I grind at my LHBS, with the gap at its closest setting. Hulls come through fine. No tannins yet. I just grind slowly and evenly and it comes out near flour, but still managable.
Vorlauf for 30 minutes or more at a trickle. I normally cycle the whole batch at least once before sparging. It comes out looking like a gemstone when I finally start removing wort.
Sparge at the same slow pace. The process adds about an hour to the mash, but 94% efficiency is worth it IMHO. 5 gallons reaching 1.081 with only 13# of grain shaves a good amount of long term batch prices.
I talked to one of the brewers at Bluepoint Brewery recently, they get 99.9% efficiency there, taking up to 18 hours to mash/vorlauf/sparge. Next time I have an extra long timeslot available, I will try a 2 hour vorlauf to try and catch them.
Vorlauf for 30 minutes or more at a trickle. I normally cycle the whole batch at least once before sparging. It comes out looking like a gemstone when I finally start removing wort.
Sparge at the same slow pace. The process adds about an hour to the mash, but 94% efficiency is worth it IMHO. 5 gallons reaching 1.081 with only 13# of grain shaves a good amount of long term batch prices.
I talked to one of the brewers at Bluepoint Brewery recently, they get 99.9% efficiency there, taking up to 18 hours to mash/vorlauf/sparge. Next time I have an extra long timeslot available, I will try a 2 hour vorlauf to try and catch them.