Correlation between wheat malt and efficiency?

[IslandLizard]

Re: Corn Mill

I have not. But I may have to get one..

Takes a while to mill 20-24# of grain (for a 10 gallon batch) on one of those corn mills, especially with a hand crank.
I think you'd be much happier with a 2-roller mill,* powered by a drill or dedicated motor. You'll never look back.

Plus I buy malt by the sack, not by the pound. That has earned back the investment of the mill 2 times over, easily.

At home, best bet would be to mill the regular grains, then reduce your gap and then mill the wheat.

That's what I do. Being able to quickly change the gap width (less than a minute) on my 2-roller mill* makes it a no-brainer. Not just for wheat, any small kernel grain such as Oat malt, Rye malt, Triticale, benefits from an accordingly tightened gap. I enjoy 82-85% mash efficiency regardless of grain size.

When done, I leave it where it is. So generally I need to reset the gap once during each milling session.

* Note: From what I've read some (most?) 3 roller mills are not as easy to adjust, keep that in mind.

 

[jdauria]

Re: Corn Mill
* Note: From what I've read some (most?) 3 roller mills are not as easy to adjust, keep that in mind.

You are correct, 3 roller mills are not as easy to adjust. I have one and it requires me to remove the hopper in order to measure the gap. However, I have not had an issue with wheat malt not getting crushed at my normal setting with the 3 roller. But I also condition my grain (spritz with water 10 minutes before milling) which helps plump up the grain slightly.

 

[Barbarossa]

But I also condition my grain (spritz with water 10 minutes before milling) which helps plump up the grain slightly.

Do you see a reduction in flour when you condition it?

 

[Vale71]

FYI conditioning only makes sense if there is a hull to condition. Wheat malt is naked and all you're achieving by conditioning it is making a mess in your mill.

 

[TheMadKing]

I'm going to necro this recently deceased thread to throw out another possible factor that was not mentioned here

I recently learned thanks to Silver is Money and Vikeman that wheat has a DI ph value of about 6.1. If you are using a significant proportion of wheat in your mash, this is enough to drive your pH up significantly unless you compensate with additional acidification.

For example I recently brewed a beer with a grist composed of 77% Maris Otter and 20% wheat and 3% Honey malt with an intended OG of 1.080 and this required 5.5mL of 88% lactic acid to keep the pH in spec at 5.4. Had I acidified using Beersmith's built in calculator, I would have added only 2mL of 88% lactic. This would have resulted in an actual mash pH of 5.65.

So it seems the most commonly used brewing softwares do not account for the large alkalinity contribution of wheat, which could be a contributing factor. FWIW this beer's efficiency turned out exactly as predicted at 66% (normal for an OG this high on my system)

 

[Genuine]

I haven't had any issues with wheat malt itself, more so raw wheat berries. The last time I used raw wheat (in attempt to use up what I had left), i had to mash for about 1.5-1.75 hours to have it convert.

 

[IslandLizard]

The last time I used raw wheat (in attempt to use up what I had left), i had to mash for about 1.5-1.75 hours to have it convert.

Raw wheat (as well as most other raw, unprocessed grain) needs to be pre-boiled or cereal mashed before it can be used in mash, due to high gelatinization temps. Even flaked corn benefits from a 30' preboil (or cereal mash). Your extended mash duration may have helped getting sufficient gelatinization before it could be converted, as does finer milling.