Q for Ritebrew customers, how good is their milling?

[Hoochin'Fool]

Anyone here ever (well, recently, don't want 10 year old experiences) order their grain milled from Ritebrew? Teaching a brewing newbie how to all-grain BIAB, and don't want to tell him he needs to get a mill right away (nor do I want to mill all his grain for him ).

 

[Willy]

Don't know. I mill it myself. But I get a lot of my grains from them. Thumbs up.

 

[Leezer]

I BIAB and don’t have a mill and order all my grains from Ritebrew. They used to offer double milled awhile back, but now only single. I wish they still did double but I do use the single milled and my beer comes out fine.

 

[kevin58]

Do yourself a favor and buy your own mill. They aren't that expensive and you will find it to be one of the best equipment buys you've ever made... and should make a world of difference in your beer.

 

[mac_1103]

Do yourself a favor and buy your own mill.

OP already has a mill. He's asking for a newbie friend. I wouldn't advise someone who might never brew again to run out and buy a mill for his first batch.

 

[YeastFeast]

Great in my experience. Probably 10 orders milled and the last 10 unmilled (after bought my mill).

 

[OakIslandBrewery]

Anyone here ever (well, recently, don't want 10 year old experiences) order their grain milled from Ritebrew? Teaching a brewing newbie how to all-grain BIAB, and don't want to tell him he needs to get a mill right away (nor do I want to mill all his grain for him ).

Late to the thread.

RiteBrew does mill grain if you specify upon ordering. I mill my own from them but a friend of mine has his milled. He seems ok with the milled grain.

If you have questions, Neal at RiteBrew is quick to respond.

 

[fluketamer]

its better than morebeer.

the last several orders were very poorly milled. i havent had issue with rite brew however.

but for the best milling bobby has them all beat

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Teaching a brewing newbie how to all-grain BIAB, and don't want to tell him he needs to get a mill right away (nor do I want to mill all his grain for him ).

As part of the teaching, will there be " good crush" / "bad crush" photo examples as well as some ideas on how to adjust start of boil SG to get 'close enough' to the end of boil volume / SG?

 

[IslandLizard]

(nor do I want to mill all his grain for him ).

I'd mill that first batch for him at BIAB required fineness.
And be proud showing him that's what it takes to get that high BH efficiency.

One of my brewing buddies has a wonderful 3-kettle electric HERMS system, but didn't have his own mill at the time. So when we brewed together, I always brought mine, along with sacks of malt and a scale.

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

To address @BrewnWKopperKat & @IslandLizard

We already did a brew day, I brought all my junk to his house last saturday, and while I had already measured out the grains at my house, the first thing we did at his place, after getting the strike water heating up, was put him to work hand cranking the grain on my cereal killer! I told him he wanted his mill ground like this, or possibly all the way pulverized to flour (BIAB).

@mac_1103 called it:

I want him to be able to make at least one or three MORE batches, before I have him jump in and buy his own mill. (He lives 40 minutes away, so not super convenient to be sharing stuff).

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

My thought is this: if he is going to brew with store crushed malt, then being able to evaluate grain crush, measure SG just before start of boil, and (maybe) make pre-boil or post-boil adjustments) would be useful skills to learn sooner rather than later.

 

[YeastFeast]

My thought is this: if he is going to brew with store crushed malt, then being able to evaluate grain crush, measure SG just before start of boil, and (maybe) make pre-boil or post-boil adjustments) would be useful skills to learn sooner rather than later.

As someone who's never considered adjusting pre or post boil, can you explain why this is important? Repeatability of recipe?

 

[kevin58]

As someone who's never considered adjusting pre or post boil, can you explain why this is important? Repeatability of recipe?

You check gravity just before the boil to see if your pre-boil estimate is on target. If the SG is low you can add DME or plan to boil longer... if it is too high you can add a bit more water to adjust downward or again, change your boil length to compensate.

 

[schuchdan]

Here's a 10# bag of 2 row I got a few weeks ago from ritebrew.

 

[schuchdan]

Here's a 10# bag of 2 row I got a few weeks ago from ritebrew.

 

[schuchdan]

Still new to posting, second set of pics obviously not 2 row.

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

Here's a 10# bag of 2 row I got a few weeks ago from ritebrew.

Looks very much like the grind I get on my Cereal Killer at it's smallest gap setting, thank you!

Posted on a win10 laptop, which was booted from a LinuxMint .iso that I rufus'd onto a thumb drive... Wow, if you're thinking you need a new pc to stick with Windows after October 25, check out LinuxMint! <official fanboy now>

 

[rlrohan]

I think it looks good. I buy from Ritebrew but I don't have them mill it. I mill my own grain for BIAB and it looks like what you posted.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

... continuing a side topic in 3, ..., 2, ..., 1, ....

Posted on a win10 laptop, which was booted from a LinuxMint .iso that I rufus'd onto a thumb drive... Wow, if you're thinking you need a new pc to stick with Windows after October 25, check out LinuxMint! <official fanboy now>

I have a couple of 'dead' (hardware failure) devices I need to get to a recycling center this spring. I also have a couple of Wintel PCs that I'll migrate to something Linux much later this year.

I'm hoping for the best (Windows 10 maintenance support is continued for free for a couple of years forever to avoid copious amounts of unnecessary e-waste) but I am also working on a plan for "safe" computing in (and after) Oct 2025.

 

[tracer bullet]

I buy from them often, and have actually parked my mill for about a half year now. I took a gamble and had them mill some grains and yeah I think it's been perfect. Looks like my own mill with a .030" gap set with feeler gauges. Efficiency didn't change a bit either. I've converted to having them (him) do it every time now.

And you might know, but if not, if you choose SpeeDee delivery it's arrived almost always in 24 hours. Place an order today, it'll ship tomorrow, and be at your house the next day. And you can order with the option to ship on a Monday, just in case.

 

[Bramling Cross]

I buy from them often, and have actually parked my mill for about a half year now. I took a gamble and had them mill some grains and yeah I think it's been perfect. Looks like my own mill with a .030" gap set with feeler gauges. Efficiency didn't change a bit either. I've converted to having them (him) do it every time now.

And you might know, but if not, if you choose SpeeDee delivery it's arrived almost always in 24 hours. Place an order today, it'll ship tomorrow, and be at your house the next day. And you can order with the option to ship on a Monday, just in case.

That's really good to hear! Having lost two of my LHBSs last fall, I'm redoubling my efforts to avoid internet purchases, but I'd be lost without Ritebrew for dry yeast. They are amazing! It's a pity that I only order from them once a year.

 

[schuchdan]

I do like speedee, they're pretty fast.

 

[TexasTea]

Just received 2 different milled grains and they are milled well as is usual for Ritebrew.

 

[ncbrewer]

This is some mixed grain that I got from Ritebrew last week - it's specialty grains for an extract batch. I thought some of the grains were still whole - I crushed it a little more by hand.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

With the mill that I have, I find that base malts tend to crush a little better (than specialty grains) on the 1st pass /1/. With a second pass the crush looks the same.

As long as the crush is reasonably consistent across a number of orders, the crushes above seem reasonable - in that one could estimate efficiency and anticipate that the estimate will be useful in the future.

---

/1/ Yes, my current milling process (accidentally) has me milling base malts and specialty malts separately. It's consequence of moving from 1 gal BIAB to 2.5 gal BIAB: I added more grains, but used existing equipment (and containers) when weighing and milling.

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

I buy from them often, and have actually parked my mill for about a half year now. I took a gamble and had them mill some grains and yeah I think it's been perfect. Looks like my own mill with a .030" gap set with feeler gauges. Efficiency didn't change a bit either. I've converted to having them (him) do it every time now.

Do you make separate orders for each beer (and just figure the extra $12 shipping cost is part of the cost of your beer)? Or do you order a couple batches worth at a time, to reduce shipping costs, with the trade-off being that the grains will stale much quicker once milled? Or can you store milled grain in a freezer to keep them fresh for longer?

I like having a nice pantry stocked with unmilled grains, but I've definitely over-bought a few times, and have tossed some dark roasted grain that seemed to have lost a lot of aroma, so I'm probably not saving as much as I think I am by buying in bulk...

 

[tracer bullet]

I just buy each time I brew. It's about monthly. I have ordered for two brews a few times over history if I knew I wanted one to sit a while (i.e. a lager) and would actually brew two back to back, but not normally.

I've munched on raw grains once, sampling here and there just out of curiosity. Unmilled it was maybe 6 weeks when I perceived a flavor change, ziploc bags opened and given new oxygen once a week or so. I'd imagine milled is faster but not sure by how much. Half perhaps? 2 weeks seemed like nothing though.

 

[DavidWood2115]

And you might know, but if not, if you choose SpeeDee delivery it's arrived almost always in 24 hours. Place an order today, it'll ship tomorrow, and be at your house the next day. And you can order with the option to ship on a Monday, just in case.

Speedee is great, if you are in their Midwest delivery region. Of note, they just expanded their delivery region to include large parts of Kansas and Missouri.
Expansion letter

 

[ncbrewer]

Do you make separate orders for each beer (and just figure the extra $12 shipping cost is part of the cost of your beer)? Or do you order a couple batches worth at a time, to reduce shipping costs, with the trade-off being that the grains will stale much quicker once milled?

I order for four extract batches at a time. One batch (that I will brew first) is with crushed specialty grains. For the rest, I combine whatever types of DME I need to get an equivalent grain bill that I'm looking for. It's a little limiting, but it's the best way I've come up with.