Partial mash?

I’ve really enjoyed beer kit and extract brewing but I’m tired of **** head retention.

I need to start partial mash – everything I’ve read suggests it is cheaper, gives good head (sorry) and allows more creative control.

I believe I understand the process but can anymore advise where I can learn about which grains etc are used in which amounts etc. I can’t seem to locate a good resource for this. Can anyone help?

Commercial brewers (and homebrewers) often use torrified wheat to help head retention. However it must be mashed with diastase containing grain like pale malt to convert the starch to fermentable sugars. No more than 10% TW seems to be the rule.
That aside poor head retention can sometimes be attributed to dirty glasses. If you can see small bubbles formed on your glass when its full of beer the glass is greasy. Detergent residue wont help either. My beer glasses get washed separately from other stuff and then dried with a dedicated glasses cloth.
And finally it is said that sometimes longer conditioning help beer head retention, something to do with tighter smaller bubbles forming as the CO2 leaves the liquid.

For advice look up things to do with all grain. The only difference between all grain and partial mash is that in the latter some of the base malt is substituted with extract. Otherwise the process and ingridients are the same.

Thanks guys, I'll try both.

Flaked Gunge, sorry, Barley is also good for head retention. I'm definately a convert and put it in most of my brews now

terrym said:

Commercial brewers (and homebrewers) often use torrified wheat to help head retention. However it must be mashed with diastase containing grain like pale malt to convert the starch to fermentable sugars. No more than 10% TW seems to be the rule.
That aside poor head retention can sometimes be attributed to dirty glasses. If you can see small bubbles formed on your glass when its full of beer the glass is greasy. Detergent residue wont help either. My beer glasses get washed separately from other stuff and then dried with a dedicated glasses cloth.
And finally it is said that sometimes longer conditioning help beer head retention, something to do with tighter smaller bubbles forming as the CO2 leaves the liquid.

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Hi Terry

Can you recommend a product/volume that I should use? I normally use a kit, add crystal malt and lme or dme. I don't think my skill level is good enough to mash yet. Is there a product that I can add to my existing process?

I've read about wheat malt, torrified etc - I'm a bit lost and would welcome some advice.

Thanks.

MyQul said:

Flaked Gunge, sorry, Barley is also good for head retention. I'm definately a convert and put it in most of my brews now

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Is there a product you can recommend for someone at the kit/extract level? I'm reading about partial/mini mash but I don't think I'm there yet.

Thanks!

kakistos_uk said:

Is there a product you can recommend for someone at the kit/extract level? I'm reading about partial/mini mash but I don't think I'm there yet.

Thanks!

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Other than my earlier comments about TW, longer conditioning and dirty glasses I cant really help any more, except to say that some people add maltodextrin to their brew, which is supposed to increase body and mouthfeel, and that might give beer head retention but I have no experience of that. Some Coopers Brew Enhancers (there are 3) contain maltodextrin so you could try that, again I don't use them, so I suggest you research which might be best, if you want to give it a try.

kakistos_uk said:

Is there a product you can recommend for someone at the kit/extract level? I'm reading about partial/mini mash but I don't think I'm there yet.

Thanks!

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I not really aware of any. What Flaked Barley, torrified wheat, etc does is up the protien level in the wort as lots of protiens are what lead to good head retention

Hi!
I know that it doesn't directly answer your question, but I always added about 300g maltodextrin to my kit brews to aid head retention and body.
I also agree with @terrym about glass cleanliness: we had a lot of problems at my local WMC with beer presentation, and eventually we realised that much of it was due to glass cleanliness.

kakistos_uk said:

I don't think my skill level is good enough to mash yet.

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Nothing ventured, nothing gained - give mashing a go, you may surprise yourself.

I do partial mashes. You can produce a 12-15L brew with 1kg DME and around 1kg of grain. Because the grain volume is relatively small, you can mash in a large stock pot (in a bag, BIAB) and even pop it in the oven (turned down/off) to keep the temp up for an hour. Then just lift the bag out, a quick dunk sparge in another stock pot or your FV, then do the boil with the liquid, adding in the DME at the end. Add to your FV and top up with cold water, just like you'd do an extract brew.

And if that feels too much, just do a small mash in a saucepan: 250g or 500g of base malt (Maris Otter), and use that with a kit instead of brewing sugar or malt extract.

kakistos_uk said:

I need to start partial mash �" everything I’ve read suggests it is cheaper, gives good head (sorry) and allows more creative control.

I believe I understand the process but can anymore advise where I can learn about which grains etc are used in which amounts etc. I can’t seem to locate a good resource for this. Can anyone help?

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There's quite a few resources online that give good overviews of the various malts and their uses. E.g.
https://www.winning-homebrew.com/malts.html

And of course John Palmer's "How To Brew":
http://howtobrew.com/book/section-2/what-is-malted-grain/malt-types-and-usages


It can seem somewhat overwhelming at first as there are many malsters - most producing similar malts but often with different names, but generally they fall into two categories: base malts and specialty malts. Base malts are the primary source of fermentable sugars after mashing where the specialty malts are added for flavour, colour etc. Quantities very much depend on the recipe and style of beer being brewed!