First Time milling grains.. Are these fine enough? (pics)

Just set up my Corona style mill. And looking for some quick feedback before I run a bunch of grain through...

Is this fine enough or can I crank it a little tighter? I noticed most of the husks are torn, but still in fairly large pieces. Does that mean I can grind a little tighter?

looks like a nice crush to me.

Ok, Thanks for the feedback. I think I might close the gap a bit and see how the husks fare...

i dont see any intact husks. looks good

Tightened it again. A lot more fines, but are these husks still ok?

Looks pretty good. I wouldn't go any tighter for now. Run a batch with it and see. If you don't get a stuck mash and efficiency seems reasonable keep it there.

I have a large cpvc manifold, so I really doubt It'll get stuck (but you never know). I was more worried with the balance between astringency and efficiency...

Let your taste buds be your guide

I use a braid and crush on the finer side like pic 2. No experience w/ a manifold so YMMV. You may want to leave it on the coarser side for batch no. 1 and see what kind of flow you get lautering, and tighten the crush as you see fit in the future.

IMO, looks like you know how to use your mill and will do fine.

IXVolt said:

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That looks like my crush. You didn't steal my mill, did you??

If/when you ever feel like it you could brew a batch and use Kaiser's Efficiency Spreadsheet (can be found in this article) to determine your conversion efficiency. As long as you get a really high number there then your crush is at least tight enough. Then you could loosen the crush until you see a drop in conversion efficiency. Or you could just watch your efficiency and see at what gap it starts to drop. As long as you get close to 100% conversion efficiency there is no need to go any tighter and going tighter than necessary could detract from wort quality.

I started on the loose side (looser than the factory BC setting of ~.039") and tightened until I got ~98%-99% conversion efficiency (which by the way was only a tiny bit tighter than the factory setting.)

SpanishCastleAle said:

Kaiser's Efficiency Spreadsheet

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Good info here -^. Thanks!

FWIW, the crush in your first picture looks about like the crush that I get from my Barley Crusher on the factory default settings. I consistently get between 70%-73% efficiency with that crush on every batch (batch sparging).

Looks like a good crush to me.

StunnedMonkey said:

FWIW, the crush in your first picture looks about like the crush that I get from my Barley Crusher on the factory default settings.

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This is refreshing to hear, for a long time I have often thought the same. We're not splitting atoms here guys, just merely crushing some barley to free it from natures protective husk, that's all, no more, no less.

I would also guess the second finer crush, looks just about like the crush someone would get when they discover they can tighten up their Barley Crusher, and boost efficiency into the 80's.

Ok, I'll take my little black sheep Corona mill and get back in the corner now.

A rookie also. How about mine? The mill is not designed for it as far as i know. It has a huge motor.

nh_homebrew said:

View attachment 550133
A rookie also. How about mine? The mill is not designed for it as far as i know. It has a huge motor.

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Pic needs higher resolution but I see some intact husks there.

I too see uncrushed kernels ==> go finer.
I mill at a 0.032-0.034" gap (2-roller MM2), about the thickness of a credit card. But the resulting crush also depends on your mill. Wheat, Rye and other small kernel grain 0.026-0.028".

Is that your all grain BIAB bag or a steeping bag?

[EDIT] Fixed the gap numbers. I was totally off.

The pic is fuzzy but it looks like there are some intact grains in the crush. Tighten up the mill gap. You don't want to shred the husks, just break them apart to release the kernels. The husks will act as a filtering medium, and shredding them can release some astringency into the wort. The kernels should be broken into pieces but not too small or you may have a stuck sparge. However, if you are doing BIAB, the kernels can be crushed smaller.

Made it a finer crush this time. Random husks are still intact among it all.
That was my BIAB bag. I no longer use it as such.

Here are some photos you can compare your crush to.

http://www.braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/CrushEval

Examine the crushed grain closely, if there are whole kernels present, tighten and crush more to the point where there are zero to very few whole grain kernels remaining. It’s that simple...

Don’t fear the crush!!!

Stopping by to hijack with new Corona mill, testing first time, regrinding some LHBS-ground to see if this is too much flour for BIAB with a @wilserbrewer bag:

balrog said:

Stopping by to hijack with new Corona mill, testing first time, regrinding some LHBS-ground to see if this is too much flour for BIAB with a @wilserbrewer bag:
View attachment 550815

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That's similar to what mine looks like with a 2 roller Monster Mill @ 0.032" gap! I use a cooler mash tun with a manifold and batch sparge, not BIAB. You could probably mill even a little finer than that using BIAB. But that looks great already for a Corona!

balrog said:

Stopping by to hijack with new Corona mill, testing first time, regrinding some LHBS-ground to see if this is too much flour for BIAB with a @wilserbrewer bag:
View attachment 550815

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Your in the ball park for sure, at least very close to it.

That looks adequate but I would not be afraid to crush a little more.

This overwhelming fear of “stuck sparge” is overrated imo.

So the sparge sticks when batch sparging w a braid....I just stir it up, or rake or cut the top is the grain bed to get it flowing...not that big a deal.

Maybe w a FB or manifold that comes apart could be a nightmare....that’s why I’m a simple braid batch sparge or BIAB...simple is good merry Xmas

wilserbrewer said:

Examine the crushed grain closely, if there are whole kernels present, tighten and crush more to the point where there are zero to very few whole grain kernels remaining. It’s that simple...

Don’t fear the crush!!!

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This!

wilserbrewer said:

Your in the ball park for sure, at least very close to it.

That looks adequate but I would not be afraid to crush a little more.

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Thanks, and I'm a little surprised though. THere's a LOT of flour that doesn't show well in the image, and the plates are in constant contact with each other. I had to file the "hub" on which the removable plate mounts in order to straighten it out a bit. But the proof will be in pudding as it were.

My mill. Looks like an auger mechanism.

nh_homebrew said:

My mill. Looks like an auger mechanism.

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Yes, the auger feeds the grain into the burr plates for grinding. That looks like an old corn grinder and should work well if you can adjust it to produce a reasonable grist for brewing.

balrog said:

Thanks, and I'm a little surprised though. THere's a LOT of flour that doesn't show well in the image.

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Completely normal imo. Interesting article on grain milling below. I find it ironic that the sieve analysis for the corona mill is quite good, better than some roller mills at stock gap setting.

http://brewlikeapro.net/maltmilling.html

My affordable Corona style mill (Victoria corn mill) gives crush similar to balrog's crush when the gap setting is almost the widest possible. I got a good efficiency, but the beer is not ready yet so can't comment on taste. And I'm not doing BIAB. nh_homebrew has a more coarse crush that could be used but I think the efficiency is going to be low/moderate only. If you can get the grinding plates a little bit closer to each other you would get higher efficiency. There seems to be a screw similar to my mill that may be for the gap adjustment.