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FlyGuy · 05-09-2007, 07:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by barside laundry

You guys are good: the hookers, the mother's day gift, all of it-really good stuff. Has anyone ever made a mill? I am a wood/metal shop teacher with a lathe..... As for the thermometer issue, i will borrow a glass lab 15 inch thermometer (I would think that is accurate as anything) and run some tests. The iodine test is certainly something I will do, which I have not done before. From what I have read it seems like I put some wort on a white dish and add a drop of iodine and check for a color change, right?

Yuri has done a nice mill. See here.

And yes, you have the right idea about the iodine test. Just remember that if you have any grain or husk material in your sample, it will react with the iodine, so the test will not always show 'negative' even if conversion is complete.

**Sir Humpsalot** · 05-09-2007, 07:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Got Trub?

All good tips

Personally having gone through all this with my new location/water/equipement etc my recommendation would be as follows:

1) 65% efficiency - RDWHAHB!
- This isn't terrible and easily made up for with relatively cheap grains. You can buy alot of grain for the price of one grain mill

I agree.

Quote:

4) Change one thing at a time! This way you will know what made the difference if anything.

But in the case of pre-crushed grain, these two points are contradictory. Unless you use the same base grain from the same supplier, crushed on the same mill on the same day, there is no way to "only change one thing at a time" because your crush will always be unpredictable. I didn't buy a mill just to save money on the grains. I also bought it to save the frustration of having my efficiencies bounce back and forth from 55% on the low end to 72% on the high end (Once, on a particularly bad crush with an uncommonly small grain, my efficiency was around 25%). It just depends on what grain I bought, on which day, from which vendor. The sooner you buy your own mill, the sooner you will be able to "change one thing at a time" without that thing always being the quality of your crush.

I agree with what you're saying about consistency being important, I just don't think it's very possible without an investment in a mill.... unless, of course, you decide to stay with Partial Mashing or Extract.... Or you have complete control over how your grain is crushed.

Got Trub? · 05-09-2007, 09:53 PM

Good point about the crush consistency. Until recently I got all my grain from the same LHBS and assumed the crush was the same each time.