Extra fine milling plus rice hulls is higher efficiency?

[beervoid]

Hello everyone,

I was wondering if milling finer then normal what would lead to better extraction but less efficiency as too finely milled grains can cause a stuck mash.
What if one would counter this by adding rice hulls?
Would this give a better efficiency in the end?
Cheerz

 

[kh54s10]

Depending on other procedures - probably. Assuming that you don't mill so fine that all the flour ends up in your fermenter. Then you may have great efficiency but lose a lot of beer to a huge amount of trub.

Some say that milling to fine will lead to tannin extraction. I doubt that, though.

 

[kevink]

The only benefit of improving efficiency is a very slight cost savings. I would calculate how much money in grain you will actually save by doing this, subtract the cost of the rice hulls, and then decide if it's worth it. Grain is so cheap. Also think about the possibility of extracting more tannins from the super fine crush. Seems like that might happen, but I never tried it.

 

[Smellyglove]

If you're looking at this solution to get a higher efficiency, I'd rather just use more grains, maybe just mash longer, or add another mash step before mash out, instead of also have to use a band aid (the hulls) to a "fix" (milling finer).

 

[kevink]

If you're looking at this solution to get a higher efficiency, I'd rather just use more grains, maybe just mash longer, or add another mash step before mash out, instead of also have to use a band aid (the hulls) to a "fix" (milling finer).

Pretty much what I'm saying. Efficiency is so low on my list that after 10 years of brewing, I still have not tried to increase it. I just don't care. So many other things are far more important.

 

[RM-MN]

Hello everyone,

I was wondering if milling finer then normal what would lead to better extraction but less efficiency as too finely milled grains can cause a stuck mash.
What if one would counter this by adding rice hulls?
Would this give a better efficiency in the end?
Cheerz

Yews the finer milling will increase your efficiency and no you don't want the rice hulls, you want to put the grains in big fine mesh bag (BIAB). No stuck mash or sparge, high efficiency, faster conversion and no tannins.

 

[balrog]

Us BIAB-ers will say mill to dust. If you're using a cooler with braided coil it could be a problem with stuck mash on finer grind. But you can us a cooler sized BIAB too.