Grain grind

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Looks fine to me. I never changed my roller spacing from the default setting it shipped with in over 100 batches. That looks like my grind, few larger pieces, good amount of dust at the bottom, but NO WHOLE KERNELS
 
Looks good to me too. I too haven't adjusted my mill and that's what it looks like. Looks similar to the grind I get from my LHBS too.
 
your grind is not going to be the deciding factor wether a beer turns out good or not.
You can make great beer from a crap grind and crap beer from an optimal grind
 
your grind is not going to be the deciding factor wether a beer turns out good or not.
You can make great beer from a crap grind and crap beer from an optimal grind

Yes-ish. If it is too coarse, you'll get horrible conversion, which means you'll be adjusting the recipe like crazy from lower volume, or dumping a bunch of DME to make up for it (which will change how the recipe tastes/ends up, unless it is only a small adjustment). Or it is too fine, and you get a badly stuck mash, which might result in over conversion to simple sugars as it takes too long to mash out and too much of the mash at too cool of a temp, and bad extraction and needing to add DME, or adjust recipe.

So on and so on. If the grind is "too much/too little" it can HELP to make a bad recipe. That doesn't mean it automatically will.

I use a corona mill (I have a 2 roller that was donated to me, but never bother to set it up. I like my corona). Totally different beast, but I've adjust it so that no whole kernels come out. This generally results in modestly finer crush than you seem to have. The husks are more "ripped" off than "popped" off like roller mills produce.

I tend to get in the low 80% range with BiaB with my Corona, which is a lot better than my LHBS 2-roller mill, even with a double crush. I'd guess I get (by WEIGHT, not by volume) about 35% powder, 35% very small pieces (less than 10% of a barley kernel), 35% medium/large pieces (11-100%) and 10% the husks.

I count zero pieces that still have the husk on. There are a very tiny number that are effectively dehusked, whole pieces, but very rare.

I did have some previously, but in my last go around, I tightened my mill by about 1/8th of a turn on the set screws and that took care of the maybe 1 in 50 kernels that didn't get crushed/dehusked. It also upped my efficiency from low 80's to about 85% for the stout I brewed. Not sure if it was the very slightly finer crush, or if it was brewing my stout differently, as I added a small (1/2tsp in 4 gallons) of baking soda in the mash for the first time, but my target gravity of 1.050 collecting 4 gallons from BiaB ended up being nearly 1.055 temp adjusted pre-boil gravity and a little over 4 gallons collected, so I had to adjust up to close to 4.5-4.75 gallons and I still ended up with 1.052 in to the carboy.

That puts me in the 85-87% range. The last three brews were ~82% on a mild, ~83% on a Hefe and "I don't know" on a BIG pumpkin ale (because I had pumpkin and butternut squash in there, I don't know how to adjust what the gravity should have been for that and I mashed with them to boot, but it seemed a bit better than last year when I brewed a very similar recipe, but with my LHBS mill).

If another couple of brews end up in the same low to mid 80% range I'll start adjusting my recipes to account for that.

Previously I was using 75%, but knowing I was more likely to hit in the low 70% range with my LHBS crush for BiaB, but I just went for target gravity and figure I'd just go slightly low on volume.
 
Yes-ish. If it is too coarse, you'll get horrible conversion, which means you'll be adjusting the recipe like crazy from lower volume, or dumping a bunch of DME to make up for it

Of course, but OP said he's been using the mill on the same settings for years, so I'm assuming he knows his efficiency#'s. Just pointing out that that is most likely not the problem in this case.
 
It is pretty typical of a grind done completely dry. Two ways to leave hulls more intact would be a 3 roller mill or lightly wetting or conditioning the malt 5 minutes before grinding.
 
View attachment 282456
Does this look like a decent grind? Used barley crusher for years & never changed the roller settings. Had some brews not turn out & many that have.

Different mill, but similar results, lots of broken pieces and quite a bit of flour very few large husk pieces. Never changed the setting as I was so happy with the jump in my efficiency. In the past I noticed a grainy after taste with some beers and wrote it off to certain grain types(rahr in particular) but lately I started getting it with some grains that did not in the past. I read that grainy taste can come from the husks so my last batch I decided to try conditioning my grain and man what a difference a few ounces of water made. A lot less flour and tons of large split husks. I was worried that the lack of flour might lower my efficiency but it did not happen. Much better flow through the mash too. This batch is in the fermentor now so I dont know if this will take care of the grainy taste, but I plan on continuing conditioning even if it is just for the better flow.
 
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