First attempt at malt conditioning

I just finished brewing my chocolate mint milk stout recipe, other than it being 115+° out in the garage for most of the brew everything went as usual, hit my numbers dead on in the mash, etc etc.. the only thing that was off on the usual brewhouse numbers was the efficiency, I usually run at 83% eff. but with conditioning and being able to crush finer I went up to 88%! My usual crush is .035" gap tonights crush was .032", I feel I can go tighter given the ease of the sparge with all the husks intact, but at what point am I just getting greedy? :rockin:

Outstanding....you've convinced me to try it! What is your proceedure for moistening the grain before the crush?

The process I use involves a 5 gal homer bucket and a spray bottle from the dollar store filled with RO water.. I followed Kaiser's wiki on conditioning and based it on the 3oz water for 11 lb grain ratio, there were no grains glued to the mill, and the crush looked great! I fully plan to condition from here on out.

Thanks! I've wanted to try this but my chicken **** keeps getting in the way!

Theres is no chance to have a stuck mash with the malt cond. At least dont dry too much the grain !

I was very pleased with the results, it was like an additional 10 minutes to wet the grain, and for me that was time WELL spent indeed! I will do a few other recipes and see if the results are the same, then I can adjust the grain-bills to compensate. its nice to get that extra batch out of a sack of grain!

azscoob said:

I was very pleased with the results, it was like an additional 10 minutes to wet the grain, and for me that was time WELL spent indeed! I will do a few other recipes and see if the results are the same, then I can adjust the grain-bills to compensate. its nice to get that extra batch out of a sack of grain!

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Yep, I usually do it in a cooler the night before a brewday and let it distribute. I also get lazy and quickly measure out 3 oz per 10 lbs of grain. I have done as much as 4 oz per 10 lbs of grain without experiencing any sticking (leaving it overnight may help here so there aren't wetter areas than others).

I also crush much finer than what you have your mill set to(IIRC around 20-22mil), but it looks like it is doing a great job for you anyway, so no real need to tighten it much further.

I know this about your grain crush & all but....chocolate mint stout?! Any way you could post some more about that? Have you made it before? Sounds very good!

I think I will crush finer myself, I am interested in seeing how far is too far, I am going to do a search for what gap people are using.

SkyHighBrew88 said:

I know this about your grain crush & all but....chocolate mint stout?! Any way you could post some more about that? Have you made it before? Sounds very good!

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I have made it several times, and it turns out great every time, I start with this recipe, I sub 4 oz of debittered black for 4 oz of the chocolate malt, (so instead of 8 oz chocolate malt, there is 4 and 4) I put 2/3 oz of fresh mint into the boil in the last 5 minutes along with 1 lb of lactose. I take another 2/3 oz of mint and chop it up and steep for a week or so in enough vodka to cover it, then that gets strained into the keg when racking.

I have done malt conditioning on a couple of batches. I hand-crank my mill so where I notice it is that my arm gets tired REALLY FAST when I'm milling the conditioned malt with a much finer setting. I usually have to split even small batches up into 3-4 shifts.

weirdboy said:

I have done malt conditioning on a couple of batches. I hand-crank my mill so where I notice it is that my arm gets tired REALLY FAST when I'm milling the conditioned malt with a much finer setting. I usually have to split even small batches up into 3-4 shifts.

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Even with a powerful 1/2" drill it definitely works harder and binds up much more easily when conditioned. Before I had no problem but now I am in need of some sort of flow control at the bottom of the hopper.

I did my first crush of conditioned grains a couple of weeks ago and my 3/8" cordless drill pooped out. I had to use my 1/2" electric drill to get through it. My efficiency seemed about the same, but my filter bed was much, much better. After a short vorlauf I was able to get really clear wort with the ball valve open full blast.

GRH, what was your mill set at pre-conditioning vs post? the same or tighter? I understand leaving wort in the mash tun can have a ding on eff. I leave about a cup behind as noted when I clean out the tun, I am just trying to find a trend here.