Wow, everyone gets really testy any time you bring something up like this on this forum.
It seems like there is a personal issue deeper than the mill setting IMHO. If you are serious about your brewing and as your signature line states you should invest in a few tools to assisst in your quest. A carpenter is only as good as his tools.
There is no other personal issue. WTF?! A guy can't be disappointed with the level of service that a SPECIALTY shop is giving without everyone jumping on him? I have not bought a mill yet because I work 5 bleeping miles from midwest supplies and I expected that a store who specializes in selling malt and crushed malt would know WTF they were doing. Besides, I am a machinist. If I want a mill, I make one. I just wanted to spend my money in other areas first, like my 24 cu ft. keezer, many kegs, two ferm fridges with dual Ranco's and fermwraps on each, three mini fridges to store bottles and yeast cultures, 10 different flasks of all sizes, four stir plates, pH meter, and a bunch of other goodies.
So don't give me any @#%! about "oh, you are an idiot and you should have the tools if you are serious about brewing." Maybe they should fix their mill if they are serious about selling milled grain. Quit trying to pick a fight with me, I'm only trying to make people aware of the fact that the mill gap is .065" at its tightest setting, which is about .026" larger than what is considered the ideal setting for a decent crush and still lauter with ease.
In the store's defense, many brew shops give a somewhat coarse grind on purpose to minimize the flour and decrease the brewer's chance for a stuck sparge. It's not necessarily negligence or a tactic to get you to buy more grain. Ask them to run your grain through the mill twice. That should help a little.
I didn't want someone crushing my grain, I got a mill
I always crush my own malt when I go there and inspect my crush thoroughly. Most of the time I do run it through twice, which makes it marginally better. I'm not super concerned about my efficiency, but when a club member got a 36% this weekend due to the malt being maybe waved in front of the mill, that makes me a little mad. I also have noticed that their mill has been doing a horrible job on my last few brews too. When I run my grain through the second time, it has a tendency to shred the husks quite a bit.
This is not mediocrity, this is a business trying to cater to as many people as possible and to prevent 100% loss disasters by crushing very coarse.
You are wrong, plain and simple. They have this mill-http://www.barleycrusher.com/barleycrushermicro.php
This mill is designed to be fully adjustable. So they can easily set it for a very coarse crush if they want when shipping grain to people when they don't want them to have a stuck sparge. But when I go in there and crank the mill as tight as it will go, which is the .015" setting on the dial and it actually gaps at .065", that is what I would call unacceptable. Fix or replace the mill. Then they can crush it coarse for those who want it, and the rest of us who come in and use it can crush it how we want. Its not a matter of trying to prevent disasters, the mill is wore out and needs to have the rollers replaced. I just wanted to make those who care aware of that fact before they order malt from them expecting it to be crushed decently and it is not.
Something that I was told a while back was that replication is more important that efficiency, and I just now believe that is 100% true. If you can guarantee that you get 65% every time you brew, you plan for that in your recipe. I can guarantee that I get 92-95% efficiency when I crush super fine and double decoction mash, so I plan a German style around that. If you get 80% by doing the same thing, you can easily plan a great recipe around your numbers. Every brewer here has a different setup, different temps, and different equipment and I bet that we all produce good beer 80% of the time, great beer 15% of the time and beer that you can not drink 5%.
Yeah, yeah, yeah...
I know how to brew and what is important. I don't need a treatise on why efficiency isn't important. I target 65-70% and am happy with the results, but when the last few brews have eeked lower and lower due to poor crush, its hard to be repeatable.