Grain Milling Techniques

[brewtus-maximus]

So I have finally acquired a grain mill. I have always just spent an extra 30-40 minutes at the store grinding my grains before purchasing them while my wife and/or daughter waited on me... well I think my wife was fed up with this because this year she got me my very own mill for Christmas.

The mill I have is the cheaper version with the two plates that grind together with an auger that feeds in the grain on a big hand crank. I would like to hook it up to a drill and make a big stand/funnel for it for sake of ease.

As a thanks to my wife, I will be brewing her favorite for her, a blue moon clone, so consequently my first go around with this machine was a quick run of White Wheat. As I milled it, I realized that I was hardly touching the grain -- most of them just had a small corner chipped off. So I tightened it a bit. Then I found that I was darn near producing flour... So I continued dialing it in until it was where I felt that I had wanted it (which I honestly do not know what is correct for wheat).

It is my understanding that these machines require much more dialing in than their much more expensive Monster Mill counterparts. My question here, I guess is this... How much damage do you want to do to the various grains? Wheat, for instance, does not appear like a normal 2-row grain where you simply need to crack the hull without pulverizing it.

Also, what tips, tricks and techniques do you all know that you would like to share with regards to milling your grain. Seems like a pretty boring topic but I have faith that you all can make this interesting.

 

[IslandLizard]

Wheat is husk-less and since it has much smaller kernels, it needs a tighter "grind" than barley, so mill separately. Mill your flakes at that setting too, much faster and better conversion.

Many brewers have great success with those types of mills.

 

[RM-MN]

Sell your mash tun to a newbie and start using a bag in the kettle (BIAB). Set the mill to where the plate rub and leave them there. With BIAB you can have all the grains milled fine, your efficiency will likely go up, and you never worry about rice hulls or a stuck sparge.

 

[kinison_fan]

I also have a Corona style mill.

My suggestions:
-These mills were designed to make flour-so loosen them up to crack your grains.
-Set/gap the plates about the width of a credit card-stick a card between and tighten it down. (then tighten a little more for good measure).
-when using a drill, don't go full throttle-it will pulverize the grain. Slow it down-I use a variable speed drill, set to just faster than getting stuck/stop.
-you'll find these plates are not parallel-there's some wobble to them, so don't worry about a perfect crush--some will shred, others will pulverize.
-If you over crush, mix in some rice hulls in the mash tun.

 

[Calder]

I use a Corona mill. Works great, didn't have any problems getting it set, but I have never milled wheat.

I partial mash, and hand cranked for years. I've slowly increased the amount of grains I use, and am between 8 and 10 lbs a batch (almost all-grain brewing). It seemed to be taking some time using the crank, so I converted to a drill.

First time using a drill, my efficiency went down. When hand-cranking, there was a small gap between the plates, such that it could be easily turned with little resistance. Now I'm using a drill, I've had to close the plates right down to regain some efficiency. They are now touching and I can't turn it by hand due to the interference of the plates. I guess it has something to do with the speed of the grind.

I try to run the drill slowly, but I still haven't recovered all the efficiency I had when using the hand crank.

I used to get about 85% system efficiency when using the hand crank. When I changed to using the drill without adjusting the mill, I dropped to about 75%. Now I've closed the gap, I'm getting slightly above 80% on average (sometimes lower, sometimes higher).