I have brewed a few batches now and have noticed that I'm having a hard time hitting the starting gravity that I'm expecting. I believe this might be due to not milling the grain fine enough. I'm using the mill at my LHBS. When looking at the grain prior to my last brew I noticed some grains that were not split open. Wondering if I should run the grain through the mill twice on my next batch. Anyone see any issues with doing this?
Grain Milling
- Thread starter Garmoni
- Start date
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It is commonly done.
Be aware that some LHBS frown upon it if they are busy.
I actually overheard a worker at one LHBS say that it was rude to even ask because it implied that their crush was substandard.
I looked at the crush in question and it was substandard.
Most will do it without a problem though.
That's exactly what you should do. The issue is to figure out your efficiency, which is expressed as a percentage, and build your recipes using that efficiency. In other words, someone else's recipe might lead to a different original gravity when I brew it, because my efficiency is different from their's. If you use brewing software, like BeerSmith, you plug your efficiency percentage and then build your recipe, which will tell you how many pounds of grain you will need to reach your target OG.
The people running the LHBS may object to you using their mill this way. It won't hurt the mill other than a tiny bit of wear but it is their mill. If they object, your choices are to accept the lower efficiency or get your own mill.
Having your own mill will allow you to purchase your grains by the 55 pound sack, usually at a significant price difference. Unless you buy an expensive mill, it won't take you long to pay for it from the savings in the price of the grain. I went from $2/lb to $1/lb quickly when I got my grains in bulk. Then I found another source and the cost per pound went down to 75 cents.
Auger
Well-Known Member
I did that exactly once. The first run through was pretty bad, so I decided to run it through again (my lhbs had a self serve grain room). After the second time it was practically flour. Probably would have been fine for biab, but it gave me hell with a fly sparge. Now I just deal with the inefficiency until I can get my own mill.
