whats your mill gap setting (barley crusher)

I'm thinking about adjusting my gap setting and I thought it would be interesting to see how every one else is milling.

.032 and still double crush rye.

.032 for me as well. Used to be at .025 and still never had a stuck sparge.

The factory gap works great. Sure you can get a little better efficiency if you tighten it up, but I don't want to take a chance w/ stuck mashes, since I recirculate.

Factory for now. Haven't had the urge to mess with it. I'm thinking about tightening it just a bit.

I get stuck sparges with the factory setting already, I don't want to go smaller than that.

I haven't messed with the factory setting yet. 75% eff makes me smile.

Mine is at the factory setting (.039") but I had to set it there myself since the setting it came with wasn't uniform across the rollers. 88% efficiency.

factory setting getting 80% eff.

Mine came from the factory around .034 and I'm getting a great crush, maybe borderline too much flour but never had a stuck sparge: Batch sparge SS Braid. No wheat beers though. 85%+ Efficiency. I highly suggest setting to .32-.35

We use the factory setting of .039" at the store and have gotten tons of compliments about our crush and efficency gains people have gotten with our crushed grains.

Of course if you wanted a lower gap setting we will set it to whatever someone wants, but the stuck mash/sparge is just a risk some people do not want to take.

Ed

I use a monster mill and I still voted...heh, you'll never know which one to remove my vote from and your barley crusher only numbers will be forever skewed!

I have mine down to .035"

I recirculate.

Have not had a stuck mash

I can lauter with the valve on the MLT wide open actually... not that I DO that.

I change it depending on the "plumpness" of the grain I'm using, but usually I keep it around .037

Guess I shouldn't have voted since I haven't officially used mine yet:fro:

That said, I did a test/cleaning crush at factory setting and couldn't believe how horrible my LHBS crushed grains looked in comparison

I had no idea what I was missing. Can't wait to see what it all means to my numbers this weekend.

.032 80% efficiency with braided stainless, batch sparge. Factory setting was very uneven.

I voted don't fear the flour, I have mine set pretty tight (about 2 o'clock) but I do condition my malt, which keeps the husk in-tact and gives me a super nice easy runoff.

.035 gap for me with the BC and avg 85% efficiency.

Because I thought the crush looked too floury...I loosened it to ~.050" at first and my eff was about the same as with LHBS crushed grains (~76%-77%). Then set it back to the factory setting and eff went up to ~83%-84%...then set it to about .035"-.036" and malt conditioning and my eff went up to 89%-90%. Conversion eff was ~98%-99% so I stopped there.

The rollers on mine are not exactly even at the same knob setting on each side but that's easily adjusted for.

.03 and I get 90+% all the time. Never a stuck sparge.

.030 and that's checked with feelers this time around.

I use a false bottom and rice hulls but have only had stuck sparges on beer with large amounts of flaked product.

*shrug*

FWIW, you can Kaiser's Efficiency Spreadsheet to determine your conversion efficiency. If your conversion efficiency is up near 99% or so then you shouldn't need to tighten your gap anymore because you shouldn't see any improvement by doing so...you're already as close to 100% as you can expect to get. Any further efficiency improvements would need to be made elsewhere (such as the lauter/sparge). That was why I stopped @ .035"-.036"...my conversion efficiency was @ ~99%.

2:00 setting on the knobs, my crush looks like flour and rice hulls. My efficiency is up to 89% with double batch sparge, and I fly sparged an Imperial Stout last weekend for 88% to kettle, OG 1.100. :rockin:

I have a manifold, obviously if you use a braid such a fine crush WILL cause a stuck sparge. (My 5 gallon second mash tun is useless without setting the crush back to the default)

I used .039 from the factory and got my first stuck sparge and 90% when I was expecting 75%. Found out that the RPM you use will "significantly" effect the outcome.

I just used my household electric drill and held the trigger down. This was about 1000 RPM. The folks I bought the mill from said it works best at 300 because the higher speed tears the grain instead of crushing it. I did notice my grind was much finer than that from my LHBS who also uses .039.

Next time I'll set up for 300RPM and still hope for %75. Hitting 90% was a real pain to work around and my stuck sparge no fun either.

I get about 71% with .039". I am resetting it to .035" tonight for a batch this weekend and am looking forward to seeing what the outcome will be.

I get 82% and a VERY fast runoff with a .038" gap. I run my mill nice and slow, keeping those husks intact.

I get between 70-75% at .039. Might tighten it up, but haven't decided yet.

At 0.025", I get ~80% brewhouse efficiency from a single batch sparge for 1.000 - 1.070 gravity beers. Before I started wet milling the grain, I had it set to 0.035" and was getting ~75% brewhouse efficiency.

So, for those of you looking to go a bit tighter, trying wet milling your grain. Wet milling helps avoid the potential to make flour, dust, and add wort color due to overly crushed husks.

I built my own crusher and the original .036" setting I started with seemed a bit course, so I went down a bit. Not really sure where I am at. I get a decent amount of whiteish flour and some bits. Hasn't stuck yet, so I'm sticking with it.

Darn it, forgot to measure my efficiency last night!!

.034 78-80 %

Made a batch this weekend. I was at 71% with factory settings. I am now at 75.5% with .035.

I had about 35% wheat and had no problem with a stuck sparge but had a lot of kernels make it through the FB. Maybe a cup worth. Thought I would take a couple pitchers of wort from the valve first to prevent grain from getting in my HERMS ring but it still occurred. No big deal though but I won't be tightening up the gap any more.

I ended up with 8 gallons in the BK so I boiled for 90 minutes this time. I still had 2-3 gallons in the MT that I didn't need and left in there until cleanup. When I drained the MT later the runnings had me think about doing a fly/batch sparge. Maybe fly sparge for most of the time but leave the last bit of sparge water in for the first 30 minutes of my 90 minute boil and then open up the valve and drain it one last time at 60 minutes. It is mashed out so there would be no more conversion while sitting the the MLT. Anyone every sparge this way?

This poll gives no option for .035" or .034"...

Factory settings, double batch sparge, 75-80%.

i went to a friends house and used his barley crusher that he's had for months but never used (?!). When I went to adjust it we just eyeballed it and checked the resulting crush. How do you know the exact setting for these things? I couldn't find any #s?

Interesting. I use the factory setting I have no idea what it is.

OK, I just checked. About 38 on the adjustable end and 41 on the drive end.

I turn it tighter for wheat because some will go through whole. I send all the crush through twice at factory setting. Last batch seemed to come out 83% which was surprising to me, but i had a slow sparge, stopped stirred the whole thing and started over. If I didn't it would have taken an hour and a half just to sparge an 11.5 gallon oatmeal stout. 45 minutes for the first 3.5 gallons, 30 minutes for the rest after I stirred and started over.

David
Born again brewer

TacoGuthrie said:

i went to a friends house and used his barley crusher that he's had for months but never used (?!). When I went to adjust it we just eyeballed it and checked the resulting crush. How do you know the exact setting for these things? I couldn't find any #s?

Click to expand...

Get feeler gages from the auto store for about $5. I confirmed my factory .039" setting with the .020 and .019" together. You should just barely be able to press the gages between the rollers.

Thanks tommyboy! Here I thought there was a gauge right on the crushed and wAs confused when I couldn't find anything.

TommyBoy said:

This poll gives no option for .035" or .034"...

Click to expand...

HA!HA!HA! hay what a jip

TommyBoy said:

Get feeler gages from the auto store for about $5. I confirmed my factory .039" setting with the .020 and .019" together. You should just barely be able to press the gages between the rollers.

Click to expand...

So just as a mini update...

I borrowed my friends Barley Crusher and picked up a set of these gauges.

Turns out we were crushing at around .046. I just adjusted them to .039 and I'm gonna mill some grain! Hopefully this will hlep my efficiency which has yet to surpass 60% on a couple PMs.

Thanks for that post.

Had to get the feelers out and adjust the rollers today. The two row wasnt crushing like it normally did. Can grain get tougher to crush if it sits around in a basement?