Just bought the 15lb Barley Crusher

[climateboy]

Perhaps you shoulc just add rice hulls? Or get a stanless braid instead of a false bottom?

Those might work, but I was hoping to solve this with the equipment I already have.

 

[Catt22]

Hey, all. I too love my BC mill, but I'm thinking of adjusting my crush. No matter how much I recirculate, and how clear the first runnings are, bits of grain always come out of the mash tun. I run it through a sieve to catch this stuff, but I'd rather the grain bed and the false bottom do this work.

Any suggestions on what I might set it to (or maybe I'm doing something else wrong)? I bought a feeler gauge yesterday for the purpose.

Thanks,

CB

You will see a lot of squawking about claimed high efficiencies and the benefits of finely milled malt. There's the ubiquitous, "crush it 'til it scares you" mantra heard frequently in the home brew circles. What they don't tell you is that when you exceed the optimum, big problems can sometimes occur including a stuck mash or, as in your case, husk particulates in the run off. I've backed off on my crush somewhat as I was having sticking problems too often. I may have lost a couple of efficiency points, but the sticking problem has been overcome and adjusting the grainbill accordingly is easy enough. At some point, the problems outweigh the benefits of crushing too finely.

Here's what my crush looks like:

 

[Baja_Brewer]

I gotta say, when BMW started their 10% off sale I waited a few weeks then ordered a 7#BC because I figured I couldnt beat that price with the flat rate shipping.

Turns out the 7# was out of stock and I received the 15# for the price of 10% the 7#!!! I love love love love it!!! My LHBS in VT (ie, the town food co-op) has a 7# and mine whoops their ass!

Not to mention I can get whole bags of 2-row/uncrushed specialty grains from my LHBS here at school and not pay him extra--crook!

Welcome to the 15# club!

 

[climateboy]

... or, as in your case, husk particulates in the run off. I've backed off on my crush somewhat...[/IMG]

My problem is not husk particulates, but bits of grain in the run-off, which I think is due to the shredded husks in my crush. You have more whole husks in yours than I do by an order of magnitude. I also get more flour than I think I should.

Can I ask, what gap is your Barley Crusher set to? I'd like to emulate your crush. 75% efficiency or thereabouts is just fine by me.


Thanks,

CB

 

[Catt22]

I'm using a Philmill I, not a BarleyCrusher. You can get a good crush from any malt mill IMO. The Philmill I is a single roller mill which smashes the grain against a plate. The distance of the plate from the roller is adjustable with a single thumb screw. The real beauty of this is that you can adjust the mill gap on the fly while the mill is operating. No need to measure the gap with a feeler gage or whatever. I make adjustments by inspecting the mill output while the mill is running. I let the milled grain fall into my hand then I spread it out and take a close look at it. I want to see nearly every corn smashed but not shredded. There should be a good bit of starch chunks in the mix and about ten percent or so fine flour. It should be hard to find intact corns and those should be obviously undersized.

It took me a very long time to get the crush dialed in properly. I didn't know what a proper crush should look like. My tendency was to over crush the grain and I did that repeatedly. In frustration, I backed off considerably and the problems vanished.

You cannot see the flour portion of the milled grain in the pic because I took the picture with the grain spread out on a light colored wooden table. The flour nearly matches the color of the table. Sorry about that!

So, my advice is to smash the grain without ripping it up. You will have some ripped up husks, but they should not be a large percentage.

I get somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-85% efficiency calculated pre-boil. My overall brew house efficiency is about 70% which is what I plug into ProMash. The 70% takes into account all the losses along the way to the fermenter. You can get any efficiency rate you want if you manipulate the numbers enough! Use a low enough grain potential in your calculations and you can even exceed 100%. I prefer reality and I'm not competing with anyone over efficiency numbers. I used to deliberately underestimate my efficiency so that I would generally be over my expected gravity. I could then dilute if desired, or go with a higher gravity beer. Where I come from, the higher gravity beers are favored anyway. Only if I'm way over do I resort to dilution.

 

[BierMuncher]

Throw a sauce pot full of rice hulls in each of your batches and your wort will run clear. I use rice hulls in all my batches.

 

[climateboy]

Throw a sauce pot full of rice hulls in each of your batches and your wort will run clear. I use rice hulls in all my batches.

Darn. I was hoping to avoid another trip to the LHBS (DC doesn't have a local one), or another round of shipping costs. I'm going to back off on my crush a bit and see what happens.

 

[seabrew8]

Is the Barley Crusher still a high end product? I was just looking at the 15lb unit for $130+.

 

[gbrewing]

I got my 15 pound barley crusher for Christmas as well. I really enjoy it. I have not made any adjustments to it and am getting a great crush straight out of the box.

 

[BrewBeemer]

Throw a sauce pot full of rice hulls in each of your batches and your wort will run clear. I use rice hulls in all my batches.

I mentioned rice hulls once and my dear old neighbor in his 80's came back from home, he already mixed in a quart of plain rice into my bucket of crushed grain. Can't hate the guy he's one of those from the old country trying to help out. Made nice glue out of the grain.

 

[Sheldon]

Just joined the 7lb club and got myself a bday present (next week). Now I can order my grains and crush whenever I am ready to brew. That works well around here in the winter months. I can now wait until we get a good weekend to brew and not be subject to really cold and/or wintry days. Also wanted to up my mid 60's efficiency.

 

[Kidder]

I just bought the 7lb BC as well. Can't wait to start using it. The lack of response from Randy there is really aggravating though. I've sent him three emails and no response. All I want to know is if it's going to be here by this weekend, didn't think it was a tough question. Still waiting on the shipping confirmation as well. It's going on a week since I made the Paypal payment.

 

[evilhomer]

Ordered mine on the 18th, I got a confirmation 8 or 9 days later.

 

[sensibull]

Curious why everyone seems to go with the BC and not a Crankandstein. Is it just the ease of a prebuilt hopper?

 

[Kidder]

Does anyone know the phone number for the Barley Crusher company? It's not listed on their site. I've emailed again asking approximately when it might ship and still no response. Maybe I'd get an answer if I just called them up.

 

[evilhomer]

I got a tracking number today, tomorrow will be exactly 3 weeks since ordering.

 

[gunner65]

I got a tracking number today, tomorrow will be exactly 3 weeks since ordering.

evilhomer! a fellow Lexington brewer! I ordered mine through AHB on 1/21 they said to contact them if I dont get it by 2/25 which sucks! I have been waiting a long time to brew since I ordered all uncrushed grain in anticipation of my new BC. The BC seemed like the best bang for the buck at the time I ordered now it looks like they are really lacking in customer service.

 

[IrregularPulse]

Just used mine for the first time yesterday. Just went with factory setting because I'd forgotten to take my feelers home from work. Taking them home today to see what it's set to. Next purchase, Bulk grain and hops. Brewing on a whim...here I come

 

[Kidder]

Just got an email back from BC - my order will be shipping out tomorrow morning.

I just finished brewing a Foreign Extra Stout today, now I'll have an excuse to brew another batch this coming weekend since my BC will hopefully be here by then.

 

[evilhomer]

evilhomer! a fellow Lexington brewer! I ordered mine through AHB on 1/21 they said to contact them if I dont get it by 2/25 which sucks! I have been waiting a long time to brew since I ordered all uncrushed grain in anticipation of my new BC. The BC seemed like the best bang for the buck at the time I ordered now it looks like they are really lacking in customer service.

Well let me know if you want to use mine, I should get it this week. I'm actually in Versailles.

 

[gunner65]

Well let me know if you want to use mine, I should get it this week. I'm actually in Versailles.

Thanks for the offer...If I dont get mine by next weekend I may give you a PM!

 

[eastoak]

I just bought the 7lb BC as well. Can't wait to start using it. The lack of response from Randy there is really aggravating though. I've sent him three emails and no response. All I want to know is if it's going to be here by this weekend, didn't think it was a tough question. Still waiting on the shipping confirmation as well. It's going on a week since I made the Paypal payment.

i had the same thing happen to me so i went through paypal to get my money back, i had to wonder if they were still in business because i'd never had no response at all from a vendor. when he finally got to me he seemed miffed because the website says to expect shipping to take 7-10 days. i pointed out that it mentions nothing about no response at all to emails, or no order confirmation. i got no response back. lol.

he's there just to busy to return emails. i'm not mad about it (he might be) but after reading other reports on here i just wanted to make sure there was somebody on the other end. i'm willing to wait.

 

[Kidder]

i had the same thing happen to me so i went through paypal to get my money back, i had to wonder if they were still in business because i'd never had no response at all from a vendor. when he finally got to me he seemed miffed because the website says to expect shipping to take 7-10 days. i pointed out that it mentions nothing about no response at all to emails, or no order confirmation. i got no response back. lol.

he's there just to busy to return emails. i'm not mad about it (he might be) but after reading other reports on here i just wanted to make sure there was somebody on the other end. i'm willing to wait.

I know he's busy but he (or their "customer service") needs to respond. I mean you drop $130+ on something you'd expect halfway decent customer service, right? At least update the website with a realistic lead time and stop misleading customers.

Even though they said it would ship out this morning I still haven't seen a ship confirmation nor tracking #. I emailed them this afternoon asking what's up and I'm still waiting. If I don't hear back by tomorrow afternoon I'm cancelling the order and buying from Northern Brewer. At least they actually have them (both 7 and 15 lb) in stock; they didn't have the 7 lb model at the time I ordered through BC . I'm seriously getting pissed off about the situation.

 

[Kidder]

Barley Crusher was finally shipped out today. Ordered it on January 25th. I'll sure be glad once it arrives.

 

[Native302]

Ordered my 15lb barley crusher from adventures in homebrewing yesterday and it will be here tomorrow! Excellent customer service and very fast shipping. I can't wait to get it and my 200lbs of grain tomorrow.

 

[enkamania]

Mine is coming Thursday, wondering if I should adjust to do BIAB.

 

[shmEk]

Does anyone have a phone contact number for Barleycrusher.com? It's been 10 days (actually 12 now) and no word on a tracking number and the crusher is definitely not on arrival. Basically no contact since my order after a confirmation email of my payment.

Seemed like good people from all the comments I read, but this is getting me a bit antsy.... like is the website fraudulent or something? I would have hoped to have reported better.

 

[xeerohour]

I ordered from them this summer, and it took about six weeks for it to show up. After about a month I emailed them about an order status, and I got a shipping notification the next day.

So, no, not a scam. Just slow

Fwiw, I LOVE mine. Totally worth the wait.

 

[shmEk]

Thanks for the reply post Xeerohour.... very much appreciated. Hopefully I get a turn around on the question I sent them today like you did. That would be helpful. I just started ordering uncrushed grains and am going to be stuck until it gets here. 6 weeks would reallllly suck for a wait time. I sure do read good comments on them and was looking for something ready to roll right out of the box already mounted for a bucket etc.

Glad to hear the wait is worth it... I'm itching all over here waiting

 

[BierMuncher]

Does anyone have a phone contact number for Barleycrusher.com? It's been 10 days (actually 12 now) and no word on a tracking number and the crusher is definitely not on arrival. Basically no contact since my order after a confirmation email of my payment.

Seemed like good people from all the comments I read, but this is getting me a bit antsy.... like is the website fraudulent or something? I would have hoped to have reported better.

It's a one-two person shop. Things are built by hand. Email Randy, he will respond.