What's your gap on your barley crusher?

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Yooper

Yooper

Ale's What Cures You!
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I used the factory settings (.039 I believe) and liked the look of the crush. My efficiency has always been around 72%. Well, I'm always hearing "crush till you're scared", so today I tightened it up a bit. What's yours set at?
 
Just brewed over the weekend,

Was at gapped at .034 Eff was about 72 - 75.

Tightened gap down to .029 eff went up to about 85% (Into boiler). (Mash in a cooler with a Hot water heater braided line in a loop for a manifold). No problems with a stuck mash.
 
I tightened mine to .035, based on the recommendation of a post here on HBT. I had to adjust it anyway, since the rollers weren't quite parallel when I got it, so I figured I'd tighten it up.

I think it gives a very good crush, but I've never actually tested different settings. I've only used it on two brews so far, both a partial mash with double-batch sparging. Didn't get stuck, and I got ~80% efficiency.

-Steve
 
I'm at .030 (checked with feelers) and get around 78% with a double batch sparge at 180°F. If I stir a few times during the mash (60 min) I've found I can get up to 83% efficiency, but I'm lazy. :D
 
I'm just a tiny bit tighter than factory so about .036".

I think that it's a worthwhile test (or series of tests) to measure your conversion efficiency and keep tightening the gap until you get >98% conversion efficiency (before you even start lautering/sparging). Once you're converting everything close to 100% there is no need to go any tighter imo. You'll still lose a bunch of efficiency points in the lauter/sparge but at least now you know exactly where you're losing efficiency because the mash was near 100% converted.

FWIW, @ .036" gap I get ~99% conversion efficiency. I don't get anywhere near that into-the-fermenter though. I lose efficiency in the lauter/sparge, in reserved wort that doesn't go into the kettle, whole hops, etc.
 
.035 for me. I wouldn't go any tighter than that based on the crush I get from .035. I get high efficiency, but it's partly due to my system. I could probably go up or down a few .001s and wouldn't see much of a difference.
 
Thanks- I went with .035 today. I had more trouble with my sparge- it never really stuck, but clogged up a bit and I had more bits of grain come through even with vorlaufing.

I have a false bottom in an Igloo 10 gallon cooler. It was more of a pain to sparge today than ever before. I'm not sure I like it a bit finer!
 
YooperBrew said:
Thanks- I went with .035 today. I had more trouble with my sparge- it never really stuck, but clogged up a bit and I had more bits of grain come through even with vorlaufing.

I have a false bottom in an Igloo 10 gallon cooler. It was more of a pain to sparge today than ever before. I'm not sure I like it a bit finer!
Click to expand...

Sounds like you'd be better off at factory spec. If it aint broke don't fix it.:D
 
YooperBrew said:
I have a false bottom in an Igloo 10 gallon cooler. It was more of a pain to sparge today than ever before. I'm not sure I like it a bit finer!
Click to expand...

I put a chore boy stainless steel scrubby under my false bottom to provide another filter. Nair a stuck sparge since, even on oatmeal stouts of 12% oats.
 
YooperBrew said:
Thanks- I went with .035 today. I had more trouble with my sparge- it never really stuck, but clogged up a bit and I had more bits of grain come through even with vorlaufing.

I have a false bottom in an Igloo 10 gallon cooler. It was more of a pain to sparge today than ever before. I'm not sure I like it a bit finer!
Click to expand...

That's why I never messed with it. I get mid-to-high 70's for efficiency at factory settings. At the silly low prices I pay for grain (50 cents/lb), it's simply not worth slow/stuck sparges, husks in the runnings, etc., for a couple extra gravity points.
 
Evan! said:
That's why I never messed with it. I get mid-to-high 70's for efficiency at factory settings. At the silly low prices I pay for grain (50 cents/lb), it's simply not worth slow/stuck sparges, husks in the runnings, etc., for a couple extra gravity points.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I understand that and will probably go back to the factory settings. I do ok with regular 5 gallon batches, but with my "bigger" beers and 10 gallon batches, I was really not happy with my efficiency- which dropped into the mid-60s. I was hoping a small change would help, but it's not worth the pain of dealing with it.
 
I always base my recipes using 75% efficiency, and I always use the factory setting. It always come out very close to my anticipated OG. I did try to screw with it at one point but found it was a little too fine and didn't like seeing bits of grains still after vorlaufing.
 
I never pay much attention to high efficiency claims. They too often resemble fish stories and you know how those go.
 
Catt22 said:
I never pay much attention to high efficiency claims. They too often resemble fish stories and you know how those go.
Click to expand...

Beep, beep, beep. Broad sweeping generalizations coming through. What would you consider to be "high" efficiency?

In my case these numbers are solid for the last 20+ batches.
 
wildwest450 said:
Beep, beep, beep. Broad sweeping generalizations coming through. What would consider to be "high" efficiency?

In my case these numbers are solid for the last 20+ batches.
Click to expand...

Its usually the guy who responds like this who is the one telling tall tales...my two cents :mug:
 
Until the other day the factory settings and 83% eff on beer smith would peg my SG.

Last week however I had to widen the gap to mill some Vienna. First time that has happened in 2 years.

Now I want to hit the auto shop for some gauges!
 
Default here as well. I tightened it up on a rye IPA and needless to say I got my first stuck sparge. After experiencing that for the first time I immediately moved the gap back to factory and haven't touched it since. My efficiency varies from 70-80% depending on the weight of the grain bill. I'm going to try fly sparging and see if that boosts my efficiency at all.
 
I have been using .036 as suggested here, and my husks are a bit torn. So far no stuck sparges and I've been getting around 75%-85% efficiency whereas with LHBS crush I was getting 60-65%. The variances are from big to small beers and experimenting with technique.
I may adjust mine back closer to the .039 factory gap, but different grains require different settings, like if I had rye I would crush it separately at a much tighter gap. Melanoidin (spelling?) took a tighter gap as well if I remember correctly.
On real big beers I'll usually oversparge a bit and do a 90 minute boil to recoup some otherwise wasted sugars.
 
Spanish Castle Ale-
I read that before about conditioning the malt before crushing, but do I read correct that you used 0.48mm which equates to 0.0188 inch? wow that's tight!
-Ben
 
No I'm @ about 0.036"...just a tiny bit tighter than factory. The crush in the pic in that article was tighter though. I've crushed a half pound or so dry then crushed the rest after conditioning and compared and that picture almost doesn't do the difference justice. Way less shredded husks, way less dust/flour.

It's easy to do so it's worth a shot at least once imo. It will make the grain harder to crush though. I don't even use a sprayer anymore...I just dump a little water in and stir it around and repeat several times. Usually ~2% by weight...never had any problems with the rollers getting gummed up...not even close.
 
wildwest450 said:
Beep, beep, beep. Broad sweeping generalizations coming through. What would consider to be "high" efficiency?

In my case these numbers are solid for the last 20+ batches.
Click to expand...


Efficiency numbers reported by others are meaningless to me. Same for the fish stories. The reported numbers may be valid, but the information is of extremely limited value to me as a home brewer and fisherman. My efficiency is usually fairly low and I'm not at all ashamed of it. My beer, however, is usually pretty good. No one ever asks about my efficiency when they drink the beer. IMO, there are two main things that influence the efficiency numbers in a big way. The fineness of the crush and the OG of the wort. There are some other variables, of course, but those are the biggies. The system design is important, but for the same system the crush and the gravity rule. You can crush finer and finer until you are scared and beyond. You will eventually hit the wall and have a stuck mash, a partially stuck mash or sometimes an intermittently stuck mash. Any of those can be a lot of fun. The gravity factor is trickier. I can get into the 80's for a low gravity beers, but sometimes drop down into the 60's for very high gravity brews. Took me awhile to get dialed in to the variations due to the wort gravity. IOW, my efficiency from batch to batch can be very different depending on what I am brewing. There are too many variables with different systems, different degrees of crush and different beer styles for the reported efficiency numbers to be of any value to me.
 
Catt22 said:
Efficiency numbers reported by others are meaningless to me. Same for the fish stories. The reported numbers may be valid, but the information is of extremely limited value to me as a home brewer and fisherman. My efficiency is usually fairly low and I'm not at all ashamed of it. My beer, however, is usually pretty good. No one ever asks about my efficiency when they drink the beer. IMO, there are two main things that influence the efficiency numbers in a big way. The fineness of the crush and the OG of the wort. There are some other variables, of course, but those are the biggies. The system design is important, but for the same system the crush and the gravity rule. You can crush finer and finer until you are scared and beyond. You will eventually hit the wall and have a stuck mash, a partially stuck mash or sometimes an intermittently stuck mash. Any of those can be a lot of fun. The gravity factor is trickier. I can get into the 80's for a low gravity beers, but sometimes drop down into the 60's for very high gravity brews. Took me awhile to get dialed in to the variations due to the wort gravity. IOW, my efficiency from batch to batch can be very different depending on what I am brewing. There are too many variables with different systems, different degrees of crush and different beer styles for the reported efficiency numbers to be of any value to me.
Click to expand...

That's fine if other peoples numbers are meaningless to you. The OP asked for these numbers, and that's what we gave her. Your post was off topic.
 
I'm right at .037", and the crush comes out just right. I typically run in the 78-82% efficiency range, which is a couple points better than the default setting. I haven't had an issue with astringency or stuck sparges, and I'm happy with that efficiency range so I probably won't change the gap.

EDIT: BTW, using a keg for MLT with a 12" SS false bottom. The only time I've had a stuck sparge problem is when I mashed 39# of grain, which was all the way to the top of the MLT. It wasn't really stuck, but it took over an hour to sparge with 6 gallons of water. I always assumed it was more due to the weight of the grain and not the crush...but I could be wrong.
 

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