Grain mill - wow!

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HairyJamie
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Grain mill - wow!

Post by HairyJamie » Sat Dec 30, 2017 11:26 pm

Hi all,

I got a bulldog mill for Christmas from my lovely wife and had the opportunity to brew today. Wow what a difference!

After a spate of low efficiency brews around 65 to 70 % I got 89% brewhouse efficiency!!

That's the highest I've ever had and although I'm not an efficiency chaser I have to say I'm well chuffed.

I will now have a 6.5% ish beer to bevvy instead of the intended 5 but everyone has their cross to bear ...

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Chug

Re: Grain mill - wow!

Post by Chug » Sat Dec 30, 2017 11:40 pm

Nice one, I don't work out my efficiency. But I noticed improved OG's milling my own too and just use less grain now.

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Wonkydonkey
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Re: Grain mill - wow!

Post by Wonkydonkey » Tue Jan 02, 2018 5:35 am

The beer should also taste better, IE more flavour & malt character

I too crush my grain, but recently got some crushed malt by mistake, and then notice my SG being lower. So I ended up recrushing the crushed malt in the next brew. The sparge was slower but my SG was where it normally is.
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Fastline
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Re: Grain mill - wow!

Post by Fastline » Tue Jan 02, 2018 6:11 pm

I was on the AHA website the other night and read an article on there, the writer was basically saying buy milling your own you can get more consistent results on grain crush.
More so if you was going to different suppliers for crushed malt.
So potentially reducing the amount of variables that go into brewing.
There is one thing i am noticing reading different articles on grain crushing, everyone seems to be getting higher efficiency's.

Fastline
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Re: Grain mill - wow!

Post by Fastline » Tue Jan 02, 2018 6:12 pm

I was on the AHA website the other night and read an article on there, the writer was basically saying buy milling your own you can get more consistent results on grain crush.
More so if you was going to different suppliers for crushed malt.
So potentially reducing the amount of variables that go into brewing.
There is one thing i am noticing reading different articles on grain crushing, everyone seems to be getting higher efficiency's.

HairyJamie
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Re: Grain mill - wow!

Post by HairyJamie » Wed Jan 03, 2018 12:59 pm

More consistency was my main aim - my og was all over the place with no changes to any process for my last 10 brews.

I tried to account for this by progressively lowering my brew house efficiency, but it still wasn't following a pattern.

I think my precrushed grain was just getting staler over time so I'm looking forward to tasting my first completely fresh brew soon!


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Kev888
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Re: Grain mill - wow!

Post by Kev888 » Fri Jan 05, 2018 8:25 pm

If the crush varied a lot before, then standardising it can certainly help to improve consistency of your mash/sparge efficiency. Though of course the Brewhouse efficiency you mention is influenced by other factors too (in fact things like hop quantities are 'expected' to cause variation), which standardising the crush won't affect.

So if you find that things still aren't very predictable, it could be worth narrowing things down more (if you haven't already) - by carefully measuring and recording your mash/sparge efficiency and all changes in volume and gravity in subsequent stages. And identifying values specific to your actual grain and system, rather than (e.g.) incorrect default values that software may otherwise use.
Kev

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