Just started my brew day, how's this crush?

Trying to troubleshoot awful efficiency, and starting with the crush. Tightened up the mill a bit (i think, anyway, no instructions when my friend gave me his mill), and ran it through twice. How does this look?

It looks pretty good to me. No intact grains that I could see and no shredded husks.

I do not see any whole grains and the husks look ok. Depending how you mash I would say you are ok.

I dunno, some of the particles look kind of big. To get efficiency you have to get the water to the center of the grain particles and get the sugars back out. Smaller is better for this but it also can lead to a stuck sparge.

RM-MN said:

I dunno, some of the particles look kind of big. To get efficiency you have to get the water to the center of the grain particles and get the sugars back out. Smaller is better for this but it also can lead to a stuck sparge.

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Well you can always throw a couple handfuls of rice hulls in. To fine though and even with rice hulls it will not drain very good. Trust me I know

I think the crush is fine though. Run the batch and if you need to on the next batch crush a little finer

Well, just an update. I made it through the mash without a stuck sparge. Waiting for my pre-boil sample to cool, but from the look of things, it looks a whole lot more 'worty' than previous AG attempts, so I'm hoping I hit the efficiency out of the park.

Thanks for the help, I'll be back with my gravity readings once they're room temp.

Holy crap!!!!!!!!!!!!

7.5# 2-row
3# pilsner
.5# carapils
.5% flaked corn

1.051 (temp adjusted) in 6.6 gallons of wort pre-boil!!!!!

HOLY CRAP! 79%! (according to Brewersfriend)

bfinleyui said:

Holy crap!!!!!!!!!!!!

7.5# 2-row
3# pilsner
.5# carapils
.5% flaked corn

1.051 (temp adjusted) in 6.6 gallons of wort pre-boil!!!!!

HOLY CRAP! 79%! (according to Brewersfriend)

Click to expand...

Very nice, my personal best was 91%, but typically I get 70-75%. This last batch I got 76%. I think the crush has a lot to do with it, I found an article a while back (the location eludes me at the moment) that went into detail about mill settings based on average size of the grain. If I find it again I will share with the rest of HBT.

I'm going to be grinding my own grains soon (as soon as my mill comes in). It seems my LHBS is a bit inconsistent on the crush they use as my efficiencies are all over the road using the same process/equipment. I'm hoping to get a crush process to the point where I can get consistent results, then improve from there.

It looks like your crush worked out well for you, nice work!