So, I guess it's the crush

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cubbies

Tastes like butterdirt
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I typically order my grain through austin homebrew but I got a wild hair up me keester to brew this weekend, so I went ahead and bought from the LHBS and crushed on their mill. The first thing I noticed was that I was able to get a much finer crush using their mill. It was almost too fine.

I have been steadily in the 72-75% range with my beers, with I am perfectly fine with, but I thought I should be able to go higher. I had a barley crusher on the Xmas wish list, to test different crushes with, but I guess I wasn't a good enough boy and Santa didn't bring me one.

So, I brewed this weekend and my starting gravity was quite a bit higher than expected. I was shooting for somewhere around 1.052 and ended up at 1.061, or 83.6% (according to tastybrew.com's calculator).

Also, on top of all that, I was making a lighter bodied beer, mashing around 150, so I am probably looking at a final gravity around 1.014. Going to be one strong, easy drinking beer...:drunk:
 
83%? Good on that! There certainly is a fine line, though, between a fine crush and a floured crush that results in stuck sparges. I'd never had a stuck sparge before---I crush my own grain using my Barley Crusher on the factory settings and routinely get 78-85% with it---but then landhoney shows up to brew the 888 RIS and contributes half the base grain. Said base grain had been crushed at his LHBS. I had my first and only stuck sparge that day.
 
My powers of deduction tell me that you're a Cubs fan living in St. Louis. You need especially high gravity home brew because Cardinals fans are terrible people.
 
bobwantbeer said:
My powers of deduction tell me that you're a Cubs fan living in St. Louis. You need especially high gravity home brew because Cardinals fans are terrible people.


Nah, not at all. Rivalry's are fun and all, but I would never go as far as to say they are bad people. As a matter of fact, most of them are great people and very knowledgeable about the game.
 
cubbies said:
I typically order my grain through austin homebrew but I got a wild hair up me keester to brew this weekend, so I went ahead and bought from the LHBS and crushed on their mill. The first thing I noticed was that I was able to get a much finer crush using their mill. It was almost too fine.

I have been steadily in the 72-75% range with my beers, with I am perfectly fine with, but I thought I should be able to go higher. I had a barley crusher on the Xmas wish list, to test different crushes with, but I guess I wasn't a good enough boy and Santa didn't bring me one.

So, I brewed this weekend and my starting gravity was quite a bit higher than expected. I was shooting for somewhere around 1.052 and ended up at 1.061, or 83.6% (according to tastybrew.com's calculator).

Also, on top of all that, I was making a lighter bodied beer, mashing around 150, so I am probably looking at a final gravity around 1.014. Going to be one strong, easy drinking beer...:drunk:
https://cdn.homebrewtalk.com/images/smilies/buck.gif



Sounds like a pleasant surprise to me. So, the question is have you ordered a new Mill yet?;)
 
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