Rice hulls for BIAB hefeweizen?

[BarleyStanding]

Brewed a BIAB hef on Monday, about 65% wheat to 35% pils. Single infusion, 151 F ,60 minutes, then boiled 90 minutes for a final volume of around 6.5 gallons. Added a clover honey at flameout. Beer Smith calculated 1071 OG, I got 1048. Normally, my numbers don't match Beer Smith, but I don't sweat it because I can usually attribute it to volume or temperature changes. This is way off, and I'm scratching my had on this one. Used a refractometer and verified with a hydrometer. I know wheat is "stickier" than other malts, and I've never gone this high of a wheat content in BIAB. I've always used rice hulls when brewing with a MT. Do other people still use wheat hulls in BIAB to "float" the wheat malt?

 

[RM-MN]

Wheat malt is smaller and harder than barley malt and it often does not get crushed well enough for full conversion. Blame the crush for the lower mash efficiency. Hulls in the mash will not fix this.

 

[BarleyStanding]

That would make sense. I have my LHBS crush a little more on the coarse side.

 

[PaisanMaisano]

I agree with the others as far as your crush possible issue. Personally I only BIAB and have never used rice hulls. I use wheat in all my NEIPAs. Not at a grand level though. I recently did a witbier which was 50% belgium pale and 50% wheat. I had no issues. I guess my real question is do you stir your mash at all?? I usually stir every 15 mins, or 7 if it's a huge grain bills. There needs to be increased surface area due to the bag and the pot. Or so I've been told.

Cheers,
-Paisano

 

[Beernik]

Two strategies to consider:
1) always run your wheat malt through the mill separate & consider double milling it if you don’t get a good grind on the first pass.
2) if you are using less than 40% wheat you could go with torrified or flaked wheat and use the lager malt’s diastatic power to convert the starches. I’d run a diastatic calc on the grain bill to be on the safe side using this strategy.

 

[BarleyStanding]

I also stir every 15. The grain was only 12 pounds in 22 qt of water. It didn't occur to me, but I suspect it may be crush, as others are suggesting. I'll make another batch in a month or so with a finer crush on the wheat and see how it goes. Thanks all for the input. BTW, Wyeast 3068 is a beast! Never used it before. Glad I had a blow-off rigged up with a catch bucket.

 

[RM-MN]

I also stir every 15. The grain was only 12 pounds in 22 qt of water. It didn't occur to me, but I suspect it may be crush, as others are suggesting. I'll make another batch in a month or so with a finer crush on the wheat and see how it goes. Thanks all for the input. BTW, Wyeast 3068 is a beast! Never used it before. Glad I had a blow-off rigged up with a catch bucket.

A Corona style mill is pretty cheap and does a good job on any grain. Having your own mill means you can have the grain milled the way you want every time and it opens the possibility of buying grain in bulk for the cost savings if that is important to you. It only takes a couple batches for the cost savings to pay for the mill.

 

[Ninoid]

I brew Weissbier, BIAB, 100% dark wheat malt crushed in store like any other malt, without rice hulls. Efficiency is about 10% smaller (66%) than with barley malt. Before this I brew Hefeweizen with 50% wheat and 50% pilsner malt and I had the efficiency 5% better than usual (83%).

In my experience with BIAB techniques, there are no special problems with wheat malt (and rye ditto).
In my experience, efficiency is most affected by mixing grain and maintaining the temperature. I've noticed that since I'm doing mash out I have about 5% more efficiency. I concluded that this was because of the better squeezing bag at a higher wort temperature.

 

[RM-MN]

I brew Weissbier, BIAB, 100% dark wheat malt crushed in store like any other malt, without rice hulls. Efficiency is about 10% smaller (66%) than with barley malt. Before this I brew Hefeweizen with 50% wheat and 50% pilsner malt and I had the efficiency 5% better than usual (83%).

In my experience with BIAB techniques, there are no special problems with wheat malt (and rye ditto).
In my experience, efficiency is most affected by mixing grain and maintaining the temperature. I've noticed that since I'm doing mash out I have about 5% more efficiency. I concluded that this was because of the better squeezing bag at a higher wort temperature.

The real reason you get higher efficiency with a mash out is that you weren't getting full conversion and the higher temperature causes the alpha amylase to work faster. Milling the wheat malt finer will accomplish that (and probably more than 5%) without the mash out. You can then use water straight from the tap (if you don't have chlorine or chloramine in the water) without needing to heat it.

 

[Ninoid]

The real reason you get higher efficiency with a mash out is that you weren't getting full conversion and the higher temperature causes the alpha amylase to work faster. Milling the wheat malt finer will accomplish that (and probably more than 5%) without the mash out. You can then use water straight from the tap (if you don't have chlorine or chloramine in the water) without needing to heat it.

Maybe. I don't know because I never use iodine test.
I wait for 60 minutes at a temperature of 66'C (+/-2'C) and then rise to 75'C and wait another 10 minutes.

 

[BarleyStanding]

Update: Although the efficiency was way off, the beer came out great! It's so tasty, and going so fast, I went down and got ingredients for the same recipe. I talked to the guy at my LHBS and he set his mill for a fine crush, also had the grains milled separately. He also brews BIAB, so I know its a good crush this time. We'll see if this makes a difference. Also, I looked at my equipment profile and noticed the MT Specific Heat was set for SS, so changed it to AL to reflect my equipment. I can't see that Specific Heat of the vessel would make much of a difference, but maybe? No rice hulls in the grist. I'll post an update once I have this batch in the fermenter.

 

[BarleyStanding]

And here's the update. Before brewing, checked the thermometer against a digital thermometer, calibrated the pH meter; everything checked out. The water is a constant (used the same as last time) and ran the same recipe, a little warmer at 154 for 60 minutes (wanted a little more mouthfeel in this batch). Hot mash pH 5.5, full conversion at 60 minutes, and a 154 mash all the way through. Still ended up at a pre-boil gravity of 1.036 where BS was kicking out 1.042. Hit an OG of 1.056 where BS was giving 1.068. The numbers are a little closer this time around, but still off. I went over to Brewer's Friend and input the recipe. The pre-boil is similar to what I got, but the final OG is still off by a factor greater than .01. I looked at my last 20 batch brew notes and I've come to the conclusion that something is off in the BS equipment or mash profile I'm running when I run a 90 minute boil. Both the equipment and mash profiles are custom to my set-up and I always nail the numbers at a 60 minute boil (any differences I can usually attribute to variances in temp or volume). The only reason I'm running a 90 minute boil is for the Pils, and now I'm starting to question whether or not that is even necessary. I think I recall reading that today's malts are modified enough that a 90 minute boil is unnecessary, at least when it's less than 50% of the grist. In the end, the beer is coming out great, so all of this is more academic than anything else, and I've never been one to panic much when the numbers don't match. I'm going to pull the trigger on a 240v system soon, which will require a little bit of calibration, so I will probably chalk this up to user error in BS and move on. I think I'll make a British Golden next week. Thanks for the input, I do think that the finer crush helped on this batch. Cheers!

 

[BarleyStanding]

Just read a serendipitous eMail post from Brad Smith about equipment profiles for BIAB in Beer Smith. He states that topping up, which is what I was doing to get the volume for a 90 minute boil, decreases efficiency and must be accounted for in the equipment profile. I was topping up without adjusting the equipment profile. Hope this helps someone else down the line.

 

[Ninoid]

100% wheat malt mash update:

New beer with 100% wheat malt and efficiency is again 10% smaller than in a half-half mixture with barley malt.

School taught.
Do not make beer with 100% wheat malt.

 

[thespiff]

I've been through this on another thread. I also BIAB and see lower efficiency with high amounts of wheat (though in this old post I was still doing single infusion, batch sparge in a homemade cooler MLT):

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/...-malt-and-low-efficiency.568074/#post-7933139

I still haven't tried the recommendation from that thread (a low temp rest before raising to your target mash temp) but maybe it makes you feel better to know you aren't alone. I do use rice hulls in BIAB for 40% or greater amount of wheat, I think it does help get the wort out of my bag and into the kettle in a more reasonable amount of time.