing it that way, or if that's just commercial on their part because their margin might be better on selling spraymalt.

I'm very fond of stout in all its varieties, so at the moment my priority is trying to achieve a lasting, non-disapating head - differences in taste are a little irrelevant to me since I'm a stout obsessed boozer to begin with In that specific context, would you still recommend the enhancer over the spraymalt?

 

[flars]

This is certainly what I've been looking at - I'm only pausing because my homebrew store recommends the dark spraymalt instead, and sells it as a default bundle. So I'm just wondering if there's any advantage to doing it that way, or if that's just commercial on their part because their margin might be better on selling spraymalt.

I'm very fond of stout in all its varieties, so at the moment my priority is trying to achieve a lasting, non-disapating head - differences in taste are a little irrelevant to me since I'm a stout obsessed boozer to begin with In that specific context, would you still recommend the enhancer over the spraymalt?

I don't think adding dry spray malt, to the liquid spray malt already in the recipe, will affect head retention. It will boost ABV without drying and thinning the body of the beer as pure dextrose will.