Opinions on my crush.

Take a look at this crush and let me know if you think it is too fine or not. Looks to me like the husks are torn in half a lot so maybe I should back it off a notch. At the same time, there seems to be a nice range of small to medium pieces of grain.

I think that looks pretty good. What kind of mill are you using?

Looks like my crush. The spent grains look like polenta. I got 83% efficiency on a 1.100 beer yesterday fly sparging.

Hahahahah... this is my converted pasta machine aka The Grain Noodler!

A few months back I was the OP of a thread where I posed the question whether or not a pasta roller machine like this one could be used as a roller mill if the rollers were scored:



Turns out, in my whimsical wonderings, that I may have inadvertantly revolutionized home brewing as the pasta mills only cost about $30-$40. See the 13 page thread on HBT here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/using-pasta-maker-mill-grain-75784/

So nobody thinks the condition of the husks is a problem? The setting which is one larger from the one I used for this tends to keep them intact but the grain chunks are larger and there's much less flour. I sort of thought this crush looked like one that could be described as following the , "crush until you are scared" rule.

I've been following that thread!

I just did a crush for my first time ever using a corona style mill. It looked fairly similar to your crush, but a bit less consistent. Kudos to you!

The crush doesn't look too fine to me. I'd actually go a little finer. I don't see that much powder. I don't think the husk pieces have to be large, just recognizable as husk. But that probably somewhat depends on your lautering system.

I have a false bottom in my keggle and it has been extremely tolerant in the past. I've never had a stuck sparge and I've done stupid things accidentally like let the water level drop below the grain bed and opened the the spigot all the way up so I'm really not that afraid of going fine on my crush. I've been hitting an efficiency around 74-76% so I'd love to get up in the 80% range as it would make a big difference cost wise over the course of the year.

At present, by changing to my "Grain Noodler", I'm saving around $7 CDN per 10 gallon batch by eliminating crushing charges. By buying bulk grain I'll save another $6 per batch. Any rise in efficiency will only be savings gravy on top of that.

Oh, and providing my cascades, willamettes and nuggets produce a decent harvest I may eliminate anything from $10-$17 per batch. If everything works out I'll be down around $20 CDN per 10 gallons batch. That's $0.25/pint!!!

MOSFET said:

The crush doesn't look too fine to me. I'd actually go a little finer. I don't see that much powder. I don't think the husk pieces have to be large, just recognizable as husk. But that probably somewhat depends on your lautering system.

Click to expand...

I agree w/ the above and would tighten that little noodle roller up a notch. As the say " crush till you are scared"
A bit of flour is ok IMHO.

Oh what the hell do I know...I use a Corona mill!