Is my crush too fine?

**msa8967** · 01-21-2012, 10:27 PM

The last batch of brew I did with my barely crusher ended up with a medicine after taste that I have read may be from having too fine of a crush. I bought my barely crusher used and don't have the actual directions as to the best way to set the gap for a good crush. Thus, I am hesitant to use the crusher (and brew more beer) w/o having someone else's opinion.

1. Does this crush look too fine?

2. If so, can anyone recommend a proper gap setting I should move to?

3. If the crush is not too fine then can anyone suggest what else might have resulted in this medicine after taste?

I have read that "over sparging" might result in this but I don't know if this means my sparge water may have been too hot or that I used too large of a volume of sparge water. I do use BeerSmith for my calculations and have an average efficiency of around 75%.

urbanmyth · 01-21-2012, 10:28 PM

Looks pretty good to me.

Snowhere · 01-21-2012, 10:35 PM

Looks fine to me too. I don't think you can have too fine a crush unless you start getting stuck runoffs. I set my Barley crusher at 0.0028" with no problem.

I also thought a medicine taste is usually from a slight bacterial infection too?

**Bubba** · 01-21-2012, 10:36 PM

Looks great good pics too lots of detail.

Marlowefire · 01-21-2012, 10:38 PM

.0028 or .028?!

**brettwasbtd** · 01-21-2012, 10:38 PM

Medicinal is generally described as a clove or band aid type taste. If that is true it sounds more like a chlorine issue to me. What type of water did you use? Was it treated by chlorine? did you do anything to remove chlorine? Do you clean/sanitize with a chlorine (Bleach) solution?

**msa8967** · 01-21-2012, 11:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brettwasbtd

Medicinal is generally described as a clove or band aid type taste. If that is true it sounds more like a chlorine issue to me. What type of water did you use? Was it treated by chlorine? did you do anything to remove chlorine? Do you clean/sanitize with a chlorine (Bleach) solution?

I use reverse osmosis water (by Culligan) that I buy and fill in 5 gallon reusable bottles. Never had any problem with it before and I have not had a stuck sparge yet. I don't treat the water with any brewing salts but I did by some 5.2 stabilizer to try out to see if that would fix the problem. There were no visible signs of any infection in the 3 brewing buckets I used for fermentation and beer from all three buckets has this taste. I don't plan on using the buckets for brewing again just to be safe.

**msa8967** · 01-21-2012, 11:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marlowefire

.0028 or .028?!

Are these standard units on a thickness gauge? (inch or cm?)

**Stevo2569** · 01-21-2012, 11:20 PM

Crush is OK. It looked like several are not cracked at all and the embryo chunks are pretty big. My barely crusher is set at factory .035 and it's finer that that. That's definitely not fine enough for husk smashing tannin extraction. IMO.

I myself would not go .028 without conditioning the malt first. Which I did for a few batches.

**Stevo2569** · 01-21-2012, 11:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by msa8967

Are these standard units on a thickness gauge? (inch or cm?)

Thousands of an inch. Feeler gauges