Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Pasta in Beer?


I mentioned in my last post that I had 6 oz of wheat pasta in my last batch of beer and said that it's a long story. It really isn't. The wifey has a gluten allergy, but she likes to have macaroni and cheese once in a while. She'll make it with rice pasta, but she likes the cheese packet from the regular Kraft Mac N' Cheese. So instead of tossing the unused Kraft pasta out, I'll save it, and throw it in the mash of my next beer. It's such a small amount that I don't think it affects flavor, color, or head retention, it just adds 6 extra ounces of fermentables to the beer. Although, this last beer has nice head retention, which you're supposed to get from wheat.

2 comments:

  1. That is super interesting. So have you done this in more than one beer? If so, have you noticed better head retention on all the beers? Do you cook the pasta before adding it to the mash? Sorry a lot of questions!

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  2. I have done this in more than one beer. I haven't noticed better head retention on the others, but some were wheat beers to begin with--they had another source of wheat besides the pasta. This time I cooked the pasta with the cereal (rice) mash, but in the past I've just ground it up and added it to the regular mash. No problem with the questions--I think answering them helps me as much as it does you.

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