Midwest Grain Crush Update

To begin this topic, I'm not an employee, or otherwise compensated by Midwest Brewing in any way for my review of their products.

After a forums search for Midwest grain crush, I ended up reading a lot of bad reviews about the crush (or lack thereof) of grains ordered from Midwest. I did this search after ordering 4 all grain kits from them and was a little concerned about the efficacy of their grain mill, therefore my efficiency.

It's fine. I brewed three of the four kits, the largest grain bill last night, and hit 78% efficiency. Simply looking at the grains, they are well crushed, but not over crushed.

I believe that many on the forums that order kits from suppliers are ether mid-way into their all grain experience, or just getting started. I will qualify that I have brewed only 10 all grain batches now. It also seems to me that some people worried about grain crush appearance may be expecting hulls and powder to come in their kits. Maybe not so extreme, but certainly some expect over-crushed grain to be "normal."

Midwest supplied me with perfectly crushed grains. For my still young brewing practices, I ended up with great efficiency on the last three batches, and expect that to continue with the fourth and final kit I ordered from them.

Please don't be afraid to order All Grain kits from Midwest as a way to explore new styles, or as a way to try new recipes. Their crush is fine.

~Wm

Midwest is my LHS and the staff at MS is very helpful and knowledgeable. I was in the store and just got done crushing my grains (without looking at the roller settings) when an employee walked by and noticed that my grains weren't crushed enough. He kindly adjusted the mill and re-crushed my grains.

I don't think the internet community knows that Midwest has an adjustable mill that is available for anyone to use free of charge. Customers can go in and change the crush size to accommodate their preferences. My advice on ordering online is to leave a note on how you like your grains crushed in the comments box when checking out. That way the MS staff can do their best to satisfy your order.

Like winterparkmg, I am not an employee of Midwest. Even though I have spent enough time to be considered one.

Whereas I love and order regularly from Midwest, I can attest to having received under milled malt from them. In order to have endosperm acessable to enzymatic action it must be cracked and exist in A few different sizes with hulls intact ( separate from endo but not themselves broken) to maximize wort clarity during the runoff. That being said, with a single pass malt crusher, there will always be some compromise.
I have received 3 kits to date and one allgrain order from them and was alarmed at the amount of whole grain in their crush. Having not read or posted any other thread on this subject, I can tell you that it happens and I order around 50% of my materials from them and they are inconsistent at best.

I've only ordered one kit from midwest, but there was a fair amount of pure powder and extremely fine material in with the specialty grains. Not sure if this is really such a big deal or not.