Dougan
Well-Known Member
Unique lesson I just learned that I'll share with you.
I usually get my grain and mill at at my LHBS. However, this past weekend, I was in another town and decided to check out their brew shop. They had Maris Otter, so, I got like 10 lbs of that milled there.
The grind was much finer at the new brew shop. Honestly, if I had to say, I'd say my local one is not fine enough, while the one there was too fine. I will note that my efficiency was 86% with the finer grind, which is something I accomplish maybe 20% of the time with the local shop's grind. Usually between 70 and 85.
But that's not my point. Usually, with my (picnic cooler) MLT setup, I heat the strike water up to 165, pour it in, stir everything up, and that gets me a solid 152 mash. This recipe I wanted to mash at 155 so I upped it to 168.
The finer ground grain clumped up like mad. It was much more than I experience with my local shop's ground grain. It took me so long to work out all of the clumps in my mash that by the time I got the lid closed on the mash tun, the temperature was 149 and I had to throw boiling water in there to get it up to 155 range, which I figured was good enough.
Since I will probably be switching between these brew shops 50/50 for the next few months, my new plan is to recalibrate my strike temperature, accounting for a 2 minute stirring after i pour in the strike water-- this two minutes will happen whether needed or not. That way I can always hit the same temps.
Figured I'd share, probably something not everybody has come up against.
I usually get my grain and mill at at my LHBS. However, this past weekend, I was in another town and decided to check out their brew shop. They had Maris Otter, so, I got like 10 lbs of that milled there.
The grind was much finer at the new brew shop. Honestly, if I had to say, I'd say my local one is not fine enough, while the one there was too fine. I will note that my efficiency was 86% with the finer grind, which is something I accomplish maybe 20% of the time with the local shop's grind. Usually between 70 and 85.
But that's not my point. Usually, with my (picnic cooler) MLT setup, I heat the strike water up to 165, pour it in, stir everything up, and that gets me a solid 152 mash. This recipe I wanted to mash at 155 so I upped it to 168.
The finer ground grain clumped up like mad. It was much more than I experience with my local shop's ground grain. It took me so long to work out all of the clumps in my mash that by the time I got the lid closed on the mash tun, the temperature was 149 and I had to throw boiling water in there to get it up to 155 range, which I figured was good enough.
Since I will probably be switching between these brew shops 50/50 for the next few months, my new plan is to recalibrate my strike temperature, accounting for a 2 minute stirring after i pour in the strike water-- this two minutes will happen whether needed or not. That way I can always hit the same temps.
Figured I'd share, probably something not everybody has come up against.