The Corona Crush

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artyboy

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I went ahead and used my Corona mill to crush the grain for my first all grain batch. How does it look to you guys? I think that it came out OK. I compared it to the caramel malt that I milled at my LBHS when I bought it and it was pretty consistent. Not bad for a $20 mill that can mill grain fine enough to bake bread (I have done this).

6ylkt0.jpg


y2dw.jpg
 
it looks solid. i have used a corona mill for the past year and get 78-82% like it's going out of style. I did try some conditioned milling and it was a lot harder to do with little payoff for me, so I discountinued it for the corona, but will try again when I get a real mill.
 
I don't see myself getting a "real mill" if I can get good efficiency out of this grind. It only took me about 15 minutes to grind this batch and it was effortless.
 
spray conditioning my malt has left more hulls intact with my corona so I'm going to start doing this on a regular basis.
 
ive been using my corona for the past few months and have been getting eff in the upper 80's with no signs of astringency. I always do a few test grains and then when i get the crush i like i start crushing the rest.
 
spray conditioning my malt has left more hulls intact with my corona so I'm going to start doing this on a regular basis.

Do you just spray some water on the grain before grinding? That sounds like it might help keep even more of the hulls intact.
 
yup! tip from "basic brewing radio" pod cast. just need a cheap good sized spray bottle. water gets to husk but not to grain. saw a big difference in crush and allows me to grind a bit finer. but you have to grind brew day not night before like I did in the past.
 
If only I had time to grind on brew day. Just getting an entire brew day in is hard enough.
 
There might be a few whole husks in there but they're few and far between. I will definitely be reading that thread. It seems to contain the information that I want.
 
If only I had time to grind on brew day. Just getting an entire brew day in is hard enough.

I hear ya! Malt can sour if you leave it too long with extra moisture... only draw back I've found. If you haven't adjust your mill like in the my ugly junk thread posted above. you'll see my "junk" there! my hopper rusted from being stored in a outside shed next to some wet camping gear... in my brewing hiatus. just ads character.... LOL never added the JB weld just in case I need to re adjust later... same reason I can't commit to a tattoo!
 
mine too! even after that I did have some wild fluctuations in efficency... so I stared marking it in low efficiency (61%):( with a red sharpie and my high (91%):rockin: with a green... not a whole lot of tweaking but now I try not to adjust much. BTW sharpie comes off with a mr clean magic eraser!. if I need to adjust marks
 
phew 91% yowza that's pretty amazing. i've still experienced 60ish extraction efficiency with the dunkelweizen (55% wheat malt) which i haven't fretted about too much. 80% with the saison, 80% my buddy using it for a schwarzbier. your sig is wicked hilarious starrfish, on both counts

back on topic.. the crush pics look good. you could always try a finer crush until you're not comfortable with it, then back off a bit. i think that's from the Ugly Junk thread. good mantra!
 
Yeah 91% crush was a bit fine but I conditioned so I had ok hulls not the best but ok. I also use a paint bag on top of a phils Phalse bottom and didn't have any probs with getting stuck (i'll give it a lift and jiggle mid way through. I did mash thin that time too 2qt per lb. trying to work out a happy medium esp for my big beers... just cant do 2qt/lb! only have a 5 gal un insulated mash tun bucket been comfotable at 12bs... may push a bit further... really big beers 8% or higher I still use some DME to get there.


LOL the bottom sig changes... but this one rings true. the top never does. too many years fishing Jersey beaches to change that! I'm also a hard core jersey back bay
"sod monkey" for stripes. took my fly rod out to sod banks in south jersey and caught nice stripes on a fly where no one else could get to just about every weekend may to nov.. (to shallow for motor boats and no way to get to by foot!) Miss that!
 
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