HELP! Massive efficiency fail.

[domdom]

I've done about 5-6 all grain batches and gotten decent efficiency, usually a few points lower than a recipe indicated (say only 1.048 instead of 1.052). I just made this wheat IPA (recipe here at brewtoad: http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/zombie-head-ipa). I scaled the recipe to a 4 gallon batch as I just moved and only have an electric stove now. Brewtoad predicted the OG to be 1.068 and I only ended up with 1.031 after sparging. I added some DME and sugar and was able to even it out to 1.044 after the boil.

Other info:
-Mashed 1.5qt water/lb grain at 153, fell to 148 by end of mash. batch sparged with about 3.5 gallons of 170 water.
-measured grain, dumped together, and then hand milled with a cheapie corona mill (maybe the smaller wheat malt not getting milled as well as larger barley malt?)

What went wrong and how can i avoid it in the future?

 

[BlackGoat]

how fine was your crush with the mill? Also, wheat can be a little tougher to mash and can take a little time. How long was your mash?

 

[stpug]

I cannot see the recipe at that link. Regardless, that's a HUGE efficiency drop from expected. Nothing in your process indicates a culprit so I would start with the crush. Did you perhaps use raw wheat instead of malted? I will often times double- or triple-mill my wheat because I've seen it not crush as well in a mill. Ultimately, I would like to see the recipe but I would suspect the crush until then.

 

[orangemen5]

I'd say its from uncrushed wheat. I use a corona mill also. I've crushed barley at one setting then ran wheat through the same setting and the wheat didn't even crush. I noticed it before I started my brew day so I cranked the mill down and recrushed.

 

[domdom]

here's the grain bill for the recipe:
Pale Malt 4.5 lb
Red Wheat 3.5 lb
Munich Malt 1.0 lb
CARAMUNICH® I 8.0 oz
Melanoidin Malt 8.0 oz
2-Row Caramel Malt 40L 8.0 oz

considering the OG was about 30-40% less than expected and that's also about the same amount of the grain bill, i'm guessing it's probably the wheat as well. next time i'll mill the wheat separate and check to see what a good wheat crush look like.