Wheat Beer Problems

[Easy Peasie]

Brewwed AG#7 at the weekend a dunkelweizen which was my first wheat beer and 2 step mash but have had really big problems with efficiency should have had 25l @1.055 but ended up with 23l @ 1.044 a vast difference. I have been adjusting my efficiency to 80-85% recently due to basing mine on 75% and the gravity being too high post boil.
Has anyone else had the same problem with wheat beers??? :wha:

 

[Aleman]

Has anyone else had the same problem with wheat beers??? :wha:

No, This weekend I was aiming for 60L at 1.051 and got 65-70L at 1.050

 

[Easy Peasie]

Aleman
I can appreciate that you do have considerably more experience than myself.
I did notice that the grain seemded to sink close to the bottom rather than the usual slight floating.
I have seen that you have suggested adding oat hulls before to wheat beer mashes to aid lautering. I had no problem with run off although would this enable the liquor to run more freely whilst sparging?.
I did notice that the grains at the bottom of the mash tun were still sweeting tasting while clean out

 

[Aleman]

It sounds as you had some channelling in the mash where the sparge liquor misses a portion of the grain . . .classically leading to a low efficiency.

Do you fly sparge or batch sparge?

 

[Easy Peasie]

Fly sparge.

 

[Aleman]

If you had sweet tasting grain left following the sparge it is pretty much certain that you had channelling of the goods, which can be down to all sorts of things. Sparging to fast, 'drilling' of the mash bed, poor manifold design, and numerous other things.

 

[Easy Peasie]

Will have to have another try, but have never had this problem with barley malt which is why I was wondering if it was just a specific wheat problem.

Thanks