Since I am brewing a wheat beer, I have been reading up on the proper mashing procedure. One of our readers, Winn, brought up an interesting point about wheat beers and the use of a protein rest during mashing.
I have read recipes that call for it. I have read posting that say it isn’t necessary.
What say you?
Do I need to do a protein rest for my honey wheat ale?
Jake
From what I understand, protein rests are just used to keep your beer from getting too cloudy. Personally, I don’t really care how my beer LOOKS, and besides, wheat beer is SUPPOSED to be cloudy.
Winn
It’s really only necessary if you have a lot of moderately modified or unmodified grain in your grain bill, so as to release as much starch as possible for the enzymes to break down into sugars during the higher mash temperatures. The danger of doing it more than a few minutes (10 to 15 at most) is a significant and noticeable reduction in head retention. I’ve read some good posts about it on the Northern Brewer forums — search a bit there and you’ll see a lot of people arguing each way.
I did a brief protein rest for my Honey Wheat, but I’ve decided I regret that, because I’d rather have a proper cloudiness and head retention than worry about falling slightly short of the target OG.