The Barley Crusher
 

i just wanted to tell everyone how happy i am with this product.

after getting countless efficiencies in the 60s and countless changes to my mashing procedure, i finally decided to try crushing my grains finer. because my LHBS refused to double crush my grains or tighten their crushing rollers, i finally decided to invest in my own crusher.

i just got done with a brown ale using my Barley Crusher, and after calculating my efficiency off of iBrewMaster and 3 different efficiency calculators, i realized i had an efficiency of 90 percent! i always thought people were lying about their efficiencies this high, but now i'm finally a believer.

the only problem i have now is that with my new OG (i precalculated it at 70%), i didn't add enough IBUs to my beer. oh well, not the worst problem to have :ban:

cheers and thanks Barley Crusher :tank:

I had the same trouble. I went to the HBD and they crushed the grains for me. I have never really paid to much attention to it before, but I am looking into every detail about my brews now and the crush was not very good.Almost terrible. This is going to be my next purchase for sure...

I love mine too....where do you have your rollers set?

i'd probably say around 1:30 for the one next to the crank...and 11:30 for the opposite roller.

that was one of the main reasons i stopped purchasing products from there. i've come to realize that the home brewing community is very friendly, welcoming, and warm. however, the people at the HBD seem to be more focused on making a quick buck then actually helping the customer improve his or her brewing.

they're also extremely sneaky when giving you grains. i remember i had a recipe that required a pound or so of crystal 60L. when i gave them the grains i needed and they wrote them down, they gave me the impression that they were equipped with crystal 60L. however, when i saw them weighing a pound or so of crystal 45L, i explained to them again that i needed 60L and not 45L. only then did the clerk tell me that they were out of 60L while trying to convince me that 60L was the exact same thing.

I tightened mine up to about .028" using feeler gauges. I think I am going to condition the grain from now on also.

i hear a lot of people do that and get great results with their crush and keeping their hulls in tact.

i can get rice hulls for 25 cents a pound, so i just use those.

I loved my Barley Crusher -- right up until I decided that I needed to adjust the roller to get a slightly better crush. I loosened the two screws on the side as the instructions say, and set my rollers at about .030. When I went to tighten the screws back the free-moving roller fails to move. The only way I can crush now is to have both of those set screws turned out by about two turns; otherwise the free moving roller binds :/ :/

I left mine at factory setting and wet mill and I have been getting around 85%

I use the factory setting for barley and the tightest setting for wheat and rye.