Mashing questions

What is the water/grain ratio for a protein rest? I always have terrible efficiency when I do a wheat beer. Usually 50's to 60's where I average 70's + when not doing a wheat.

I was also thinking of making something out of plastic with a handle to put ontop of the mash inside the mash tun to try and keep some of the heat from leaving the mash. I use a 50 quart mash tun, so when I make a 5 gallon batch theres quite a bit of room left in the mash tun.

My mashing process is usually 1.25 qt/lb, I mash out then sparge.

Thanks in advance everyone!

Whenever I do a protein rest (rarely, and usually only with german pilsner malts), I aim for around 1qt/lb.

What kind of wheat are you using? Also, how much wheat?

I usually don't have a problem with conversion of wheat even when I don't use a protein rest. I just throw a 1/2 cup of rice hulls in and let the mash go to town.

have you had sparge issues when using the wheat? Maybe you're getting channeling and not fully rinsing the grains. Try the rice hulls like he mentioned and see if that helps.

+1 to the rice hulls. I use them every time I do a wheat beer. Never had a stuck sparge or an efficiency problem

I usually use Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM). My recipes generally have 4-7 lbs of wheat. I've used rice hulls befor, but I'll giver another go and see how it goes. Thanks guys!