Grain conditioning best practice question

[whovous]

I plan to brew an APA/IPA on Tuesday night. I will grind my grain just before mashing in. I have two choices on grain conditioning:
1) Fifteen minutes before I mill the grain on Tuesday.
2) Monday night, followed by storing the grain in a plastic bag until I grind on Tuesday.

Which is best?

Somewhat related question: My recipe includes a little bit of flaked wheat, flaked oats and flaked barley. Should I condition and grind these items as well, or should I simply add them to the conditioned grain prior to mashing in?

 

[mongoose33]

A lot of people crush grain the night before in order to reduce the length of their brew day.

I'm brewing tomorrow, and I'll get things ready tonite--crush the grain and store overnight in a 5-gallon bucket with a gamma seal lid, get hops ready, mineral additions to water, and so on.

 

[whovous]

Other than saving time on brew day, which sounds good, is there any advantage to one over the other? And is the plastic bag an OK substitute for the bucket? I don't know what a gamma seal lid is.

 

[kh54s10]

I would not store the grain wet. When conditioning you want to moisten the husk so it doesn't shred, but you do not want the entire kernel wet.

https://www.amazon.com/Gamma2-4123-Gamma-Seal-Black/dp/B0089QJQTS

 

[whovous]

I plan to use about 1.5 oz of water with about 6 pounds of grain. That creates moist grain, not wet grain. Is there a problem with putting that into a plastic bag or under the linked airtight lid?

It does not make sense to me to do it the night before and then simply leave the grain out to dry again.

FWIW, I am thinking of adding some rice hulls to the mix this time as well. I do a continuously recirculating mash, no sparge, and getting a stuck grain bed really throws everything off. I want to grind fairly fine and still avoid getting stuck.

 

[tagz]

I would personally just grab a big bag of rice hulls and toss some in to each batch to avoid the conditioning step. They are super cheap and serve the same purpose.

If you do condition, don't do it ahead of time; they could mold.

 

[mongoose33]

You condition the grain so it will crush better. If it were wet, I wouldn't seal it up, but it should at best be a tiny bit moist. I might cover it lightly after giving it a chance to dry out.

You don't have to worry about conditioning if you're going to add rice hulls. I brew a Rye beer with 3# of Rye malt. I add Rice hulls because the Rye has no hulls, and want to avoid a stuck mash. If you want to grind very fine, I'd add the rice hulls.

But the other question is this: how is your mash/grind/gravity performance now? Something you're concerned about? I don't know that I'm producing the perfect efficiency but the beer is great so I don't really care that much.

 

[kh54s10]

I plan to use about 1.5 oz of water with about 6 pounds of grain. That creates moist grain, not wet grain. Is there a problem with putting that into a plastic bag or under the linked airtight lid?

It does not make sense to me to do it the night before and then simply leave the grain out to dry again.

FWIW, I am thinking of adding some rice hulls to the mix this time as well. I do a continuously recirculating mash, no sparge, and getting a stuck grain bed really throws everything off. I want to grind fairly fine and still avoid getting stuck.

The other response was to condition and mill the grain the night before.

Even with that small amount of water, IMO, you want to moisten the husk only then mill it. If you then store it uncrushed the moisture will soak the whole grain.

In this case, since you are getting stuck while recirculating, I would condition the grains and mill right away. You can then keep them in a container until use. I would use some rice hulls in addition to the conditioning.....

 

[whovous]

The other response was to condition and mill the grain the night before.

Even with that small amount of water, IMO, you want to moisten the husk only then mill it. If you then store it uncrushed the moisture will soak the whole grain.

In this case, since you are getting stuck while recirculating, I would condition the grains and mill right away. You can then keep them in a container until use. I would use some rice hulls in addition to the conditioning.....

SMH. Mill the night before is exactly what the other response was. But did I read it that way? [Start John Belushi mode] NOOOOO! [End John Belushi mode]

OK, so I condition and mill the night before. Is it then OK to put it in a plastic bag with a twist tie? I don't have a bucket with a lid, and I don't think I have anything beyond a large pot with a loose lid that would hold it.

Oh, and what about the flaked wheat, oats, and barley. Do I condition and mill them at the same time, or do I just wait until I drop the bag in the water to add them?

 

[Iseneye]

I condition about 10 minutes before crushing. Nice intact hulls.

 

[schematix]

Just made a batch where i conditioned for the first time ever. Never seen my barley crusher want to chew through grain so fast. When i first looked at the results i was a little worried that it wasn't milling properly because i saw so many large chunks. Turns out that was just all of the hulls in tact!

I did this as part of a low dissolved oxygen experiment (http://www.germanbrewing.net/docs/Brewing-Bavarian-Helles.pdf) and would rate it as extremely successful.

 

[whovous]

There was a seminar on low dissolved oxygen at the AHA convention in Baltimore. Most of it went right over my head, but I am beginning to catch on. I am not sure I will add Campden tablets to my RO water (no access to other SMB before my next brew date), but I do plan at least to boil my water before brewing and add my grain bag/basket as carefully as I can.

Brewing is fundamentally simple, but oh, there is so much simplicity to learn. Hot side oxidation. Who knew?

 

[brewbama]

I used to condition my grain before crushing but I found I would get build up on my grain mill rollers I did not like. I now set my grain mill at the width of my COSTCO card and back off just slightly for a very good crush and no stuck sparge while also not getting that build up. I have been getting high 70(s) to low 80(s) efficiency with that setting.

 

[SpeedYellow]

I wouldn't even dream of conditioning and milling the night before. Next time you're done mashing, leave your spent grains in a bag overnight then take a big whiff.

 

[whovous]

I wound up conditioning and milling the night before and then loosely covering a large bowl with plastic wrap. The brew wound up going completely off the rails and I pitched it rather than stay up all night trying to recover it. But I did not notice any untoward odors from the bowl or anywhere else.

 

[kh54s10]

I wouldn't even dream of conditioning and milling the night before. Next time you're done mashing, leave your spent grains in a bag overnight then take a big whiff.

If you are getting the grains that wet you are moistening them way too much. You really only want to slightly dampen the husk so they crack but not shred. If you left the bucket lid off it would be pretty dry by morning.

I use a corona style mill. I tried conditioning once. Since the corona shreds the husk more than a roller mill anyway, it made little difference.

In my case it doesn't help at all.

 

[SpeedYellow]

If you are getting the grains that wet you are moistening them way too much. You really only want to slightly dampen the husk so they crack but not shred. If you left the bucket lid off it would be pretty dry by morning.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I was just illustrating how water and grains don't play well together.

I find that 2% to 2.5% distilled water works great.
So for 10 lbs of malt: 10 lbs x 16 oz per lb x .025 = 4 oz water.

The other problem with wetting & milling the night before is that you probably want the malt to have enough air to dry out. That same air will also oxidize the ground up malt quite well. Is it a big deal? Maybe not. But I don't buy preground coffee either.

 

[kh54s10]

Yeah, yeah, I know. I was just illustrating how water and grains don't play well together.

I find that 2% to 2.5% distilled water works great.
So for 10 lbs of malt: 10 lbs x 16 oz per lb x .025 = 4 oz water.

The other problem with wetting & milling the night before is that you probably want the malt to have enough air to dry out. That same air will also oxidize the ground up malt quite well. Is it a big deal? Maybe not. But I don't buy preground coffee either.

I am not defending the night before milling of conditioned grain. Personally I would not do it. If I wanted to save any time I would just weigh out the grain the night before then mill it on brew day. It only takes me about 10 minutes to mill and average batch.