Malt Conditioning... WOW it rocks!

[The Pol]

It is incredible... like a completely different mill, isnt it?

 

[Edcculus]

yea sure is. I'd recommend anyone with a Barley Crusher to do it. Make sure you have a low speed drill though. My drill crapped out early on, and I had to mill 18 lbs by hand. That sucked.

 

[The Pol]

Damn straight it sucked!

 

[WortMonger]

Very interested in trying this out with my CrankandStein.

 

[bakins]

It is nice to know where your eff. is coming from. I mean, if you hit 80% and it is all coming from your conversion eff, that is awesome.

Just to be a BIAB troll, I get about 80% with no-sparge BIAB Carry on...

 

[Laughing_Gnome_Invisible]

I agree! It rocks!!!

However, I have just found out the hard way that My motorized corona mill can't turn it. I can't find the right allen wrench to get the wheel off to finish it by hand, so I am now waiting on 14# of grain to dry out in a warm oven. Dammit! LOL

The few hand turns I did do by turning the belt wheel though looked terrific!


Edit: I just milled the re-dried grain and it still looks better than milled completely dry. I think I need to experiment with 1% for my motorized corona.

 

[Brewme]

I conditioned my grain for the first time last weekend. I did notive the husks stay more intact for sure. Whether or not it makes better beer (the whole point is to make better beer, right?), I can't say yet. It was fun to add a little step and say, "This is the same process I saw at New Belgiam

 

[The Pol]

I conditioned my grain for the first time last weekend. I did notive the husks stay more intact for sure. Whether or not it makes better beer (the whole point is to make better beer, right?), I can't say yet. It was fun to add a little step and say, "This is the same process I saw at New Belgiam

Well, no.

The point is to produce a better filter bed mainly. The benefit of reduced tannin extraction may not be realized unless one is oversparging anyway.

 

[StAnthonyB]

Well I did find this link

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Malt_Conditioning

Thanks to Kaiser for the hardwork and KingBrian for directing me to the thread.

 

[Synovia]

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.

Have you actually checked your PH while sparging to see if its the problem?

 

[The Pol]

Have you actually checked your PH while sparging to see if its the problem?

Yes, I have a digital PH meter.

 

[Beerrific]

I finally tried this. Works for sure. I am not sure if it changed anything in my process as I was doing some weird stuff that day. Probably will continue to do it as my malt just looked happier after milling.

 

[3 Dog Brew]

I finally tried this. ...edit... Probably will continue to do it as my malt just looked happier after milling.

Can malt truley be happy before it is introduced to hops and yeast?

 

[beach]

It does rock! I brewed two batches this week and conditioned the malt both times. Great crush, I was able to go tighter with very good results. This will be added to the process for every brew day.

Beach

 

[bendavanza]

I did a 10g recipe today and my crush was so much nicer, no flour, husks were much more intact, and the flow was improved. The BC's rollers were clean, too. I think this will be a regular practice.

 

[BigJay13]

I conditioned my malt today for a Cascade Blonde Ale but I wasn't impressed. The crush looked incredible but I vorlaufed like a gallon of wort, 1 quart at a time, and it never went clear. Luckily I have a hop screen made out of a paint strainer so I was able to keep the larger pieces of grist out of the wort. I think I'll pass on this until I get a RIMS or HERMS system set up. Usually I vorlauf 1.5 quarts and I'm able to let 'er rip. I was pumped too b/c the crush looked incredible.

If the beer turns out great maybe I'll give it another go.

 

[Hermit]

I conditioned my malt today for a Cascade Blonde Ale but I wasn't impressed. The crush looked incredible but I vorlaufed like a gallon of wort, 1 quart at a time, and it never went clear. Luckily I have a hop screen made out of a paint strainer so I was able to keep the larger pieces of grist out of the wort. I think I'll pass on this until I get a RIMS or HERMS system set up. Usually I vorlauf 1.5 quarts and I'm able to let 'er rip. I was pumped too b/c the crush looked incredible.

If the beer turns out great maybe I'll give it another go.

Did you get any efficiency gains? Just wondering.

 

[BigJay13]

Did you get any efficiency gains? Just wondering.

Maybe a few points higher--I didn't pay attention to it today. It definitely wasn't a 10% hike.

 

[oldschool]

It depends...

It will let you crush finer if you are looking to get a finer crush without sticking the mash, since it keeps the husks intact. My conversion eff. is about 97%, so that is not a factor for me. But for some, it would improve conv. eff. .

Palmer say's that a finer crush will only speed up the conversion process not improve the effeciency, as long as your mash time is adequate

 

[Kaiser]

Wow. Why is this suddenly catching on? I have seen threads like this on the NB and AHA forum as well. But I'm glad it works for you guys. With some time we may also get some side-by-side experiments that evaluate the differences in lauter speed.

A number of breweries use this technique while others don't bother. For some that don't bother the idea of water in the malt house is more hassle than what malt conditioning would buy them.

In the end, even if the crush looks so great, I'd like everyone to remain critical even of this technique. It the wetting of the grain, less somewhat uneven flow through the hopper or the added force necessary may not be wort it.

But I like it a lot.

Palmer say's that a finer crush will only speed up the conversion process not improve the effeciency, as long as your mash time is adequate

But what if an adequate mash time with a coarse crush is 3 hrs?

And yes, somehow efficiency crept into this thread as well

Kai

 

[oldschool]

is three hours even a possibility? doubt it. i know you just want to give me a hard time so i wont have any further posts in this thread. I was not the one who brought up effeciency

 

[Kaiser]

is three hours even a possibility? doubt it. i know you just want to give me a hard time so i wont have any further posts in this thread. I was not the one who brought up effeciency

I actually pulled this number out of my a$$. I don't know how much longer you have to mash to compensate for a coarse crush. But you can keep testing the mash gravity to see how far away from full conversion you are.

Another problem is fermentability. If it takes too long to convert all the starches, the b-amylase won't be around anymore to make fermentable sugars out of them.

Kai

 

[The Pol]

I agree Kai. I am sure you can mash long enough to convert, even with a bad crush, but I have had bad crushes before and a 90 minute mash didnt help that. Id say 2-3 hours would be right... and like you said, this will change the fermentability of the wort.

This is not an eff. gaining technique. This is a way to improve the quality of the crush, not the quantity of your eff. As stated previously I am using this on my HERMS so that I can increase flow, period. The higher my flow rate, the more effective my system runs. This is important to me.

 

[The Pol]

Did you get any efficiency gains? Just wondering.

This in iteself will not increase eff. in any way. You arent doing anything different to the kernel, you are just leaving the husk intact.

 

[The Pol]

Palmer say's that a finer crush will only speed up the conversion process not improve the effeciency, as long as your mash time is adequate

Well, if the grain isnt crushed at all, no amount of time will help. If the crush is so poor that it contains some intact kernels, then those wont convert either.

Palmer is right, to a degree, but it depends on what a "bad" crush is. And who is going to mash for hours? Really.

Isnt this the same guy that tells people to add water to grain?

 

[OLDBREW]

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

I don't get it?
91% is only 91% of the 80-82% extraction the lab got for analysis purposes. Why would your wort quality deminish? As long as your ph doesn't rise over 5.8-9 and your gravity doesn't go under 1.008 you shouldn't have any problems.

Every lot of malt has an analysis tag or paperwork from the lab giving their extraction plus/minus crush specs and figures are included.
Some malts are up around 39 points, were others may be 33 points. This is all done using highly accurate scales and weighing everything. They do not use volumes.

When you are figuring your efficiency, are you using certified scales and using scaled weight on all componets, or are you using a combo of volumes and weights? Do you use a generic number when calculating your efficiency, or are you using the analysis specs for that/those specific malting(s?

why do you think you need to back off?

 

[The Pol]

I don't get it?
91% is only 91% of the 80-82% extraction the lab got for analysis purposes. Why would your wort quality deminish? As long as your ph doesn't rise ove 5.8-9 and your gravity doesn't go under 1.008 you shouldn't have any problems.

Every lot of malt has an analysis tag or paperwork from the lab giving their extraction plus/minus crush specs and figures are included.
Some malts are up around 39 points, were others may be 33 points. This is all done using highly accurate scales and weighing everything. They do not use volumes.

When you are figuring your efficiency, are you using certified scales and using scaled weight on all componets, or are you using a combo of volumes and weights? Do you use a generic number when calculating your efficiency, or are you using the analysis specs for that/those specific malting(s?

why do you think you need to back off?

To my knowlege, if your pH is high, the gravity wont really matter. Maybe I am wrong.

I do have the specific malt analysis for the malts that I use. This # has been calculated over a series of brews, where my brewhouse has also matched the 83% eff. that I have achieved for the past year on my HERMS. I also have a digital pH meter so that I can verify my pH.

I want to sparge less. Doesnt make sense to me that brewers sparge with more water, the smaller thier grain bill gets. That seems, counter intuitive.

My system has been very well dialed in, so much so that volumes and gravity readings never waver from 82-83% brewhouse eff. and 5.5 gallons post boil volume. In fact, I drain both my MLT and HLT dry to reach my pre-boil gravity.

This being said, I personally want to strike a balance between grain bill size and sparge water volume. This is why I have begun to predicate my sparge water volume on the grain bill size. The larger the grain bill, the more I sparge, the smaller the grain bill, the less I sparge. Exactly opposite of what is conventionally done.

But, this thread isnt about efficiency people, it is about malt conditioning. Just saying, we can start another thread if you like.

Malt conditioning rocks, that is all. And malt conditioning doesnt affect eff. in any way... soooo

 

[Scimmia]

Wow. Why is this suddenly catching on?

I've seen things like this happen with hobby after hobby. Not sure why, but it always goes in streaks, where everyone catches on to one thing, it gets talked about constantly for a while, then it falls away (talking about it, not doing it).

Personally, I use a corona style mill, and find this to be invaluable. With the corona's tendency to shred the husks, conditioning works wonders.

 

[The Pol]

I've seen things like this happen with hobby after hobby. Not sure why, but it always goes in streaks, where everyone catches on to one thing, it gets talked about constantly for a while, then it falls away (talking about it, not doing it).

Personally, I use a corona style mill, and find this to be invaluable. With the corona's tendency to shred the husks, conditioning works wonders.

I am glad that the Corona users can use this too... it is not s discriminatory technique

It DID make a marked difference in my grain bed flow.

 

[BigJay13]

I am glad that the Corona users can use this too... it is not s discriminatory technique

It DID make a marked difference in my grain bed flow.

I'm assuming your wort is still clear by the time it gets to the BK, right?