Wheat malt/ Torrefied wheat

[kevthebootboy]

morning gents

quick question, i know torried wheat aids head retention but does wheat malt and torrefied wheat inpart the same unusal flavour into a beer?

cheers, kev

[rick_huggins]

Dunno for sure mate but I was 30g down of wheat malt on my last brew so added the difference in torrified wheat; will let you know in a week

[oblivious]

Some described torrified wheat as slight nutty, but the big difference it wheat malt has diastatic activity. I find quite big difference between flaked wheat and malted wheat that latter been more richer

[booldawg]

I've also heard people describe Torrified as leaving a cereal taste. Personally I like to add around 170g per 23L brew in most pale British styles.

[kevthebootboy]

Cheers fellas,

i ask because i think ive made a school boy error, i recently made up a simple bitter with some wheat malt in it, im thinking now i should have used torrified wheat instead, i theres the slight taste of the wheat in the beer that doesnt seem quite right to me, the bitter is very drinkable but i find my self not wanting to share it because of this slight flavour in the background, see what you think of the recipe,

"On the cobbles" bitter

25 litres 26 IBU
4000 gms pale malt
250 gms crystal malt
100 gms wheat malt

25 gms susan hops 90mins
20 gms first gold hops 15 mins (protofloc)

s-o4 yeast
SG 1.042 FG 1.008 4.3 ABV

Taa , kev

[Whorst]

I cannot stand the taste of torrfied wheat in beer. It leaves a cracker like taste that gets in the way of the malt if you use too much.
For cask beers, I switched to regular wheat as it's undetectable.

[kevthebootboy]

I cannot stand the taste of torrfied wheat in beer. It leaves a cracker like taste that gets in the way of the malt if you use too much.
For cask beers, I switched to regular wheat as it's undetectable.

by regular wheat do you mean wheat malt? undetectable? are you saying its not the wheat malt i can taste? should i be looking else where?

[Whorst]

Yes, malted wheat. I use 224g, roughly .5lb and I can't taste it. I've used .5lb of torrified wheat and the flavor comes through much too strong for my liking. In this particular case, the flavor went away with age. This was a beer left over from the Superbowl, as everyone knows I'm not one to excessively age beer.

[Dr. Dextrin]

As it 'appens...

I've just done two brews of a bitter (loosely based on Black Sheep Ale) - one used torrefied wheat and the other the same amount of wheat malt (10% by weight in each case). I was interested in the difference you might say. I'm actually drinking the two now and comparing them... they are distinctly different but describing the difference isn't that easy.

The wheat malt gives a lighter beer, more "up front" in the mouth. It seems to emphasise the flowery *flavour* of the hops (especially EKG) rather than the bitterness. Obviously (I suppose) it has a slight taste of a wheat beer about it. I'd say it tastes slightly sweeter than you'd expect for its final gravity (but it is the younger beer, so maybe that's what I'm tasting).

In contrast, I can't really taste the torrefied wheat in the other brew - it just blends in with the barley malt. I'd probably have to taste against a pure-barley brew to tell that it's there. The wheat beer flavour is absent and the *bitterness* of the hops seems to be emphasised rather than the flavour. The beer (both malt and hops) hits you further back in the mouth than with the wheat malt. This is probably closer to the "traditional" taste of an English bitter.

Both adjuncts give a good head, but the wheat malt is definitely a good bit ahead (ooh, sorry) on that score.

I have yet to do a taste test against my reference - Black Sheep Ale (BSA), but if I had to guess I'd say that 50/50 wheat/wheat-malt would be about right, or maybe a bit heavier on the wheat malt. If you taste against a brew with just torrefied wheat, there are quite definite wheat malt flavours in BSA (and it is highly regarded), so I wouldn't be embarrassed at having a wheat malt taste in your beer. Using lots of late hops seems to go well with it.

[Whorst]

It could also be down to yeast strain. I used UK-05, which is very malt and hop forward. With other yeasts, maybe the flavor doesn't come through as much?

[Scooby]

I use and prefer wheat malt, I'm not concerned with the head retention thing and use it for the slight grain flavour and fullness it adds to lighter beers, I only use in smallish quantities 2-5% and your 100g is at the low end of that so you certainly haven't overdone it.

[kevthebootboy]

Cheers for th replys lads,

im strugling to see why the beer has that slight wheat beer taste with only 100gms of weat malt when loooking over past recipes, especially the blond/pale ales have had upto 650gms of wheat maltin them and not tasted the wheat i them,
illl have to give this beer a damm good tasting over the weekend i might even be worrying for nothing and get used to the taste.