Making A Wheat Beer

HI ALL,i'm planning to make a wheat beer soon,the last two times i've made a wheat beer,i've fallen quite short of my desired og.I do a single infusion mash and have started batch sparging since my last attempt at a wheat beer . any ideas on why i havn't hit my desired og,and what can i do to make sure i do this time. thanks, don

What are your recipes looking like? Do you have enough diastatic power in the mash to convert the wheat fully? Have you done a starch test? Were you fly sparging beforehand? Why did you switch? Are you using a mash out? What are your batches for sparging? Are you using rice hulls?

Perhaps try a step mash, but I would think you should be a to fully convert without one.

Perhaps your efficiency is not as good with a wheat heavy grain bill.

thanks for the reply,i've used recipes with about 50/50 wheat malt to pale malt.do check for conversion.did fly sparge,changed because it's esier and faster.i did use rice hulls.and when i batch sparge i usually drain the tun then split the remaining amount needed into two more sparges.

How well is the wheat ground?

not sure,i have the store grind it for me

off topic - i'm interested in this also! got a wheat going right now that i missed OG by about 6-8 thousandths (1042 instead of 1048-50).

mkade said:

How well is the wheat ground?

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+1, Wheat is some pretty tough stuff, I would try a second run through the stores mill. Downside is a finer grind will be more likely to stick. Keep plenty of rice hulls on hand.

I brewed a wheat yesterday with a similar process.

I got around 80% efficiency with 5 lbs US wheat malt and 3 lbs British Pale milled in my BarleyCrusher at factory setting. So it at least is possible with your process.

My process was...

Mash in with 4 gal @ 163f to hit 154 in my 7.5 gal round cooler with a false bottom. Stir briefly to ensure no dough balls. Mash 60 minutes.

Recirculate 1 gal and drain tun. Infuse 2 gal @ 180f. Stir briefly. Rest 20 minutes.

Recirculate 1 gal and drain tun. Infuse 2 gal @ 185f. Stir briefly. Rest 20 minutes.

Recirculate 1 gal and drain tun. Total collected ~6.75 gal.

Boiled 60 minutes. Ended up with 5.25 gal in primary at 1.044.

the store i get the grain from probably mills all the grains together,would it be worth having them mill the barley and the wheat malt seperatley?