Impulsive Wheat

[PT Ray]

I brewed a German wheat Thurs. night. with 2/3 wheat, 1/3 pils malt. No problems except I have normally been getting 87% efficiency and it dropped to 81%. While at work today I figured since my 3 year old is out of the house this weekend I would take advantage of the free time and brew another weizen, only I did not have a starter. Then I thought, I have a five gallon starter going as we speak. I will take a half gallon of the active fermenting brew from Thurs. to start my new brew. Might as well go for broke and bump the wheat to 70%. Now lets sub some of the pils malt with 4.5% roasted barley, give it a little roast flavor but still keeping it dry like a traditional wheat. I just got finished with out any problems, again repeated the same efficiency. I just hope I added enough of Thurs. batch to get this one going. I think for my next wheat, I will go with 85%. I would like to know how much wheat one has used without the aid of hules before running into problems.

 

[Dude]

Well, this is a classic case of "you can't have everything".
If you want better efficiency, you have to crush the wheat almost to a flour consistency, but then you will have run-off problems. It is a never ending dilemna!

A short protein rest may also help your efficiency too.

 

[homebrewer_99]

If you roast your grains darker you can make it a Dunkel Weizen...

 

[PT Ray]

Well, this is a classic case of "you can't have everything".
If you want better efficiency, you have to crush the wheat almost to a flour consistency, but then you will have run-off problems. It is a never ending dilemna!

A short protein rest may also help your efficiency too.

I don' know how much finer I can go. I torque the wing nuts on the corona mill all the way down turning the wheat into something that resemble coarse grits mixed with flour. I haven't had any run off issues but if the grain bed is not set just right it will tend to keep passing small pieces of wheat.

 

[Dude]

I don' know how much finer I can go. I torque the wing nuts on the corona mill all the way down turning the wheat into something that resemble coarse grits mixed with flour. I haven't had any run off issues but if the grain bed is not set just right it will tend to keep passing small pieces of wheat.

Did you do a protein rest?

Sounds like your crush is okay. I had pretty much flour when I did my wheat--but it was a nasty stuck mash, too.