New grain mill - proper settings

[Whysomalty]

Greetings,
I purchased a new grain mill and I’m attempting to dial in the settings. Please have a look at the photo and see if you’d qualify this as proper?
Thanks!
Dan

 

[BobBailey]

Hard to tell looking at the pics, but it appears that some of the kernels are still whole. You want the husks to remain in tact but no whole kernels. If you're doing BIAB, >025 to .030 is a pretty good starting point. If doing conventional mash then about .035, which you can measure with a credit card, has worked well for me.

 

[Whysomalty]

Thanks Bob,

Running conventional mash - I may just run it through the mill again. I put everything together, including some wheat malt, which I usually run through twice anyway.

 

[Rev2010]

Running conventional mash - I may just run it through the mill again. I put everything together, including some wheat malt, which I usually run through twice anyway.

Just a heads up - running grain through twice doesn't make up for not using a tighter gap setting. Wheat is smaller than barley and without tightening the gap up it likely won't get crushed much and depending on your gap setting if at all. Many here use a gap setting of .024 for wheat and .030 - .034 for barley.


Rev.

 

[IslandLizard]

see if you’d qualify this as proper?

That's too coarse, contains uncrushed kernels.

Do what the others said, tighten that gap, at least to down to 0.034" (credit card), possibly tighter.
Small kernels like wheat, rye, flaked goods, etc. should ideally be crushed on their own gap of 0.024-0.028". I do.

 

[kingmatt]

As others have said, tighten your gap...it will likely take a bit of trial and error to hit your sweet spot (efficiency vs. risk of stuck mash). I always condition my malt before I mill and that seems to help with preserving relatively in-tact husks for lautering and cutting down on dust from milling.

 

[Wayne1]

If you really want to set your mill up properly, you will need a set of sieves.

This is covered by Dave Miller

http://brewlikeapro.net/maltmilling.html

 

[brewbama]

...and here: http://www.craftbrewersconference.com/wp-content/uploads/ImprovingBrewhouseEfficiency-Havig.pdf

Spoiler alert: Only a #14 sieve with pan and cover is required. Then set your mill so that approx. 70% of your grist remains on the sieve.

If you recirculate during mash, pump flow/volume rate and grain/liquor ratio should also be taken into consideration because of grain-bed load, pressure differential, etc.