Wetting the grains pre milled w/ Corona?

[Diablotastic]

So I'm in the process of investigating what seems to be a bit of astringent tastes in one of my recent batches. One thing I was thinking about was overcrushing which it seems I have to do with the corona (tears em up)....as apposed to bumping up my previous thread ...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/astringent-after-taste-possible-casues-88045/

...I wanted to see if anybody has specific experience with wetting the grains a bit so they become a little more pliable and not so dry so as to have them crack more then tear up?

 

[mew]

Could be your crush, or it could be that you're oversparging. What sort of efficiencies are you getting? Some people can get 90% efficiency with no astringent off-flavors, but others need to keep it under 80%. It has a lot to do with pH. A high pH sparge will tend to extract tannins.

 

[bradsul]

If you have no trouble lautering I doubt it is your crush. If you don't know your water pH, I would get some 5.2 buffer and see if that helps.

I tried wetting the grains a couple times with my corona mill and honestly I didn't see any difference. Those plates are very good at what they do. I would increase the plate gap before I ran more wet grains through. Rust is an issue with corona mills.

 

[Diablotastic]

yeah I think my average is about 65-70 % eff.....with no stuck sparges.

I use spring water and sparge/rinse with 180-185deg water.

I'm not sure if the corona crush is the issue at all as I didn't pick up the off flavor in two prior batches that are still conditioning. Just feeling things out to see what other Corona users have done

The suspect batch (2nd AG) had all types of issues as i topped off post boil prematurely and only got like 1.044 OG when I needed about 1.056 i think. I guess this could attribute to picking up the slightest of off flavors as there isn't much to hide it

 

[Kaiser]

I’m not using a Corona mill, but this is what you are looking for: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Malt_Conditioning

Give it a try. The trick is to not overdo it and create a big doughy mess. But another thing you may want to try is to increase your strike water amount to 2 qt/lb. This leaves you with much less sparge water and as a result you should end up extracting less tannins. Or try a no sparge to rule out tannin extraction during sparging.

Kai

 

[pjj2ba]

Kaiser's wiki is great! I've been conditioning all of my malt for the last 6 mo. or so. I've got a 3-roller mill and I can really see the difference. The husks are much more intact. I don't know if it will help your astingency, but it should give you more intact husks even with a corona.

It doesn't take much water at all. I just measure out about 50 ml (2oz or 1/4 cup or ~1/2 a hydrometer "jar" if that is handy) of water and slowly trickle it into the wieghed out malt in a 5 gal. bucket and stir it with my other hand. I was initially surprised at how well this spread out to all of the grain with just the trickling. I had been meaning to try this, but hadn't ever gotten around to getting a spray bottle so one day I just tried it by slowly pouring and it worked great. Just be thorough and patient with your mixing and add the water slowly. Takes less than 2 min.

 

[Kaiser]

I've been conditioning all of my malt for the last 6 mo. or so

Wow. I never thought that this would actually find imitators as I cannot make a strong case for it and it can easily become a PITA.

Tanks for the support Pjj2ba. J

Kai

 

[Diablotastic]

Yeah i think I will give this a shot....I may even dial down my sparge water slightly from 185 to 175-180 and see where my efficiency ends up.

Maybe the combination of tore up husks and 185+ water extracted a few tannins on that particular batch

 

[Otis The Drunk]

I think your getting your astringent Flavors from the temperature of your sparge water. 185° is way too high for sparge and will leach out tannins from your husks.

 

[pjj2ba]

Wow. I never thought that this would actually find imitators as I cannot make a strong case for it and it can easily become a PITA.

I like to crush my grain pretty fine and I really wasn't having any problem with stuck sparges with my set up, but the idea of fairly intact husks was appealing and just seemed to be the right way to go. I was really impressed with the difference it made and was really surprised with how it felt as I was mashing in. It felt less dense and "fluffier". I think it is less prone to doughballs too. I batch sparge and use a pump so I've taken advantange of the improved filter bed and really drain the mash tun fast. I do two smaller sparges (pumping makes the vorlauf a breeze) and I do throttle down the pump considerably towards the end of the final sparge to allow the last bits of wort to move to the bottom of the grain bed and my manifold. Consistently get 80% efficiency

I found that skipping a spray bottle and just drizzling it in while stirring it with my hand to be super easy.

I think conditioning might really help those with corona mills

 

[Diablotastic]

Otis

yeah i'm thinking about dialing the temp down a tad given my system with the amount of shredding that the Corona is doing and husk surface that seems to be exposed ....although 185 seems to work fine for many as this is how Bobby M's primer has it.

Quite possibly the 185 would work better with a roller mill which isn't shredding as much?

 

[bradsul]

I used 185F with my corona when I batch sparged, no issues with tannins (185F is definitely too high for fly sparging). I crushed super-fine too and got high 80's efficiency.

 

[Diablotastic]

Thanks for the info Brad....I was curious how other corona users are sparging.

 

[TwoHeadsBrewing]

So I'm in the process of investigating what seems to be a bit of astringent tastes in one of my recent batches. One thing I was thinking about was overcrushing which it seems I have to do with the corona (tears em up)....as apposed to bumping up my previous thread ...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/astringent-after-taste-possible-casues-88045/

...I wanted to see if anybody has specific experience with wetting the grains a bit so they become a little more pliable and not so dry so as to have them crack more then tear up?

I'm not sure if this is the same reason, but in my last tour of Sierra Nevada they do something like this with their mill. They steam/wet the grain right before it goes through the mill, which cuts down on the dust and gets more of the grain material in the tun. Seems like a good idea just for the dust reduction alone. It also might serve to start starch conversion a bit early, depending on the temperature of the steam/water.

 

[Kaiser]

I'm not sure if this is the same reason, but in my last tour of Sierra Nevada they do something like this with their mill. They steam/wet the grain right before it goes through the mill, which cuts down on the dust and gets more of the grain material in the tun.

This practice is actually very common in the industry and should be seen as different from “wet milling” where the grain is completely submerged in water while it is milled/crushed.

Another advantage of such a grist (I means conditioned malt) is that it is much “fluffier” The malt is well suspended throughout the mash even if in thin mashes (up to 3.5 l/kg or 1.75 qt/lb I would say). In my opinion, this enhances the malt to water contact as the mash doesn’t settle as much onto the bottom of the MLT. I generally mash thin, so this matters to me.

When I’ll build a motorized mill I’ll take this practice into consideration for the design. B/c the malt is slightly more “sticky” it does need a little more help in flowing from the hopper into the mill gap. This means a way of agitating the malt or shaking the hopper would be nice. In addition to that having a rotating drum (just like a cement mixer) would be nice to simplify the process of conditioning the malt. The same motor that is driving the mill could also drive that device.

Kai

 

[pjj2ba]

When I’ll build a motorized mill I’ll take this practice into consideration for the design. B/c the malt is slightly more “sticky” it does need a little more help in flowing from the hopper into the mill gap. This means a way of agitating the malt or shaking the hopper would be nice. In addition to that having a rotating drum (just like a cement mixer) would be nice to simplify the process of conditioning the malt. The same motor that is driving the mill could also drive that device.[/COLOR]

Now it would be really sweet if you could build the mixer so that you could tip it right into your hopper! I don't really have a problem with the grain sticking in my hopper, although the sides are pretty steep, I'm pretty sure more than 60 deg. I just need to flick in the few grains at the end that have stuck to the corners.

 

[Otis The Drunk]

I have been using a Corona mill for close to 20 years with my brewing and once I got it all dialed in, I have had no issues with efficiency (I usually get between 70% - 75%) the only time I've had an issue with Astringentcy is when I got my sparge temp too high.

I Batch Sparge.

 

[Diablotastic]

I have been using a Corona mill for close to 20 years with my brewing and once I got it all dialed in, I have had no issues with efficiency (I usually get between 70% - 75%) the only time I've had an issue with Astringentcy is when I got my sparge temp too high.

I Batch Sparge.

Good to know...thanks. I just cracked open my Haus Pale Ale last night which would have been the next brew after my suspect batch and there's no astringent after taste....quite possibly a fluke with the brown ale...who knows....I'm still thinkin about toying with some malt conditioning and lower sparge temps to see how that effects my efficiency.

Once again all the input on here has been great....Kinda amazezes me when I see these homebrewers on here that have been doing this stuff for 20-30+ years. I'm sure there must have been alot less resources (IE this website )
When you all started brewing. Probably alot of trial and error to develop your techniques....Hats off to you

 

[Otis The Drunk]

Actually I was living in Ogden Utah (in 1988) when I stated brewing, I soon hooked up with a Homebrewing club out of Salt Lake City (I found them from the LHBS) and the Club was being ran by a Doctor. I moved to Southern California and found a LHBS in Upland Ca, (Fun Fermentations) I started a Homebrewing Club there (SUDZ Some of Upland's Diversified Zymurgist) I ran the club for a while but my Job (I was driving Truck Cross Country) made it to where it was impossible to attend on a regular basis, all the while I brewed when ever I could make it home.
I finally Moved to Texas in 1998 and started looking for a LHBS here, all I could find were online brewing supplies. I have found that the closest Homebrewers are like 100 miles or more from me.
So I just brew for myself, my son in law and my friends.

And you are correct, there really wasn't a lot of resources back when I started, just mostly books.
I learned a lot from trial an error.
But I will say that I in no way know it all.