Quick review on MaltZilla and a request

[Teufelhunde]

I have been buying crushed grain from Morebeer and fighting mash efficiencies in the 50% range. I was thinking of moving back to extracts, but then SHMBO (who feeds the wild birds in the backyard) discovered that the birds like the spent grains, so I told her it was her fault I had to spend money on a mill. I cannot hand crank a mill due to f'd up shoulders, and by the time I would buy a hand crank and a 1/2" drill to turn it, plus wood and labor into making a plate to bolt it to, I would have had more money (and more headache) into it than the Maltzilla, so I thought I would give it a shot.

I bought a kit from Williams that comes with Maltzilla, bucket, board, hopper, power supply and all hardware. Assembly was straightforward. I'm brewing tomorrow at 5am, so I just crushed my grains for it. The hopper will hold 12 lbs., it took around 4-5 minutes (forgot to time it) for it to chew through my 11.5 pounds. It did stop once (crushing at the Kegland recommended setting. The only youtube video I found had (Portly Gentleman) had the same issue. It was easy to solve, however. Without stopping it, I loosened up the thumbscrews on the adjustable, freewheeling roller, dialed it to a slight bigger gap until the grain started flowing again, then put it back to the recommended setting and tightened the thumbscrews.

I will update this thread tomorrow with a mash efficiency report (all other parts of my process will be unchanged).

My question is this: I have attached 2 photos, one of the Maltzilla crushed Briess 2-row, and another of MoreBeer crushed Briess 2-row. To me, the Maltzilla crushed grain looks like the better crush, but if some better trained eyes than mine can take a look and comment, I would surely appreciate it.

 

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

The maltzilla crush definitely looks better but even that I’d probably crush to a tighter gap. I BIAB so drainage is not a problem.

 

[Sammy86]

I'm with @GilSwillBasementBrews crush looks better but i'd tighten the gap there are still quite a few uncrushed grains in there

 

[hotbeer]

It'd help to know how you mash. Are you one of the conventional ways of mashing or BIAB.

I've always been BIAB and I grind my malts to powder in a very old coffee mill from way BITD. I'm almost always over the target OG and have to scale back the malt amounts in recipes to get my wort at the same OG.

If you are doing a conventional mash, the finer you crush your grain the more rice hulls you should probably add. I even add them to my BIAB with the idea it helps it drain quicker. However I've never really tested that.

 

[Teufelhunde]

Though I would update this once more after brewing this morning.

@hotbeer I am using a Brewzilla and using the malt pipe as well as the top screen.

Last night crushing the grain for this mornings batch, I initially set the crush for one notch (that's all I can think of to call it, it is an indent in the adjustment knobs where the set screws can lock it in place) looser than the Kegland recommended settings(this to prevent the mill from ceasing to pull grain through the gap due to the gap too small). I then tightened up the gap to the recommended setting and ran it through again. Turns out this was a bit too much giving me a very problematic mash, it did NOT want to drain......I finally got it unstuck and able to recirc, albeit VERY SLOWLY, and it never did clear as well as I might have liked, but the rest of that gunk will fall to the bottom of the fermenter. On the plus side, 85% efficiency. Not worth the trouble, though.

Next time, I may try loosening the gap even more for one pass, then tightening it up a bit, but not all the way to the recommended 1.5mm setting.

 

[hotbeer]

I am using a Brewzilla and using the malt pipe as well as the top screen.

I've no experience with mashing that way. I've been BIAB of several sorts right from the start.

I then tightened up the gap to the recommended setting and ran it through again. Turns out this was a bit too much giving me a very problematic mash, it did NOT want to drain.....

Did you add rice hulls? Their purpose is to help drain your mash bed. The finer you mill the more you'll need. So it is sort of your call as to how much and if you even need them. You can mill your malts coarsely and still get a good drain, but you'll have to use more malts to get the pre-boil SG you might be looking for.

Or another way to put it is that your mash efficiency will be lower the coarser you mill. However some tend to think of low efficiency as a failing grade. And that really is not what the efficiency numbers are about.

It's perfectly fine to have a 60% mash efficiency vs a 85% mash efficiency. It just lets you know how to adjust a recipes grist amounts to match your processes and the specific gravities of the recipe at various stages.

 

[Teufelhunde]

Yep, I added rice hulls. I think that I will be able to adjust my milling process to get consistent (that's the prime goal) mash efficiencies in the 70-75% range(not as important, but desirable) with good flow through the grain bed. It'll just take me a few runs to get it figured out. Buying crushed grains, my efficiencies were all over the place from 50-80%, I never knew how much grain to use.......

 

[Teufelhunde]

Did another 5 gallons this morning and decided to update. I crushed the grain for this one at one "click" more open than the kegland recommended 1.5mm. The malt bill was around 12.5 pounds and it all fit in the hopper. I took around 7 minutes to process without a hitch. This mash was still slightly problematic, but not bad. It did not want to allow for much recirculation, I had to keep the pump throttled to just a trickle. After draining, I could see the issue, probably 2/3 of the top screen was covered with an eight of an inch of dough, not allowing circulation.

Mash efficiency on this one was 74%, so I think for the next one, I will open the gap one more click, hoping to come in around 70% and being able to recirculate at a decent rate. I would be satisfied with that, as long as I can do it consistently.....

 

[Bobby_M]

Try conditioning the malt and then tighten the gap. It's the best of both worlds. Intact husk mater for drainage and small internal particles.