Monster Mill Crush Help

[chays99]

Ok fellas -

I'm still having trouble dialing in my Monster Mill 2-2.0. What do you guys think of this crush? The grain bill is Denny's Rye IPA (11 # two row, 3# rye, #.5 wheat, #.5 carapils, 1.25 # C-60).

I conditioned the malt with 2% water from a spray bottle. The gap is set such that .035 on a set of feeler gauges pushed through snug with a bit of resistance. I'm using the low speed Harbor Freight drill but having to hold the trigger all the way down to crush the grain. I also used a few heaping handfuls of rice hulls.

This brew day resulted in my first stuck sparge. I've had pretty consistent difficulty getting this thing dialed in. What do you guys think?

Thanks in advance!

 

[brewmeister13]

Looks pretty good. I have almost the same exact setup (except I can use the drill dialed almost all the way down). I've not had a stuck sparge yet and I don't use rice hulls. When you start your sparge are you allowing gravity to set the bed and then pumping with the valve only open a little bit? Or pumping hard to start? Seems to me like it may be a process issue.

 

[brewkinger]

Crush is something that in my opinion is equipment specific.
Having said that, yours looks too fine to me and I understand that the smaller rye kernels kind of force you to mill with a tight gap.

It ultimately depends on your tun setup (braid or false bottom?)
And like previous post said, open the valve very little at first to set the filter bed, then after a couple minutes begin to open it up a little more.
That trick has helped me a lot.

For now I would open that gap back up to about .038 or .039 to get some more intact husks and offset with some extra grain.
For me, the extra $2 of grain is better than the time spent screwing around with a stuck sparge.

You can also look into putting a bag into your mash tun like a BIABer.


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[RM-MN]

Your crush looks good to me....if you had just barley in there. Rye is the tough one, it is smaller and harder than barley (try it with a hand cranked mill and you'll quickly notice how much harder it is to mill) so you need to get the mill adjusted closer to get it milled properly. Once you get it milled and into the mash, you find that it tends to make your mash more sticky because it contains more glucans than barley. Then, because rye has no husk you are short on husks to form the filter bed so you have to use rice hulls to help out as I see you did. Wheat is also a problem grain to use for the same reason as rye except it isn't quite as sticky and not quite as small of kernel. As Brewkinger suggested, when using significant quantities of either rye or wheat, mashing in a paint strainer bag may be the way to go. The bag forms the filter so you don't even need to add the rice hulls and if the mash is too sticky to come out on its own, you can force it out by squeezing the bag. I've done a roggenbier with about 60% unmalted rye and the bag works for that but wow what a stick mess.

 

[IslandLizard]

It does depend somewhat on your mash method how fine you can mill your grain. But it looks you still have unmilled rye grains in there, so going wider will pass more smaller kernels through.

I have the regular MM2, 1.5" rollers and usually don't condition the grist. I mill wheat and rye separately from the barley with a smaller gap, around .028", the thickness of an American Express junk mail credit card. Barley gets 0.34", measured by a regular credit card. For my batch sparge system with a manifold in the bottom of the cooler tun those settings works great. And yes I know I do shred some hulls with the tighter barley gap.

Rice hulls are a good lauter aid, but you shouldn't mill them. I think that reduces their efficiency. Just toss them in after milling.

 

[doc5md]

I find with rye I need more rice hulls than just a handful or two.

 

[chays99]

Thanks for the feedback.

This was my first recipe with rye, so I didn't understand the kernel and the stickiness. I kept wondering why everything was so much stickier than normal. I'm pretty sure I used three heaping handfulls of rice hulls.

I went back and looked at my efficiency on the last three brews with the mill set to the same gap and had mash efficiency ranging from the high 70's to low 80's.

Maybe I'm just continually overthinking everything.

 

[RM-MN]

Thanks for the feedback.

This was my first recipe with rye, so I didn't understand the kernel and the stickiness. I kept wondering why everything was so much stickier than normal. I'm pretty sure I used three heaping handfulls of rice hulls.

I went back and looked at my efficiency on the last three brews with the mill set to the same gap and had mash efficiency ranging from the high 70's to low 80's.

Maybe I'm just continually overthinking everything.

Try doing a cereal mash with unmalted rye without quite enough water. Then you'll understand stickiness.

 

[donovanmaxwell]

Is there a good ratio of rice hulls to go by for gauging how much rice hull to add?

 

[TrubDog]

Brew a batch or two, check your efficiency as well as the final product and then make adjustments as necessary.

You are the best judge of what you like and what you are striving for.


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