Crappy Efficiency with Wheat in Grain Bill

[ScottSingleton]

Since I got my own mill about a year ago I've probably done about 10-15 5 gallon batches of various beers. Each time using the measured volumes/gravity inside of BeerSmith to show my my Measured Efficiency.

I Typically Batch Sparge with the the sparge water set at 170, using this as my mash out. Sometimes I fly sparge. I notice about a 5% increase in eff. when I take the time to fly sparge properly (over 45-60 minutes). My Average efficiency is anywhere from 75%-80%.

Today was my first batch batching using about 40% malted white wheat. It was a decoction mash, where I did a 10 minute rest at 133 decocted 2 gallons which raised the mash to 155 where it sat for an additional 55 minutes. When the decoction was added back into the mash I also added 1# of rice hulls to keep the grain bed a bit loose.

My measured efficiency with BeerSmith was a whopping 60%. I missed my target Pre-Boil gravity by .008 and added 30 Minutes on the front side of the boil (sans hops) to thicken it up a touch. Ended up getting back about .004 with the added boil off.

Do you guys think this was a one time thing on my part? I missed something -- missed a temp, etc?

Or with the wheat should I have done a finer grind?

I'm looking to try and identify what caused my lower efficiency here so I can try and eliminate it next time. Any ideas on this?

 

[crackhead7]

I have to narrow may gap andmill wheat seperately. Just did a wit Saturday and narrowed gap for the wheat to. 024 and hit normal eff This time.

 

[KuntzBrewing]

Thinking about a wheat here soon, not to thread jack but should I have the hbs run my wheat thru twice?

 

[Rev2010]

I mill my own grain and when I do my double decoction hefe's I always get 79% efficiency, just did one again this past weekend. 79% efficiency is what I've been getting consistently with my other non-wheat batches with this mill but the odd thing is when I don't double decoct and make a wheat based beer using hot water infusions my efficiency is all over the place. My last hefe with hot water infusions came it at 70% efficiency. I was having somewhat lower efficiency with my Belgian Wit's too at 73% but got that up to 78% by doing a protein rest which helped since using flaked wheat/oats benefits from it.

Anyhow, I too wonder what the deal is with wheat. I have read that wheat can often take longer to convert and often benefits from a 90 minute sacch rest though I haven't tried it yet, I plan to with my next infusion hefe. I would just decoct them all if I could but I get complaints from the family members upstairs about the smell, so it's rare when I can do a decoction. It could of course also be your crush. My whole reason for getting my own mill was because of Northern Brewer's wheat crush - got 56% efficiency on my first AG hefe. Been way better since.


Rev.

 

[RM-MN]

The grains of wheat are smaller than barley and harder too so you need to set the mill gap smaller to adequately crush them.

 

[HawkATP]

I just did my first 50% wheat batch and got 75% with batch sparging. I crushed it twice at .026, conditioned my 2-row prior to crush. For the decoction I kept it at 122 degrees for 30 minutes and then raised it to 154 for an additional 60 minutes.

 

[ScottSingleton]

Thanks for all the responses guys! It's definitely got to be my crush.. I just crushed the wheat in with the base malt.

I'll give this recipe another go around in about two or three weeks and crush the wheat seperately with a finer setting.

(the oberon clone post #16 here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/bells-oberon-clone-31422/index2.html)