Having problems with wheat..

[3RiverBrewer]

Hey guys I have been brewing for 2 years now and looking through my records I never have any problem when I use strictly barley. However, whenever I use wheat my OG is terrible. Last night I made a scrap pumpkin wheat beer of just what I had left laying around that I thought would be good.

3.75 lbs briess 2 row
.25 lbs roasted bareley
4 lbs Briess red wheat

I mashed with 3.5 gallons of water for 80 minutes at 153F (finished at 149F)
Sparged with another 3.5 gallons of water.

End Results: 4.25 gallons of beer to be fermented (my boil was to intense but thats a seperate issue) with an OG of 1.042. I was planning on just back filling to get to 5.5 with cooled boiled water but my OG was already way lower than I was expecting.

I'm trying to figure out why the mash efficiency is so terrible for this batch and some of my previous wheat batches. Is there something i'm missing?

 

[gcdowd]

I believe wheat is smaller than barley and would require a finer crush.

 

[frazier]

Things you could try, the next time:
1) A thicker mash. "normal" ratio is 1.25 Q/lb; you were at 1.75. So maybe drop the mash water to 9 or 10 quarts.
2) Wheat has no diastatic power of its own; use 6-row instead of 2-row, for its greater power. Or, just increase the 2-row.

I don't know if either of these would definitely cure the problem; you have to dial in a process that works on your system.

Good luck!

 

[gcdowd]

Pretty sure wheat has diastatic power, well malted wheat

 

[frazier]

Pretty sure wheat has diastatic power, well malted wheat

This is why you should never listen to me.

 

[Kaz]

Pretty sure wheat has diastatic power, well malted wheat

True, you can brew a weizen using a 100% wheat bill as long as you are prepared for the difficulty in sparging.

 

[jerrodm]

Could also be a problem related to your sparge. Do you use rice hulls? If you're doing a mash with a lot of wheat in it, you can get channeling which will reduce your efficiency. Toss in a lb. of rice hulls to improve your drainage, that might help.

 

[gcdowd]

Could also be a problem related to your sparge. Do you use rice hulls? If you're doing a mash with a lot of wheat in it, you can get channeling which will reduce your efficiency. Toss in a lb. of rice hulls to improve your drainage, that might help.

Yeah good call there. Rice hulls FTW! Nothing worse than a stuck sparge.

 

[3RiverBrewer]

Thanks for all of the suggestions so far everyone.. keep them coming!

I've been doing a little additional researching as well.. I went on Briess' recipe list and looked at their goldenweizen which says to mash at 108F then raise it to 148F for 50 minutes.
http://www.brewingwithbriess.com/Recipes/beer/display/goldenweizen

The other recipes that they show containing a high % of red wheat are all constant mash temps. I am assuming that it is for a flavor characteristic more than an efficiency thing but I'm not 100% sure for this.

Next time I brew using wheat I will mostly likely use all of these suggestions.. a finer crush on the wheat grains, a more concentrated mash, and the addition of rice hulls. It is slightly frustrating though that I can't seem to get it right when using wheat hopefully this will help though. I very much appreciate the suggestions... DME is always an option too but I'd much rather get this right with all grain.

 

[RM-MN]

Wheat kernels are harder than barley too so read up on conditioning wheat to soften it a bit before you crush. You'll get a better crush that way. Another thing to try is double milling your grains and doing this batch BIAB because you will be using the entire surface of the bag for the filtering and won't worry about a stuck sparge.

 

[gcdowd]

Thanks for all of the suggestions so far everyone.. keep them coming!

I've been doing a little additional researching as well.. I went on Briess' recipe list and looked at their goldenweizen which says to mash at 108F then raise it to 148F for 50 minutes.
http://www.brewingwithbriess.com/Recipes/beer/display/goldenweizen

The other recipes that they show containing a high % of red wheat are all constant mash temps. I am assuming that it is for a flavor characteristic more than an efficiency thing but I'm not 100% sure for this.

Next time I brew using wheat I will mostly likely use all of these suggestions.. a finer crush on the wheat grains, a more concentrated mash, and the addition of rice hulls. It is slightly frustrating though that I can't seem to get it right when using wheat hopefully this will help though. I very much appreciate the suggestions... DME is always an option too but I'd much rather get this right with all grain.

Could it be a protein rest thing?