What's your gap on your barley crusher?

[schweaty]

Default here as well. I tightened it up on a rye IPA and needless to say I got my first stuck sparge. After experiencing that for the first time I immediately moved the gap back to factory and haven't touched it since. My efficiency varies from 70-80% depending on the weight of the grain bill. I'm going to try fly sparging and see if that boosts my efficiency at all.

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

That stinks about the stuck sparge. I should have mentioned that I always condition my malt about 10-15 minutes before crushing and that makes a difference in the crush. There is a pic in this article on malt conditioning showing the difference between conditioned/not-conditioned.

 

[bendavanza]

I have been using .036 as suggested here, and my husks are a bit torn. So far no stuck sparges and I've been getting around 75%-85% efficiency whereas with LHBS crush I was getting 60-65%. The variances are from big to small beers and experimenting with technique.
I may adjust mine back closer to the .039 factory gap, but different grains require different settings, like if I had rye I would crush it separately at a much tighter gap. Melanoidin (spelling?) took a tighter gap as well if I remember correctly.
On real big beers I'll usually oversparge a bit and do a 90 minute boil to recoup some otherwise wasted sugars.

 

[bendavanza]

Spanish Castle Ale-
I read that before about conditioning the malt before crushing, but do I read correct that you used 0.48mm which equates to 0.0188 inch? wow that's tight!
-Ben

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

No I'm @ about 0.036"...just a tiny bit tighter than factory. The crush in the pic in that article was tighter though. I've crushed a half pound or so dry then crushed the rest after conditioning and compared and that picture almost doesn't do the difference justice. Way less shredded husks, way less dust/flour.

It's easy to do so it's worth a shot at least once imo. It will make the grain harder to crush though. I don't even use a sprayer anymore...I just dump a little water in and stir it around and repeat several times. Usually ~2% by weight...never had any problems with the rollers getting gummed up...not even close.

 

[Catt22]

Beep, beep, beep. Broad sweeping generalizations coming through. What would consider to be "high" efficiency?

In my case these numbers are solid for the last 20+ batches.

Efficiency numbers reported by others are meaningless to me. Same for the fish stories. The reported numbers may be valid, but the information is of extremely limited value to me as a home brewer and fisherman. My efficiency is usually fairly low and I'm not at all ashamed of it. My beer, however, is usually pretty good. No one ever asks about my efficiency when they drink the beer. IMO, there are two main things that influence the efficiency numbers in a big way. The fineness of the crush and the OG of the wort. There are some other variables, of course, but those are the biggies. The system design is important, but for the same system the crush and the gravity rule. You can crush finer and finer until you are scared and beyond. You will eventually hit the wall and have a stuck mash, a partially stuck mash or sometimes an intermittently stuck mash. Any of those can be a lot of fun. The gravity factor is trickier. I can get into the 80's for a low gravity beers, but sometimes drop down into the 60's for very high gravity brews. Took me awhile to get dialed in to the variations due to the wort gravity. IOW, my efficiency from batch to batch can be very different depending on what I am brewing. There are too many variables with different systems, different degrees of crush and different beer styles for the reported efficiency numbers to be of any value to me.

 

[wildwest450]

Efficiency numbers reported by others are meaningless to me. Same for the fish stories. The reported numbers may be valid, but the information is of extremely limited value to me as a home brewer and fisherman. My efficiency is usually fairly low and I'm not at all ashamed of it. My beer, however, is usually pretty good. No one ever asks about my efficiency when they drink the beer. IMO, there are two main things that influence the efficiency numbers in a big way. The fineness of the crush and the OG of the wort. There are some other variables, of course, but those are the biggies. The system design is important, but for the same system the crush and the gravity rule. You can crush finer and finer until you are scared and beyond. You will eventually hit the wall and have a stuck mash, a partially stuck mash or sometimes an intermittently stuck mash. Any of those can be a lot of fun. The gravity factor is trickier. I can get into the 80's for a low gravity beers, but sometimes drop down into the 60's for very high gravity brews. Took me awhile to get dialed in to the variations due to the wort gravity. IOW, my efficiency from batch to batch can be very different depending on what I am brewing. There are too many variables with different systems, different degrees of crush and different beer styles for the reported efficiency numbers to be of any value to me.

That's fine if other peoples numbers are meaningless to you. The OP asked for these numbers, and that's what we gave her. Your post was off topic.

 

[Catt22]

That's fine if other peoples numbers are meaningless to you. The OP asked for these numbers, and that's what we gave her. Your post was off topic.

Shame on me!

 

[TwoHeadsBrewing]

I'm right at .037", and the crush comes out just right. I typically run in the 78-82% efficiency range, which is a couple points better than the default setting. I haven't had an issue with astringency or stuck sparges, and I'm happy with that efficiency range so I probably won't change the gap.

EDIT: BTW, using a keg for MLT with a 12" SS false bottom. The only time I've had a stuck sparge problem is when I mashed 39# of grain, which was all the way to the top of the MLT. It wasn't really stuck, but it took over an hour to sparge with 6 gallons of water. I always assumed it was more due to the weight of the grain and not the crush...but I could be wrong.

 

[Catt22]

Its usually the guy who responds like this who is the one telling tall tales...my two cents

How dare you!

 

[samc]

I have used my BC once so far and hit approx 79% using my half arsed methods of calculation and BTP. All in all my Pliny clone came out great and I intend to leave my BC @ factory settings. I even managed to pick the O ring out of the grain before mashing.

Ultimately I am not concerned with eff numbers, just consistency.

 

[weirdboy]

I am concerned about efficiency because consistently getting 10% or 15% better efficiency means I'm effectively getting a 10% or 15% discount on my grain. That adds up quickly.

 

[Catt22]

I am concerned about efficiency because consistently getting 10% or 15% better efficiency means I'm effectively getting a 10% or 15% discount on my grain. That adds up quickly.

Yes, that could be as much as two or three dollars on a five gallon batch and maybe more. It will certainly add up over the long haul.