As most of you know I was whimpering about my low efficiencies and asking for advice. Several people suggested that it might be my grain crush so I went and bought a Barley Crusher. My last two batches had an average efficiency of 58.18%. With my new Barley Crusher I jumped up to 76.94%! I didn't change anything in my process other than to crush my own grain instead of letting my LHBS do it.
Out of the box my rollers were crooked so they needed to be reset. Not really having a gap number in mind I set it at .035 because, well, actually I don't know why I chose that setting. But after the crush I got a little nervous because it was a noticeably much finer crush than what I was used to getting from my LHBS. At this point it wasn't like I could glue all the little grains back together so I just went ahead with brew like normal.
Before I started my boil my refractometer confirmed that I had some pretty good efficiency. My target OG was 1.062 and I actually came in a little high at 1.065. In any case, I am totally ecstatic with the improvement in my efficiency, thanks to my Barley Crusher. Also, thanks to all of you that advised me to examine my crush. Here's a few photos from today's brew.
Out of the box my rollers were crooked so they needed to be reset. Not really having a gap number in mind I set it at .035 because, well, actually I don't know why I chose that setting. But after the crush I got a little nervous because it was a noticeably much finer crush than what I was used to getting from my LHBS. At this point it wasn't like I could glue all the little grains back together so I just went ahead with brew like normal.
Before I started my boil my refractometer confirmed that I had some pretty good efficiency. My target OG was 1.062 and I actually came in a little high at 1.065. In any case, I am totally ecstatic with the improvement in my efficiency, thanks to my Barley Crusher. Also, thanks to all of you that advised me to examine my crush. Here's a few photos from today's brew.