Still bad efficiency, how is this crush?

[manicmethod]

Victoria mill with a drill and double crushed. Full volume BiaB. Poured in slowly, stirred like crazy. I conditioned the grains the night before and kept them sealed. I've done everything I know to do without getting water reports.

This is my 19th AG batch and the highest eff I've gotten, 60%. The grains looked crushed to me but I could use some other opinions.

 

[skelrad]

It's kind of hard to tell from the photos, but it does look to me like it could be milled quite a bit finer. You really don't have to worry about going too fine with BIAB. Sure, you can turn your grain into 100% flour, but stay away from that extreme and you're likely to be okay. If you're still not getting good efficiency you could always do a quick 10 minute sparge in a second pot. Doing that usually jumps me from the low 70's to low 80's in efficiency. Whether I do it or not just depends on my grain bill and how much room I have in my pot for water. I only sparge in a second pot if I can't fit my boil volume plus grain in the main pot.

 

[starrfish]

I crush finer than that on my corona and use a filter bag. usually hit 78 to 80%, with out filter bag I tend to stick... but still getting good efficiency, I also mash thin as well. same as "biab" sparge as much as 5 gallons as little as 2 depending on grain bill. If I stick I just lift bag get & get a clean run. haven't had to lift in last 4 batches only using as a safety net now, stuck sparges suk. ran as double batch sparge if stuck worked out at 85% hit higher than wanted but clearest beer I've gotten.
go more towards flour.

 

[Aschecte]

Looks pretty good to me. To be honest the pictures kinda look like there may be some uncrushed grains mixed in but the bulk of it looked good. When I switched to all grain I got a water report from my local water plant and I recommend you do as well as it could be your water composition that is effecting your eff. Another thin to look at is the sparring techniques, a fast fly sparge will cause lower eff's as well as you may want to split your sparge water into 2 or more additions if you batch sparge, finally check your temperature and the ph of the water.

Sent from my iPhone using HB Talk

 

[starrfish]

my crush has more of that fine crush from top left of pic over all... look at "my ugly junk" thread. lot's about how to adjust a corona

crushed tonight sorry bad cell pic but much finer than yours... porter brew

 

[starrfish]

I use a spent credit card as gap gauge... also think about spraying grain with water if using same day... glad i dry crushed... truck broke done tonight... may not get to brew until later in week. may have had a sour porter on my hands

If that's a double crush adjust tighter!

 

[manicmethod]

It's kind of hard to tell from the photos, but it does look to me like it could be milled quite a bit finer. You really don't have to worry about going too fine with BIAB. Sure, you can turn your grain into 100% flour, but stay away from that extreme and you're likely to be okay. If you're still not getting good efficiency you could always do a quick 10 minute sparge in a second pot. Doing that usually jumps me from the low 70's to low 80's in efficiency. Whether I do it or not just depends on my grain bill and how much room I have in my pot for water. I only sparge in a second pot if I can't fit my boil volume plus grain in the main pot.

I tried a drop sparge, or whatever they call it, by putting my bag into a seperate vessel for X amount of time. After 30 minutes of sitting there (and delaying my boil) his solution had added 1.004 to the wort. Maybe we did it wrong but it didn't seem to help much,

 

[Brewitt]

I'm with you manicmethod. I have only done about 4 full volume BIAB but I seem to be getting about 65% efficiency pretty reliably. I'm considering just pitching in a couple extra lbs of 2 row in the future. I didn't get much of a boost from batch sparging either when my pot was too small to do full volume mashes. I'm unclear on the problem but I'll adapt.

 

[iaefebs]

In the top two pictures the crush in the left side of the photo's appear too fine and on the right side the grains appear too coarse. In the bottom photo the top of the grain and bottom are too coarse and middle too powdery. I wonder why? Did you mix the grains after crush in that photo? I haven't used a corona mill so I don't know how the grain spits out of it.

 

[starrfish]

mine are fine crush but consistant off corona. been backing off a bit to get closer to magic 75% hopefully eliminate the strainer bag

thread I mentioned before about corona/victoria/other corn mills for malts:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/my-ugly-junk-corona-mill-station-90849/

 

[mburnett274]

You can't go wrong with a good roller type grain mill. i use a 3 roller Crankenstine and i love it.