milling rye malt

[bailey mountain brewer]

I plan to brew a rye ipa this weekend and I am wondering how people are milling rye, as in gap setting. Seems as though it is pretty small and I can adjust my mill pretty far, any suggestions?

 

[IslandLizard]

Absolutely, adjust the gap to the kernel size.

I always set the gap tighter for small kernel grain:
0.034" regular barley malt
0.025" wheat malt and flaked goods
0.019" rye, oat malt, flaked goods, etc.

So I generally have to reset the gap once per milling session, small > wide or wide > small.
Thinking about it, I guess I could mill all the smaller kernel grain and flaked goods on 0.019"...

Now, I often mill for 2 or more batches, so it's not that bad.

I use a 2-roller Monster Mill (MM2, 1.5" rollers), fairly easy to adjust.
And I've put some grease on the locking bolts' threads.

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

Sounds great, thanks for the info. I always adjust for different sizes as well but never milled rye before. Based on what you posted I should be good at where I crush my oat malt. My wife got me the SSbrewtech grain mill which I love, the gap settings on it are a little different then a standard mill which I know where to set it for different grains now after running some tests.

 

[IslandLizard]

That BrewTech is an awesome mill, would probably my choice too if I had to buy new.
Are you doing BIAB mashing?

FWIW, I use a converted cooler mash tun, with a slotted CPVC manifold on the bottom. Batch sparging 2x.
I've noticed crush quality and fineness is not all that important as long as it's crushed well.

Now with a large % of wheat and more so with rye, lautering is slow, agonizingly at times, even with ample rice hulls added.
Adding boiling water and lots of stirring helps to increase the flow.

 

[beersk]

That BrewTech is an awesome mill, would probably my choice too if I had to buy new.
Are you doing BIAB mashing?

FWIW, I use a converted cooler mash tun, with a slotted CPVC manifold on the bottom. Batch sparging 2x.
I've noticed crush quality and fineness is not all that important as long as it's crushed well.

Now with a large % of wheat and more so with rye, lautering is slow, agonizingly at times, even with ample rice hulls added.
Adding boiling water and lots of stirring helps to increase the flow.

I ALWAYS see at least a 5% drop in efficiency when using a decent percentage of rye or wheat. Do you?
I think I'm crushing pretty fine, but maybe not fine enough. Gap is set to about a credit card width.

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

This batch I am doing will have 7.5% of rye malt and 7.5% of flake rye. I brew on a spike eherms system, and yeah I plan on using a decent amount of rice hulls.

 

[IslandLizard]

I ALWAYS see at least a 5% drop in efficiency when using a decent percentage of rye or wheat. Do you?
I think I'm crushing pretty fine, but maybe not fine enough. Gap is set to about a credit card width.

No, I don't see a drop in efficiency, even at 50% of the grist.
I do 2 equal volume (batch) sparges, though. The total amount of sparge water is the same as the mash, minus grist absorption.

A regular credit card would be around 0.034". That's a bit too wide for wheat and rye, at least on my 2-roller mill, they'd go mostly uncrushed.
Maybe try 0.022-0.025" and see if it improves?

 

[beersk]

No, I don't see a drop in efficiency, even at 50% of the grist.
I do 2 equal volume (batch) sparges, though. The total amount of sparge water is the same as the mash, minus grist absorption.

A regular credit card would be around 0.034". That's a bit too wide for wheat and rye, at least on my 2-roller mill, they'd go mostly uncrushed.
Maybe try 0.022-0.025" and see if it improves?

I do have a barley crusher as a backup mill now and maybe I'll plan to just use that for rye and wheat with the gap closed as tight as it will go. Not sure what that is.

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

A set of feeler gauges is probably less than 5 bucks at an auto parts or tool supply. FYI.

 

[day_trippr]

Gap is set to about a credit card width.

On my Cereal Killer that's barley territory at an .032" gap. And your card could be way thicker than that.
I use my old Barley Crusher (with the reversed rollers) for oat malt, wheat malt, and rye malt with an .025" gap set.

btw, always use feeler gauges. I posted a survey of the ~10 cards in my wallet a month or two ago on a similar thread and there was a profound range of thicknesses...

Cheers!

 

[JohnDBrewer]

I have an MM3 and keep the gap set at .05. For rye and wheat, I run them through twice.

 

[beersk]

On my Cereal Killer that's barley territory at an .032" gap. And your card could be way thicker than that.
I use my old Barley Crusher (with the reversed rollers) for oat malt, wheat malt, and rye malt with an .025" gap set.

btw, always use feeler gauges. I posted a survey of the ~10 cards in my wallet a month or two ago on a similar thread and there was a profound range of thicknesses...

Cheers!

Thanks for the info. I used to have some feeler gauges. I should pick up some new...

 

[IslandLizard]

Thanks for the info. I used to have some feeler gauges. I should pick up some new...

Or use calipers and start measuring those credit cards and other thin flat plastic objects ...
I use the (thin) fake American Express credit cards they used to send in the mail by the dozen. They gap nicely at 0.025.