Mashing flaked wheat (crappy brew day)

I made a basic partial mash (stovetop) wit last night, the recipe was 4.5lbs of flaked wheat and 3lbs of pilsner DME. I had a lot of problems mashing the flaked wheat, it basically turned to mush and retained a ton of water. I mashed using 2.5 gallons @ 152, but only ended up with about a gallon after I took the bag of mush out (it wouldn't strain through my grain bag). So I put the bag back in and heated up another 2 gallons in a different pot and mashed again. I ended up with enough water to do the boil, but my efficiency was way off. I was pretty frustrated at this point and apparently didn't stir enough and ended up scorching some of the DME. I ended up just making a 4 gallon batch that ended up at 1.046 and pitched. So now I have a way too dark (from the scorching) wit that who knows what it will end up tasting like.

ANYWAY, I guess my question is, is there a better way to mash flaked wheat, or did I do something wrong?

Throw in some rice hulls when using wheat, it will help it drain better! If I'm doing a wheat beer I will typically use .25lbs of rice hulls to prevent a stuck sparge.

I would suggest you sparge the wheat by taking it out of the mash kettle, draining it into the mash kettle and then submersing it in your boil pot with a couple gallons of water at 170F and let it sit for another ten minutes or so. This allows the wheat to release a lot of the converted sugar from the mash into the sparge water in the boil kettle. The wheat will still retain a lot of liquid, but think about oatmeal, that's what it does.

Deuce said:

Throw in some rice hulls when using wheat, it will help it drain better! If I'm doing a wheat beer I will typically use .25lbs of rice hulls to prevent a stuck sparge.

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++1

Always a good idea when using wheat or oats, especially when they make up 20% or more of the grist!

Does that really apply though when you are using a bag? It seems like it would be different.

I agree that you should let it sit in some 170 degree water to sparge. That way you can leech some of the sugars out and dilute the sugary solution that it stuck inside the grain bag.

I made the mistake of trying to make an Imperial Rye Whit not that long ago... huge grain bill of flaked wheat and pils. I went with a few different infusions (113, 120, 149) and ended up with a rock solid block o' mash.

I had to do the 'ol syphon in a glass with a hop bag around it to try to get the damn wort out and after fist fighting the thing for two hours, I was actually able to boil down and pitch. Turned out to be a reasonably decent beer.

I tried it again yesterday and while it was a nightmare brew session and i STILL had a stuck mash (even after using an obnoxious amount of rice hulls) there was significant improvement.

... I think the reason (and the point of this rambling) is that did my first rest at 100 degrees for 25 minutes. I just happened to notice a buried line in Palmer's How To Brew about mash temps and high percentages of raw or flaked wheat. he said a rest at about 100 for a good 20 minutes will help break down the "gelatin" associated with wheat and will go a long way to significantly loosening up the mash.

I DID get two stuck mashes at the beginning but after I cleared them, I was able to circ my mash through my HERMS system (verrrrry slowly but still...) for about 45 minutes and then run the wort completely out into my BK on its own. Again... very slowly but it SEEMED to help a ton.

Cape Brewing said:

. . . . he said a rest at about 100 for a good 20 minutes will help break down the "gelatin" associated with wheat and will go a long way to significantly loosening up the mash. . . . .

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+1, A beta glucan rest at ~102F will do wonders. I've done this with 100% wheat grist and the last one had no rice hulls, it was slow but didn't get stuck.