Hi all,
I'm planning on adding some raw wheat in small amount to my next brew. Hopefully to help with foam production and stability(?). I've been reading around most of the day and can't seem to find a clear answer on whether the raw wheat needs to be cereal mashed or if I can just chuck it into a single infusion mash?
Some places say that as long as I'm over the gel temp for the wheat starch in my mash, its ok to single infuse. While others say that flavour and extract suffer greatly without a cereal mash. As I'm only using it in hopes of head retention, I'm not too worried about poor flavour or bad efficiency on the small amount I will use.
So, what say you?
As a bonus question, regarding the cereal mash itself, does one "need" to add any barley malt at all? Couldn't you just (over)cook the starch and then do all the converting in the regular mash? Is the malted barley and short conversion step in a cereal mash just there to keep the cereal mash from getting too sticky?
Thanks for any advice or experiences in advance...