Poor crush from Northern Brewer

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Britinusa

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I noticed last weekend that the grain from Northern Brewer is only partially crushed, 1/2 the grain isnt even crushed.
My wife bought me a mill for my birthday so I ran it through the mill, should start to get better beers now.
 
This is common practice amongst homebrew shops, both online and local.

The said reason is that they want to sell more grain, but that never made sense to me because who in their right mind would buy more grain to get better efficiency?

It's also claimed that they don't want people calling them back claiming a stuck sparge? This also never made much sense as properly crushed grain doesn't cause a stuck sparge (draining or vorlaufing too fast, and/or using a high amount of adjuncts is the usual cause).

I know at their Milwaukee store there is (was actually, haven't been there in a while) a sign that says the mill is fixed at .040, which is a little loose. You would probably have to double crush.

I'm sure the rate of turn-over (talking people here) at a mail-order warehouse is very high. A new person on the job just doesn't know.

There are two or three local stores here that crush grain well, the rest... not so much.

Gratz on the new mill, it will save you much time and trouble.
 
did you call northern before trashing them on a public forum? THey are very helpful and will usually make thngs right
 
Dougie63 said:
did you call northern before trashing them on a public forum? THey are very helpful and will usually make thngs right

I'm not sure I would call it a "trashing", if they did in fact send his grain with a poor crush? I feel his frustration. I personally received a 13lb grain bill (from another well known online HBS) that was so poorly crushed I had to break out a rolling pin and some zip lock bags and attempt to crush the entire order to a usable consistency. It was the last time i ordered anything from them. I have since bought my own mill and order unmilled.

LHBS that do this as a way to boost sales are simply stealing from the people that support them. JMHO
 
I've gotten poor crushes from the Milwaukee NB store. The mill hanging on the wall behind the cash register gave one of the worst crushes I've experienced. I notified them of this the next time I was in their store. They thanked me and said they'd look into it, which I have no doubt they did. The people who work there are very nice, and very responsive.

And the earlier poster is correct, the mills in the grain room are locked and not adjustable by the customers. When I was there last Friday night, both mills had a stone in them, nicely rounded by having been in the mills for so long, and behind a screen (probably to catch stones!) so they're impossible to remove without tools. No telling how much the rollers have worn away from the stones, nor how long it's been since the gap was re-calibrated.

I did notify someone at the store about the stones, who then got some tools in order to remove them, but by then the mill I had been using had crushed the stone along with my grist. Again, they are responsive, but this equipment is used by anyone who walks into their grain room, and they do permit you to bring in your own barley and crush it in their mills, which is unnecessarily generous of them.

But, the solution to this is to get my own roller mill, which I will eventually do. On an impulse I bought a Corona, but the thought of rubbing two ill-fitting pieces of galvanize metal against each other just doesn't instill confidence that I won't be getting galvanized metal in my mash.
 
well i have been in this boat for 3 batches. now seeing this here im thinking my low efficiency may not be me. my lhbs may be the prob. i went to a different place and hit all my numbers spot on. then yesterday the grain i got from my regular shop gave me poor numbers. i thought it was me but now im thinking different. and the northern brewer guys hooked me up on store credit for a issue with 1 gallon plastic cubecontainers i experimented with for casking. they called me the test and when it failed i got a store credit. steve helped me.
 
It's not my intention to trash them I'm just interested if other people have the same issue or if its a practice for stores to put in in crushed grain?
 
Call or e-mail them. They will make it right. I would always give a company the chance to make it right before posting it on a forum. NB is very quick to fix mistakes.
 
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