25th Brew, 7th All-Grain,

[Shawn3997]

So I just got my new "Cereal Killer" mill. Set the gap to it's lowest setting, which I think is 0.025", just a tad less than a credit card width and started cranking. Whew! This was going to me a lot of work. Screw that, where's my drill?

Hooked up the good old Black & Decker from Wal-Mart and let 'er rip. No problem. Tore through 10 lbs. in about 60 seconds. I ran it through again just for the hell of it. Looked like a good crush.

Now that I'm 25 brews in and I have my own mill, I'm thinking I should be able to do everything without a hitch, right? I mean I'm practically an expert now with all of this experience and I own all of this bitchin' stuff.

Well, first I opened up the kettle to put my mash water in and some large cloud of stinky something comes out of the spigot and then into my mash tun. Whoops! So, I throw that out and remember to clean the kettle spigot better next time. There went about 4 cups of strike water.

Then the neighbor's dog, who is supposed to be on a leash but isn't, runs into our yard and looks at me and then starts towards me on the porch like he's gonna bite me.

So I drop the transfer hose I'm holding onto and run over to shut the porch gate and another few cups of water spill out onto the porch. Then the neighbor, who's other dog (the small one) *is* on a leash, says "Sorry!", as I get the hose back into the cooler and lose another 2 or 3 cups of water.

Anyway, looking on the upside, the mash smells really good, I hit my mash strike temperature exactly, and I'm just gonna toss in about 6 cups of water to the boil to make up for the losses.

I swear to you now that for #26 everything is going to go as planned!

 

[Kampenken]

Ha ha!! This made me think of...boating! I bought a boat last year, I've rented in the past, and wow, how much I learned this past year! Same thing for brewing, and I've been at it for a few years (after a 15yr hiatus). Always something, and I switched when I started back to AG, about 40 brews in now. Its a constant learning process, so keep notes (they also become stories!) and you'll learn.

One thing I'm interested in here. I too have a cereal killer (love it, buy grains now in bulk, 1/2 price) but run mine wider than you do. I have a Grainfather now, so my setting while fairly fine, don't recall setting but cc catches on raised numbers, creates some powder, is not as fine as I suspect you are at. Are you BIAB with a brew bag? I would think if you were in a cooler MLT with a braid, you'd also find out about stuck sparges...

Oh, and if you're not already, work on water adjustments, big difference, especially for lighter colored beers.

 

[Shawn3997]

I do BIAB so a super-fine crush is fine. I did my first batch with the CC milled grain yesterday and got 82% overall efficiency by just doing one infusion and no sparge. I'm very happy with that number but I've got to adjust all my recipes now for the better than average efficiency.

Either that or I'm just going to do the recipes as they are but do every recipe as a 6 gallon batch once I buy some more large carboys.

 

[kh54s10]

Why not heat up the water and add it to the mash? About 1 1/2 quarts should heat up quickly so it would be in there for most of the mash time.