Wheat beer efficiency

I seem to be having a problem with wheat beers. I'm still trying to get a routine down and a sense of calm when brewing (six all grain batches so far). The two wheat beers I've tried came out low in the efficiency department. One not so bad and barring any problems will be drinkable, but the first has gone the way of the drain. The other brews have come out just fine, actually above the 75% I'm using with Beersmith. Is this a wheat thing, or are both screw ups bad timing?
Since the first wheat I've learned a bit about water and have gotten that issue resolved(I think).

I brew a fair amount of plain ol' wheat beers and my efficiency (and process for that matter) doesn't really change that much from brewing any other style of beer. I do add rice hulls to the mash to help avoid getting things stuck, but that's no big deal. Similar efficiencies. I don't really know of any reason why you'd be way off. Are you doing anything different than your other brews? How bad is bad on the efficiency department? You are milling the wheat with the barley right? (Just checking)...

How is your crush? You really need to crank the gap down when milling wheat to get a good crush.

If you are milling your wheat at the LHBS and their mill is not adjustable you can try running it through twice to crush it finer.

What was your conv. eff like? Lauter eff?

Knowing that, will tell you where the problem lies and what you can do about it.

Without those 2 numbers, anything else is just a guess.

Chester said:

How is your crush? You really need to crank the gap down when milling wheat to get a good crush.

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Some people have called this a culprit in the past, on my BC mill though I have always crushed wheat the same as I crush barley and never had any lower eff. in the mash.

The Pol said:

Some people have called this a culprit in the past, on my BC mill though I have always crushed wheat the same as I crush barley and never had any lower eff. in the mash.

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That's where I am. I just run it through with the barley...

The Pol said:

Some people have called this a culprit in the past, on my BC mill though I have always crushed wheat the same as I crush barley and never had any lower eff. in the mash.

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I would suspect that if you normally crush your husked grains on the fine side then at the same setting husk-less variety's will be crushed adequately. However if you only crush your barley adequately your crush on wheat with the same setting will not be adequate. Does that make any sense? Just speculating here I haven't done any experiments with this.

Back when I used the LHBS plate mill I noticed that I had a lot of whole wheat berrys coming out the other end and started running it through 2 or 3 times.

Now I mill my barley with the gap at .020 and wheat and rye at .015 which is pretty fine but seems to work well for me.

Chester said:

I would suspect that if you normally crush your husked grains on the fine side then at the same setting husk-less variety's will be crushed adequately. However if you only crush your barley adequately your crush on wheat with the same setting will not be adequate. Does that make any sense? Just speculating here I haven't done any experiments with this.

Back when I used the LHBS plate mill I noticed that I had a lot of whole wheat berrys coming out the other end and started running it through 2 or 3 times.

Now I mill my barley with the gap at .020 and wheat and rye at .015 which is pretty fine but seems to work well for me.

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That is flour!

I mill mine at .036"... WOW

The Pol said:

That is flour!

I mill mine at .036"... WOW

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I'm not sure the brand of the mill but I was told it is a big three roller knurled microbrewery size mill. The recommended setting they have posted on the front is .025 for barley and .020 for wheat so I only crank it down a little. I haven't got in there with a feeler gauge so who knows what I am actually milling at.

Man my roller mill makes flour at .033", that is amazing.

I've given it some thought and remembered that the first wheat was the first batch I did with my BC. I used the factory setting and ran the whole grain bill through together. I was surprised that my four year old hand cranked the whole batch. I didn't think much of it at the time, being my first all grain. My next batch was all barley at factory setting and I figured no problem to hand crank the bill. It was doable, but not something I would do unless I had to. 1/4 of the way through, my drill came out. For the second wheat, I tightened up the rollers for the wheat and ground it seperately. The crush looked pretty good and once mixed with the barley, it all looked the same. One thing that did change was the last wheat was done with a new braided ring intead of the straight braided piece I used before. I'm thinking that maybe I didn't get all the sweetest, dense wort from the bottom of the cooler. Whether or not that mattered, I'm on a three day tour and am just about finished with my new copper manifold, yeah

I've only done one AG with a significant amount of wheat in it, but it had waaaaay lower efficiency than my other brews which are very predictably between 70-75% depending on how much grain I have. I fly sparge with a false bottom, so I really think the culprit is the crush. I'll run it through twice next time.