Wheat

[chrismccull]

I am looking at making a White IPA next and have found a recipe that I like.  Problem is, it calls for both malted wheat and flaked.  Why would you use both?  I have lots of malted, but, no flaked.  Should I just sub all malted, or, order in some flaked?

[brew]

I have some flaked wheat you can borrow...

[Chris Craig]

I'm not sure why there would be both in a recipe.  The flaked wheat has no diastatic power.  Perhaps it was added in a subsequent revision of the recipe just to boost mouthfeel and head retention.  I suspect you could just use the malted wheat, but scale the whole recipe so that you hit your target gravity.

[Richard]

Flaked wheat and malted wheat taste different - even after mashing. Reason being: the malting process changes the make-up of the grain. Various enzymes are formed during malting (i.e. your diastatic enzymes, amongst others) and they've come from breaking down other parts of the grain.

Flaked malt has both higher starch and protein content weight-for-weight also. Flaked wheat has a crisper/drier flavour to me than malted wheat, although I guess YRMV.

For the above reasons, best you use flaked wheat in the recipe styles that call for it - however you're not going to be a million miles off by using malted instead of flaked.

[chrismccull]

Thanks all.

Peter, I'll take you up on that offer.  I'll message you next week.

[sdixon]

Interesting to see your post. I just brewed a white IPA last weekend. I used equal parts Malt Wheat and Toasted Wheat Flakes (along with 50% Pilsner). In my recipe I found the hops didnt come though like I would expect in an IPA. I had 3 times more aroma hops than bittering hops, but I can barely smell a hop in the beer. In this beer I am using WB-06 so the banana was covering it in the early fermentation, but now that the banana has subsided, I'm not sure why the hops are not coming forward more. I plan to add a bunch of dry hops in secondary to make up for the lack of hops aroma and taste.

PS - I'm trying to decide between Amarillo/Cascade or Amarillo/Centennial (I suppose Cascade/Centennial could work also) combination for the dry hop... and suggestions? It's a small beer 4.3%, but I do want some citrus hops to come through in the beer. Comments welcome.

[Richard]

Most of the aroma is blown out during primary. I find the right taste also rides on the aroma. You need a decent dry hop

I'd roll with 0.5/0.5 amarillo/cascade for 5 days, per 5 gallons. Should perk it up nicely.

[sdixon]

Thanks Richard... Are you suggesting 0.5oz per 5 gallons?

[Richard]

0.5 each of cascade/amarillo, a total of 1oz. I assume you're not looking for a hop-bomb here.

[sdixon]

No, no hop bomb. I was just checking .5/.5 meant .5oz/.5oz and not 50% each... even though it does also mean that ;-)