California Weisse

[akueck]

Building off the success of my first attempt (see <a href="http://www.gotmead.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=412&topic=5395.0">here</a>), I'm making another soured wheat beer. Things got started tonight.

2.25 lb German pilsner malt
1.5 lb white wheat malt
3/8 lb acidulated malt
2 oz flaked wheat

I mashed in a pot with a pasta insert (3/8" holes). There was a gallon of deadspace below the insert, so the initial mash was 9 5/8 qts. I mashed in to a temp of 98ºF for 20 mins then raised the temp to 152 and left it there for about 50 mins. First runnings were 2 gallons of SG 1.055. Second runnings were 1.5 gallons of SG 1.021. I took the first runnings plus 2 quarts of the second runnings and 3 quarts of water, let cool to "warm" and added about 4 oz of milled pale malt. I also added 1 tsp of yogurt. Now it's sitting on the stove, hopefully souring away. ;D

Tomorrow I'll boil and add the hops, etc. Will update accordingly.

I also have a gallon of second runnings left over. I'm trying to convince a friend to make some beer with it, we'll see. I might use it for some odd experiments.

 

[akueck]

I forgot to update. Oops. Well, souring worked well and I let it go for about 20 hours. Then I boiled and added 5/8 oz Tettnang (3.8% AA) for 15 minutes. Cooled and pitched WLP011 (European Ale). Only 2.5 gallons made it to the fermenter. (I'm still working out my kettle losses, now that I'm actually paying attention to them.) OG = 1.037.

The yeast took a day to get going, which I thought was a little long considering the low gravity. But that's ok, things fermented nicely for a few days then settled down. Fermentation took place at 68 F and then things cooled to about 64.

I bottled today with 2.75 oz corn sugar and got 20 12oz and 2 22oz bottles (a little less than 2.5 gallons). FG (with priming sugar) was 1.008. This should have a little more than 3 volumes of CO2 when carbonated.

This batch is much better than the last one so far. The sourness is much more pronounced and is a cleaner sour without any weird "rotten grain" flavors. I guess yogurt was a good idea. Next time I'll put the yogurt in a nylon bag though, since there were some chunkies floating around and I could only fish out a few of them. They all got left behind in the kettle, so no big deal, but still I think some containment would be good.

 

[akueck]

Opened the first bottle tonight. Mmm, very good.

Color was the same as the first time I made it, more or less: straw and fairly pale. The house is being releveled (they moved the kitchen floor down an inch along one line today) so there was a lot of yeast stirred up which made it cloudy. Lots of bubbles, but very poor head retention as before.

Tastes really good; the yeast lent a wheaty flavor and the sour was pronounced and very clean and crisp. Overall a good beer and a significant improvement over the first try, though I'd love to know why I still don't get head retention at all.

 

[Oskaar]

Here are the things that spring to mind about head retention:

- Body (and head) builders like the "cara" malts
- Altered mash schedule to include protien rests
- Adjuncts that increase head and head retention
- High alpha acid hops

Seems like maybe light carapils, but I'm thinking specifically carafoam. To my understanding it's the lightest dextrine malt out there and adds good body and head retention without compromising the flavor of your target end product.

Hope that helps,

Oskaar

 

[akueck]

Yeah, I added the flaked wheat for head generation/retention. I think it's slightly better in this batch than the first, though hardly much to brag about. I obviously want to stay away from high-alpha hops since my total IBUs are about 5. I'll try a cara malt next time maybe and see how that goes, though I want to keep the body really light. I guess that's hard to do while boosting the head. I was hoping the large amount of wheat malt would help, but I guess not. Perhaps I'll swap more out for unmalted?

Though I had another one today and converted a friend to the land of sour beer. So it's a good beer with or without a beautiful foamy head.

 

[wildaho]

I'm surprised that the wheat hasn't given you more head. It leaves more proteins for head retention than either cara-pils or cara-foam. I often throw in a pound or two of wheat in my IPA's just for that reason.

Especially with your stepped rest, this should have been a "heady" experience. You mash temp seems about right for a nice balance of fermentability and body. How is the body by the way? And how did you carbonate?

 

[akueck]

The body is good. It's obviously a "light" beer with a FG of 1.007 or so, but it doesn't taste thin at all. There's plenty of carbonation which helps in that regard.

Carbonation was just bottle conditioning. It's been in the bottle for 2 weeks or so and might have a bit more left to go since the yeast hadn't all dropped out yet.

I think I might use more unmalted wheat next time in case the malted wheat proteins have been broken down too much. Worth a shot anyway, and this is a super-easy beer to make so I won't be out much time if it fails.

 

[akueck]

I had a thought: how much does pH affect head retention? As a sour beer, this should be on the low side (I'll have to measure it soon). I should have plenty of proteins, I should have leftover carbs (the other half of beer foam), but maybe the foam is unstable at low pH? Or- maybe my carbs are not sufficiently long for stable head? Maybe dextrine would help in that regard...

 

[akueck]

Yet another theory....

I was reading up on making homemade yogurt, and the consensus seems to be that the bacteria metabolize the milk proteins to create lactic acid. (any microbiologists care to comment?) In that case, could the bacteria have chewed through all my proteins, thus killing the head? Hmmm..... Perhaps next time I'll steep some carapils/wheat right before I boil to kill off the bugs.

 

[wayneb]

Lactobacillus acidophilus, lactobacillus casei, lactobacillus bulgaricus, bifidobacteria bifidus, etc., chew through the complex sugars (lactose and galactose) in the milk, producing lactic acid. The lactic acid acts on the casein and other proteins in the milk to cause them to bind together and tighten up. That causes the curdling to occur which turns the milk proteins in yogurt into a thick to gelatinous glob.

If they chewed through the proteins, you'd be left with something the consistency of water.

I am not a microbiologist, but I have made yogurts and cheeses almost as long as I've made brewed beverages, and I know this is how yogurt microbes do their thing. The consensus seems to be incorrect in this case.

It is more likely that something is acting as a surfactant in your brew. Could be a long-chain hydrocarbon (i.e. oil), or it could be a detergent. Either of these will do a number on head retention. BTW - depending on where you get your brewing water, you may be at a disadvantage. I remember when I lived in south Houston (near Clear Lake City), the municipal water was so contaminated with hydrocarbons and soft salts (i.e. sodium and potassium chloride) that I had to use bottled water to get any decent head formation on my brews. There was too much "natural" surfactant in the municipal water supply to allow it to be good for much of anything.

 

[wildaho]

Some good points Wayne.

KISS. Always look to the simplest solution. Aaron, how do you clean your glasses?

And I've never thought about how pH might effect head retention, especially when using soured malts. The grain bill should be VERY conducive to massive head. But as wayneb said:

If they chewed through the proteins, you'd be left with something the consistency of water.

It's the proteins that leave us that nice fluffy head, as well as the body when we're talking about beer.

Hmmm... another avenue to explore

 

[akueck]

Well, the beer is quite thin, not too far off from plain water in viscosity or gravity. Huh.

Brewing water is tap, same for all my beers.

I don't think it's the glasses as other beers are fine. I'm sure I could get better performance with washing soda etc but whatever I normally do isn't enough to kill the head on any other beer. Perhaps I will try a baking soda rinse and get back to you.

Wayne- I like your version of biochemistry. I was confused with the notion of protein scavenging over sugars, thus I thought I'd put it up for comment.

Edit: was thinking about long-chain HC and starches, except they're not equivalent. Late-night posting is bad...

 

[akueck]

Updates: pH test and the "clean glass" test.

I have 3.0-6.0 pH test strips. This one registers <= 3.0. I wouldn't imagine it's much below 3 because the yeast must have still been alive to carbonate in the bottle.

I also tried to really clean my glass. I did the following to a normal soap-cleaned glass:
1. rinse with standard commercial distilled vinegar.
2. rinse with water.
3. rinse with baking soda solution.
4. rinse with water.
5. rinse with vinegar.
6. rinse with water.

Water was tap. At no point did anything but water, vinegar, and baking soda touch the inner surfaces of the glass. I let it drip dry for a few minutes then shook the remaining water off.

Result: same as before. Lots of bubbles formed a cap at first, but not a real beer foam. The bubbles dissipated within a minute and the only foam-looking things are stuck to the edges of the glass (as before). No real head to speak of, and obviously no retention thereof.

So far this beer is cloudier than the first version, and more sour. I would assume the clouds are indicative of suspended proteins? Maybe it's just a matter of time before it really drops clear.

In any case, this beer is tasty. Very little aroma but a bit of lemony-freshness. Taste is sour and clean and refreshing with some lemon notes. And I take back what I said before about viscosity; this beer does have some weight to it, though not much.

So I guess I'll try my usual mash, sour, boil, pitch routine next time, but with the following changes: no grain for souring, just a pre-started yogurt culture (to avoid the chunkies in the kettle); steeping some flaked wheat and/or carapils to add after souring for a protein/carb boost. I think I might also try pitching the bacteria in the fermenter along with the yeast instead of souring and fermenting separately.

Time to empty some bottles.....