Malt Conditioning... WOW it rocks!

[SpanishCastleAle]

It was a little tighter to crush by hand, but not hard at all... never crushed by hand and I thought it was pretty easy. I will do it tomorrow to to keep myself and the malt connected on a more spiritual level

I'm old and outta shape so 12 pounds kinda wears me out. But my mill doesn't even turn that 'easily' with nothing in it...my drill (Black & Decker corded) can't budge it.

Be...the malt.
manananananana

 

[The Pol]

What mill do you use?

 

[conpewter]

Hey thanks for the help! Yes I suspect my conversion efficiency is not that great. I have been saving up money for a new mill but have yet to get it. I do have a nice motor for it now though. The mill I got is only 2" long and I run it at pretty high speed (the drill I have on it really only has 1 speed) so I don't think I'm getting as good a crush as I could. I've got dinged for astringency in a couple of my brews in competition so I think my problem lies with low conversion efficiency and too much sparging. I have been mashing thinner to help with the sparging. Anyway guess it's time to pony up for a nice mill. I'm planning on building it such that it sits on top of the cooler, mills the grain right into the water, most of the dust will be contained.

 

[The Pol]

Hey thanks for the help! Yes I suspect my conversion efficiency is not that great. I have been saving up money for a new mill but have yet to get it. I do have a nice motor for it now though. The mill I got is only 2" long and I run it at pretty high speed (the drill I have on it really only has 1 speed) so I don't think I'm getting as good a crush as I could. I've got dinged for astringency in a couple of my brews in competition so I think my problem lies with low conversion efficiency and too much sparging. I have been mashing thinner to help with the sparging. Anyway guess it's time to pony up for a nice mill. I'm planning on building it such that it sits on top of the cooler, mills the grain right into the water, most of the dust will be contained.

Glad I could help...

Yeah, like I said, if you can get your conv. eff. to about 100% (totally possible) then you dont have to sparge nearly as much as everyone else, and you will be hitting 80% every time to boot.

Less astringency, higher eff. and you gained knowlege of what it actually means to mash and lauter on your sytem.

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

It's a 7# BC, gap @ ~ 0.036". It squeaks too but it always did.

 

[Tonedef131]

It's a 7# BC, gap @ ~ 0.036". It squeaks too but it always did.

You gotta grease that bad boy up.

 

[The Pol]

It's a 7# BC, gap @ ~ 0.036". It squeaks too but it always did.

Wow... it is that hard to turn? Granted my replacement mill is only a couple months old but I can smack the handle and it will make a couple revolutions. Are your rollers crooked? I mean, when they are adjusted, you can have them adjusted so that the ends are misaligned....

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

The rollers are even...I measure the gap every so often and always look through the gap before crushing to see if it is even (I found it uneven one time). I actually think that the driven roller is a tiny bit too long...so it's ends are rubbing against the housing (and the passive roller actually has some play). I've never really looked into it because it gives a nice crush and I need the exercise (stupid reason but w/e).

 

[The Pol]

That is cool... I will be huffing it out on camera at about 9am tomorrow morning!

 

[RighteousFire]

I run a corona mill and condition my malt all the time now. It works very well and allows me to set it just a little finer than normal.

I spray and mix and then immediatly mill after the conditioning. It works just fine. The husks absorb the water rather quickly.

 

[The Pol]

I run a corona mill and condition my malt all the time now. It works very well and allows me to set it just a little finer than normal.

I spray and mix and then immediatly mill after the conditioning. It works just fine. The husks absorb the water rather quickly.

Glad to hear it works on the Corona too!

 

[pjj2ba]

I spray and mix and then immediatly mill after the conditioning. It works just fine. The husks absorb the water rather quickly.

Yes people, as RF says, the water is absorbed pretty quickly so the grains aren't "wet". They just feel "softer"

One word of caution though. If you do let the grain sit for a short time, give it a quick stir before dumping it into your hopper. Once conditioned it doesn't flow quite as smoothly as when dry. I *almost* ended up spilling a bunch of grain when I went to pour it out of my bucket into my hopper and it had stuck together a little and a huge clump (like 1/3 of the grain) came sliding out all at once, almost knocking my hopper off

 

[Hex]

Good advise pj!

 

[aeonderdonk]

might have to give this a whirl with the old corona rig

 

[JVD_X]

Pol, why don't you use less grain rather than trying to reduce efficiency?

 

[The Pol]

If you reduce grain, and keep the eff. you arent solving the problem.

The issue is that I need to reduce my lauter eff., reducing the grain bill will not do this. Reducing my sparge volume will. On my next brew I have almost 8 gallons pre-boil, the sparge will contribute only 3 gallons.

My lauter eff. is pushing 91%, I need to back that off so that I can maintain wort quality.

Since the grain is the buffer for the pH during the sparge, I am working up numbers for the % of pre-boil wort that should be derived from sparging. Obviously this will be tied to the size of the grain bill. More grain, more sparge water, less grain, less sparging.


The way people brew now, if you ALWAYS use the same qt/lb mash ratio, the smaller your grain bill, the MORE you sparge (to reach your boil volume) which is counter productive when trying to avoid tannin extraction.

 

[KingBrianI]

If you reduce grain, and keep the eff. you arent solving the problem.

The issue is that I need to reduce my lauter eff., reducing the grain bill will not do this. Reducing my sparge volume will. On my next brew I have almost 8 gallons pre-boil, the sparge will contribute only 3 gallons.

My lauter eff. is pushing 91%, I need to back that off so that I can maintain wort quality.

Forgive me for not having followed the efficiency threads, but have you noticed any particular problem with your "wort's quality" or is the push to decrease lauter efficiency due to percieved potential problems?

 

[The Pol]

My beer has always been crap

 

[hopsoda]

LOL

 

[beerocd]

Don't say efficiency aroung The Pol. It makes him crazy. Like the 3Stooges episode with Niagara Falls. Slowly he turns.....step by step ......

Pol -So your brew tomorrow isn't going over 2qts/lb is it? I notice you want to sparge less [in order to reduce the chance of extracting tannins ], but still need the same number of gallons in the pot - so that's more water up front. I thought 2qt was some magic threshold - you gonna bust that myth too? If you mentioned it before, sorry - but you're ~9,000 posts ahead of me. I haven't read em all.

-OCD

 

[hopsoda]

i though tannins were only extracted from the grain hulls if you sparged to hot.
am i missing something , can someone point me towards that thread?

 

[bob1852]

i though tannins were only extracted from the grain hulls if you sparged to hot.
am i missing something , can someone point me towards that thread?

it's a pH issue.....

I would recommend reading Kai's website: braukaiser.com

 

[The Pol]

Don't say efficiency aroung The Pol. It makes him crazy. Like the 3Stooges episode with Niagara Falls. Slowly he turns.....step by step ......

Pol -So your brew tomorrow isn't going over 2qts/lb is it? I notice you want to sparge less [in order to reduce the chance of extracting tannins ], but still need the same number of gallons in the pot - so that's more water up front. I thought 2qt was some magic threshold - you gonna bust that myth too? If you mentioned it before, sorry - but you're ~9,000 posts ahead of me. I haven't read em all.

-OCD

What magic threshold is 2qt/lb?

I am mashing at 2.5qt/lb tomorrow

 

[Edcculus]

Just in case anyone is as stupid as I am, you need to convert the LBS of malt you have to ounces in order to calculate 2% water by weight. I was trying to figure out how the hell Pol got 3.2 oz as 2% of 10lbs. Its really 10X16=160. 160*.02=3.2!

 

[The Pol]

Or just call it .2 pounds

 

[pjj2ba]

Pol, why don't you use less grain rather than trying to reduce efficiency?

My take on this is that there is X amount of FLAVOR associated with a given amount of grain, just as there is Y amount of starch/sugars. Starches and sugars gives the alcohol, and some body (limit dextins), but not flavor (other than alcohol). Now, the stronger the ABV, the more flavors you need to balance it out. If one were to use less grain, your have even less FLAVOR to balance out the higher ABV that one potentially can get with a really high brewhouse efficiency.

Tannins is pH. I recently did an experimental brew where I boiled All 9 lbs of my grain bill, and THEN vorlauf and drained (and chilled) into my fermentor. NO TANNINS in this beer.

 

[beerocd]

What magic threshold is 2qt/lb?

I am mashing at 2.5qt/lb tomorrow

That's what I thought. :rockin:

I guess It's kinda been defacto measurement (the thicker mashes) perpetuated through printed literature and recipe books too.
I've read plenty of times that 2qt was kinda on the high side. "Famous" brewers usually put you around 1.3qt or something like that.
(Yes, seen Kaiser's work - I'm talking about other famous people).

-OCD

 

[The Pol]

High lauter eff. means you are stripping the buffering power of the grain, it is oversparging. Higher pH.

I am reducing my lauter eff. Reducing the grain bill, wont change the sparge issue.

 

[KingBrianI]

My beer has always been crap

Ahh, I figured...

 

[Edcculus]

I want to sing the praises for conditioning! I decided to give it a go for my 10-10-10 after reading this thread. I wasn't necessarily trying to gain efficiency (and I didn't). Since it is a large grain bill, and its supposed to finish dry, I wanted to give it a good crush and not shred the husks.

I don't have pictures, but it looked a lot like Pol's. The husks were a lot more in tact than when I dry mill. If anyone is thinking about it, go ahead and do it! Its very easy and gives a killer crush.