BrewKnurd

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Except for many stainless steels, which are quite, although not fully, irony, yet not magnetic. Again, the test for "is it ironic" is not foolproof! ARGH!!

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Fake it til you make it.

LandoLincoln

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Now you're just being pedantic.

BrewKnurd

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Oh, the irony!

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Fake it til you make it.

watersr

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Add to that the fact that nickel is magnetic and not at all irony. Now that's ironic.

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Burn the village, then drink the beer!

PhelanKA7

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jhoyda

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Well, I see this thread went off on quite a tangent. Not only am I going to dredge it back up, but also bring it back on topic.

First the good:
I ordered an all-grain kit and a 16 oz bottle of Star San from Northern Brewer. I received a box coated with about 8 oz of Star San, yes half leaked out. It looked like the top of the bottle was smashed against something, puncturing the foil seals and unseating the threads enough to allow leakage.

I spent 3 minutes using the online chat, explained what happened and told them I only needed an 8 oz bottle since half was still in the original bottle. The customer service rep said she could send either an 8 oz or 16 oz, I told her to surprise me. UPS drops off the box 2 days later, 16 oz bottle. I have enough sanitizer for 2 years

Now the bad:
It looks like they are still having the same problems with crush. I received my grain and it looked only very lightly crushed. It had the slightest amount of flour in the bottom of the bag, all the husks were still intact. I have two kids under 3, so my brew days are planned well in advance so working in a 2 hour trip to the LHBS is out of the question. I brewed. . . . . . and got 50% efficiency. I discovered this thread after brewing so I did not take pictures, but the grain looked exactly like the pictures in the first post. I hope Mr Farley is still reading this thread.

In the future I will certainly add comments to the remarks section of my order asking for double milling or set the mill at 0.020" or both.

SpeedYellow

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I think crush problems at Northern Brewer are just a fact of life. I quit buying from them in 2008 after my shipment of grains was poorly crushed and led to a 59% efficiency. Perhaps they'll eventually change their philosophy to crushing, because I'd certainly like to have them as an option.

Kingfish

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Complete and total BS!!! So, which mill manufacturer do you work for?

The same could be said for not growing/malting/roasting your own grains or growing your own hops and doing the AA analysis yourself or not brewing with distilled water and altering the minerals yourself.

SpeedYellow

Recipes 

+1. If they're going to mill the grain, they should do it right.

I'm also surprised that asking for double-milling is considered acceptable. So I have to give them "Special Instructions" to do their job correctly? That's a hoot.

Or alternatively, we're supposed to break out a rolling pin and hump it all morning to fix their problem? Puuulease.

OG2620

Recipes 

Earlier this month I brewed NB's Oktoberfest AG kit with pre-milled grains and obtained an efficiency of 83%. I do not have a picture of the grains because at the time that I received them, they appeared to be what I expected and similar to what I achieve on my BC with the gap set to 0.035. For the record, I got the grains pre-milled because I forgot to order them unmilled.

So, put me in the satisfied category. I don't get why others claim such poor efficiencies, but then again, those people tend not to post any other aspects of their process for scrutiny. All I know is that "poor crush" is not the only factor which can affect efficiency.