fizgig

Recipes 

thanks for that, wow, that's quite different.

Ogri

Recipes 

Those look more like just cracked than crushed.

You can pick up a corona mill, as cheap as chips. ( http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_12?url=search-alias%3Dgarden&field-keywords=corn+grinder+mill&sprefix=corn+grinder%2C garden%2C575 ) The one I'm using really tears up and shreds the grain which works great for BIAB and yielded really good efficiency on my two BIAB/AG brews to date.

Oh, and another +1 for the guys over at BIABrewer.com. Really enthusiastic and very helpful.

bradfordmonk

Recipes 

if you don't have access to a grain mill either yourself or local homebrew shop (they'd more than likely allow you to run some grain through for you), otherwise I'd say to contact Midwest. I wouldn't brew with those grains, as you are going to have same problem with efficiency.

i bought myself a corona mill, works great. hand cranking is a workout, but i don't brew all the time (but may change more frequently with buying bulk grains). Don't know if it's annoying enough to want to attach a drill to it.

I bought mine from Walmart (http://www.walmart.com/ip/Weston-Cereal-and-Multi-Grain-Mill/14223932). They ship free to store or free to a FedEx location. And it was fast for me, ordered it, had it in 2 days. The Weston one even has a sticker on the box that says "Great for homebrew." haha

Definetly wash them with soapy water before use and rinse well (because mine smelled like oil a bit). Then dry good, I threw mine in the dish washer with just heat dry on (don't wash it in dish washer).

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fizgig

Recipes 

Thanks guys, I think I'll actually spring for the barley crusher, knowing how I am, I would probably end up upgrading in a few months and letting the corona mill rust in the garage. Sorry to highjack your thread but it was pretty much the exact same issue I had and I figured keeping all the info/replies in one spot would make sense, I have contacted Midwest, waiting on a reply.

Update: Midwest has taken care of me, thanks again everyone.

midwestsupplies

Recipes 

Glad to hear that everything was taken care of. Sorry that there was an issue to begin with.

Good luck with your future brewing endeavors!

~ Nick

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johns

Recipes 

I am having the same problem. So I am perplexed as to why my efficiency is lacking and I am hoping someone here can give me some advice as to what I am doing wrong. I am thinking it’s the crush and maybe it’s not fine enough. The following is the basic recipe used.

I crushed the grains from 030, to 028 and double crushed at 028. Did a 90 minute mash stirred at the doe in until there was no doe balls. Preheated oven to 155 f, but the pot inside the oven and stirred again at 45, and 90 minute mark. After that I did a rest at under 170 (165 to 170) f, for another ten minutes. At which time I took two coffee cups and squeezed the hell out of the grain bag. The grain bag sat on a large strainer over the pot. The wort was raised to boiling temps and added hop additions as per recipe.

2 lbs 12.4 oz 2 row
11.1 oz Vienna
6 oz 10L
I am using 2-05 but I think that’s irrelevant.

The hop additions are at 60, 30 and at the flame out. It’s a 2 gallon batch. I am also conduction an experiment with different hops so I am in the middle of making 3 more batches of this beer.

My BeerSmith says that I should have a OG of 1.052 but my measurement was at 1.042. This happened on both batches of beer have made so far. Again one batch was with a mill gap of 032 and the other was at 028 using my new barley crusher.
On these batches I am using a 14 diameter pot for a 60 minutes boil.
I added 3.9 gallons of spring water. I have used this water before and since it’s bottled from the store I do not suspect there are any PH issues here. I also know this because I have never had problems with PH yet and all oh my batches have fermented out. Given that I expect to lose 1.25 gallons to the boil, 0.60 to trub (I understand the trub from the grain bill might be almost double and I just guess at this amount), and the rest for grain absorption, should have put me somewhere near my target efficiency rate of 75%

Can someone help me discover my mistake? Is there anything I can do differently to get my numbers up a bit higher, aside from sparging with warm water?

Also what is the proper milling gap used to achieve the highest efficiency. People write and say various things anywhere from 020 to 030 and that’s a big difference. Maybe it’s just a guess, I am not really sure, but I would like something more definitive then these numbers I have seen.

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RM-MN

Recipes 

The highest efficiency is when everything is ground to flour. It's called a congress mash and I don't think even BIAB can deal with that fine material but that is where the math for efficiency is take from. A congress mash should convert 100% of the starch to sugars. For your BIAB you want the crush as fine as your mill can handle without having problems feeding the grain. You may have to adjust the rollers wider for the first crush and then tighten them up. This may not be worth your time as adding a little more grain to compensate for less than the highest efficiency would not cost very much. Lots of people would caution you against "chasing efficiency" and instead shoot for reasonable efficiency and consistency.

bradfordmonk

Recipes 

Just got my order from Midwest, crush is way way better this time (looks completely different than first time). Seems like they'll be paying closer attention to grain milling in the future. Thanks folks for replies and Midwest for the replies as well.

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tonyc318

Recipes 

So glad I came across this thread tonight. I'm planning a brew on Saturday and I just re- inspected my grains. I ordered frame MoreBeer. Last batch I did I got 65% when I had been getting 75% with NB grains. The ingredients for this weekends brew are from MoreBeer and the crush isn't fine enough for BIAB. So I called up my neighbor who has a grain mill. I'm going to head over tomorrow to run the grain through again. Hooray!

bradfordmonk

Recipes 

yea, its probably just more that so much grain goes through them, that they just get out of whack if not paid close attention to. But its good they are made aware of issues so they can fix and prevent them from happening.

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