Barley Crusher

I just got my Barley Crusher and milled a pound with the original setting. Here's the picture of the grains. Is it too fine? Or is it ok? I always bought grains milled before and they seemed crushed coarser, efficiency sucked though.

That looks pretty good. I set mine to .035....I think factory is .039
I also condition the grain before I crush it.

Looks about right to me. Do you sparge in a cooler?

I sparge in stainless kettle with a false bottom.

Not fine enough. Ideally, you want every grain cracked cleanly in half. I go with a fairly fine crush, even finer than merely cracking them in half, but I have an SS false bottom that pretty much never sticks. If you're using a braid or manifold you may run the risk of a stuck sparge.

You don't need feeler gauges or rocket science to get your crush right, just set the rollers so that they are more narrow than any piece of grain. I used to crush my grain to absolute dust until I finally got a stuck sparge. Your efficiency will suffer heavily from an insufficient crush, so better safe than sorry.

That's a pretty good crush, you should get at least 70% from that. Crush till you're scared though. Or run it through a second time at the same setting.

All the grains are off the husks. Not sure if you guys can see from the picture. I thought I crushed it too much

Yes, that's a right fine crush.

bottlebomber said:

Crush till you're scared.

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I have no idea where this quote originally came from but it is always the first one that comes to mind when I read an is my crush ok thread!
For my self, i never worry about how long brew day takes me so I almost always run my grain through the mill twice.

mcwilcr said:

For my self, i never worry about how long brew day takes me so I almost always run my grain through the mill twice.

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That's what I do. A preliminary crush at about .050, then another about .035. Less shredded husks and get just under 80%.

i condition my grain and my mill is set so that i can't get a credit card through the gap. the husks are all mostly intact making for a nice filter bed, never have to use rice hulls and have not had any stuck sparges.