How's my crush?

I bought a barley crusher from northern brewer and the gap is pre set. How does this look?

Comments welcome.

The husks look pretty beat up. No biggie though if you lautering is smooth.

If you find your run off times suffer, or worse, a stuck sparge; you might consider conditioning first.

jammin said:

The husks look pretty beat up. No biggie though if you lautering is smooth.

If you find your run off times suffer, or worse, a stuck sparge; you might consider conditioning first.

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Batch sparge'd it. No problems with my mesh screen.

Looks pretty well pulverized. If your sparge does get stuck not the end of the world. You can get it flowing again with some back pressure. AKA as blowing into the drain tubing.

What gap is your crusher set?

Dan said:

Looks pretty well pulverized. If your sparge does get stuck not the end of the world. You can get it flowing again with some back pressure. AKA as blowing into the drain tubing.

What gap is your crusher set?

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.039 is what it says it ships with. I don't have a feeler gage to confirm this though.

That measurement was accurate with mine. I checked with feeler gages.

Looks like you are good to go. Your effciency is probably going to go up a bit with the factory gap vice the brew shop's mill. (If that is what you used before)

Get in a few batches before you start messing around with the settings and you might find no adjustment is required.

The crush looks pretty good so far IMHO. I changed mine to a little tighter gap. Not yet sure the change made it better or just helped the mash get stuck more easily. Systems vary.

The crush looks great! My advice (based on my mistakes) is to leave it alone.

Thanks Dan, I will leave it for a few batches. I hit my OG dead on and no stuck sparge so that counts for something.

I was ordering my grain crushed and I cant remember if it looked that fine or not.

This is what my local brew shops crush looks like not sure how great they do

Read up a little on conditioning your grain, if you leave your husks a little more intact then it gives a some insurance for your sparge.