Gravity problems with wit

Hey guys,

I just brewed a wit yesterday with equal parts American 2-row and torrified wheat, and 1lb flaked oats. The crush looked fine, and I used a simple mash with batch sparge. the grain bill was 9.5lbs, and I mashed for an hour at about 155 with 4gal, then sparged with 4 more gallons @ 177 or so. Beersmith said my O.G. should have been 1.052, but The reading I took after brewing only came to 1.036! I mashed with about a half gallon more than it said to to raise the temperature a little, and made up for it with a little less sparge water. My intended mash temp was 152. What went wrong? Needless to say, I'm pretty frustrated. Thanks in advance for any help!

what temperature did you take the reading at and how well did you mix it before you pulled the sample? Regardless, beersmith lied to you cuz 1.052 would be 100% efficiency @7 gallons. Sounds like you got 70% efficiency to me, nothing wrong with that

I took the reading after the boil at about 62 degrees. I didn't think to take a pre-boil reading. I also only ended up with about 4.5 gallons in the fermentor after a 60 min boil, but I've read that this might be due to greater absorption by wheat and oats than barley.

oh my bad, i misinterpreted what you meant, thought that was a pre-boil reading. Nothing sounds wrong with you're technique, so I'm at a loss unless you're thermometer or hydrometer are off.

I always have low efficiency when I use a lot of wheat - I guess because it doesn't get crushed as completely. I suspect torrified wheat is the same.

hmmm... Thanks Kanz, I'll do some research on that.

I've read that torrified wheat needs a protein rest at ~120F for 15-20 minutes to break down proteins into more fermentables, I'm thinking that's probably what I did wrong.

Proteins aren't fermentable.

What I meant was, "to break down proteins and release more starches from the endosperm, which could then be broken down into fermentable sugars in the mash." stupid autocorrect