Brewing characteristics of wheat malt

First of all, wheat malt is rich in β-amylase enzyme, which has much higher saccharification power than barley malt, and it can supplement the insufficient enzyme activity of barley malt, which is even more beneficial when used in brewing with high auxiliary materials and low germination rate malt. In addition, wheat malt is easier to paste, so the problem of incomplete saccharification does not exist at all in brewing.

Secondly, wheat malt has a high glycoprotein content, thus favoring the foamy properties of the beer.

Thirdly, wheat malt contains relatively high soluble nitrogen, which is favorable to the fermentation of beer and the control of fermentation toxic substances such as diacetyl.

Fourth, wheat malt contains low tannin content, only 30%-50% of that of barley malt, which in this respect is beneficial to the colloidal and flavor stability of beer.

Fifth, wheat malt without hulls, leachate content is higher, generally can be higher than the barley malt 5 percentage points.

In addition to the above five characteristics conducive to beer brewing, there are two unfavorable characteristics, one is the wheat malt is naked wheat, in the wort filtration, not only can not form a filter layer, and it has a finer mud will fill the filter layer, so it is more or less to the wort filtration Zhao into a negative impact;

Secondly, the protein content of white wheat is about 1% higher than that of barley, and the proteins in wheat are usually in the form of macromolecules and soluble, due to the role of protein stabilizing factors, he can’t be as easy as barley proteins can be disintegrated and removed, which will give the colloidal stability of the beer to bring about trouble. Therefore, brewing with wheat malt has higher technical requirements.

How wheat malt is used in brewing

So far, there are basically three ways of applying wheat malt in brewing:

Brewing beer with wheat malt as the main raw material, generally require the amount of wheat malt accounted for at least 50% of the total raw material, this kind of beer is called wheat beer or white beer, such as Germany’s Berliner beer.

Beers brewed with wheat malt as a secondary ingredient generally have a wheat malt dosage of between 10% and 40%.

As a modifier in the barley malt-based beer brewing, to improve the beer’s mellowness and effervescence, the amount of wheat malt is generally 10% or less.

Solving the key problems of wheat malt in brewing

Wort Filtration Problems

Wheat malt causes filtration problems for two reasons: one is the absence of hulls, resulting in a reduction of the natural filter layer and poor permeability, and the other is that the endosperm cell wall of wheat is mainly composed of pentosan, which has a large viscosity and is difficult to be degraded, leading to an increase in the viscosity of the wort. In the purchase of malt, the first should choose the agreement method of wort filtration speed faster.

The use of humidification crushing, and adjust the roller spacing of 0.3-0.35mm, try to keep the seed coat intact, which helps to form a natural filtration layer, humidification of the wheat temperature after the best can reach 35-37 ℃.

Add compound enzyme preparation at the time of discharging. Tests have proved that by adding saccharification compound enzyme can effectively shorten the wort filtration time, increase the content of α-amino nitrogen and improve the foam.

The solution of wort turbidity

Wheat malt protein is high, poor control can easily cause wort turbidity problems. Wort turbidity affects yeast growth, beer filtration, diatomaceous earth dosage, abiotic stability, and beer sensory. To control the turbidity of the wort, the first thing to do is still to control from the wheat malt itself, choose the agreement method wort turbidity is low, at least in 4EBC or less, the visual inspection should be clear and transparent, try to reduce the burden on the latter process.

Nevertheless, plus wheat malt wort after boiling is still greatly processed turbidity currently advertised in the wort boiling with carrageenan method, can be effectively removed from the coagulation.

By adding polyglycation complex enzyme can solve the problem of wort filtration and wort turbidity after the increment of wheat malt, can effectively shorten the wort filtration time, increase the content of α-amino nitrogen, improve the foam.

Solution of non-biological stability problem

After adding wheat malt, the sensitive protein content of wort increases, which should be removed by all means, otherwise it will affect the abiotic stability of beer. Wort boiling with carrageenan slurry macromolecular proteins to be removed, storage period or filtration, before filtration, filtration to increase the amount of silica gel added; in the beer filtration in the flow of tannic acid.