Efficiently inefficient

[sprucecampbell]

I have been getting my grain from the local homebrew store. They use crushed 2-row. Is this pre-crushed? Is that bad? Everything else (but the 2-row) they mill there. I use beersmith and all of my recipes have had the OG coming out spot on when getting grain from there.

There is another homebrew store that is a part of a local brewery. The grain there is much cheaper and very comparable to online prices. So I started getting grain from them. The mill is the same one they use to brew their own beers. However, I have bought grain from there twice and both times my OG was way off. My temperatures stayed the same and I did nothing different.

Last night I used the same grain bill as I had used before. The first time I did it I hit 1.070, which is exactly what it was supposed to be. But when I got grain from the new place my OG was 1.044. Is this a problem with the crusher settings on their end? I would have to assume that with everything on my end staying the same the fault would lie in how the grain was milled. For now, I would like to keep purchasing from them as they are much cheaper, but not if my recipes aren't going to turn out right. Once I move in a month I am going to build my own milling station and start buying in bulk, but for now I am trying to figure out what might be causing this terrible inefficiency.

Ideas? Thanks

 

[emetcalf]

It sounds like a crush problem on their end. It's possible that you are unintentionally doing something different, but it's much more likely that the crush is making most of the difference. You could try asking them to double crush and see if that helps.

 

[sprucecampbell]

Thanks emetcalf. I am doing nothing different on my end. I have a routine that I follow and it has lead me to get my OG's to be within .001 of my BeerSmith estimates. Looking at the grain before I put it in the mash tun the husks didn't looked as cracked as the crushed two row I would get. Is the pre-crushed 2-row bad? I personally have not noticed a problem with the taste or quality of it.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Precrushed is not a problem at all if it is reasonably fresh. With the vast difference in results, you should likely be able to see it in the crush. Did the crush producing very low yield appear to have uncrushed or whole pieces of grain present?

 

[sprucecampbell]

it did look like there were some uncrushed pieces present. There seemed to be a lot of kernel type pieces, which I am assuming now should have been crushed or broken.