efficiency question

So I regularly hit in the high 70s when i am using pre-milled grains,

I recently bought and made a mill with the hobby pasta roller thingy as can be found on the forums, and I think the crush looks really good, but.... I made two batches with this new device/method and I seam to be falling into the low 70s both times.


so uh, well what is my question? I dunno. the grains are all cracked open pretty well, even a portion broken clean in half.... I dont think the issue is having the mill set to wide....

I tested one notch wider at one point and the grain practically fell through with not a lot of crushing to speak of.

not sure what to do here, other than revert to buying small batches of pre-milled grain (high shipping$) or buying a real mill.

thoughts?

I would suggest running the grain back through the mill again. Don't be too worried about crushing the grain severely, I have not had a problem with grain husk tannins and my crush shows a lot of flour. Also, unless you removed it for the picture, you should rig up some sort of hopper to feed the grain into.
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Beer Diary...
Brew School Home Pg1

By the way, how much did the pasta roller cost and where did you buy it? What modifications have you done to the rollers? Thanks.
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Beer Diary...
Brew School Home Pg1

You definitely want to see quite a bit of flour in your grist. As long as your husks are mostly intact you should be okay. I routinely have a few break up when I mill mine but I see a lot of flour and my efficiency has been locked at 80%. Milling it a second time is a great idea. I hope you can get a few more efficiency points out of your set up. You CAN make it work, don't go back to buying small quantities of pre-milled grain. Knowing I have about 80 lbs of grain, a stash of hops and yeast just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!

Are you doing a mash out? I went from not stirring much and not doing a mashout, to stirring every 10-15 minutes and doing a mash out at 168 and went from low 70s to 83-85%.

It is the pasta roller thingy from michaels.

I took it apart and gnurled the **** out the rollers with a hacksaw, and a file. I am going to go one notch tighter with the rollers, and possibly run it through twice and see if that changes it.

I do mash out, and I have not changed my brew method at all except fro this mill. previous batches before this mill were coming in at almost 80%....


I will post latest results once complete next batch.

+1 on tightening or double milling.

A lot depends upon your mash tun, manifold, and process. I use a 48 qt. cooler, a cpvc manifold, and I batch sparge. My set up has been able to handle pretty fine grinds. I brewed my Yule Log Porter this weekend and ended up with 76% efficiency with an O.G. of 1.088 and 6 gallons in the fermenter. If you are using a false bottom and fly sparging, you may need to be concerned with stuck sparges. If not, crank down on that mill.