Grain conditioning for milling.

[foxy]

I have read lots of articles about conditioning the grain prior to milling. Gordon Strong in his earlier days went to a boot camp at Sierra Nevada and relates his experience of conditioning the grain using the strike water to spray on the grain prior to milling. In fact many folk recommend using warm water to condition the grain before going through the mill.
I often read through some of my old BYO magazines and came across an article steaming grain prior to milling (BYO March-April 2010) I always just mill the grain dry the night before as I couldn't be bothered wetting grain stirring it etc.
Steaming seems a lot easier, put the grain in a bag, fill a kettle below the false bottom, bring to the boil, insert the bag, place the cover over the kettle and steam.
Though I like to prepare everything the night previous to brew day and I do have a spare kettle, I am definitely going to give this a go, I would imagine it will go through the mill a lot easier. That was another thing which was mentioned the gap between the rollers can be closed significantly with conditioned malt as opposed to dry malt.

Steamed on the left dry on the right.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

I found that the conditioning certainly helped with milling, doesn't take too long. Sprayed 2% by weight half an hour before milling. I do have the gap at 0.5mm and it does mash well. It would be interesting to see the difference between the steamed and milled against sprayed and milled.

 

[foxy]

Steamed is the same as spraying, just gets a uniform conditioning with the steam.

 

[Oneflewover]

Committed grain conditioner here . Can't see steaming saving me any time or effort in my system / process, but interested in the results

 

[foxy]

Committed grain conditioner here . Can't see steaming saving me any time or effort in my system / process, but interested in the results

I like the idea of steaming, theoretically it should be uniform. The only thing that puts me off a little is having to do it on brew day. But I will have to give it a go see if it makes any difference to the end result.
The other thing is I do a full volume mash so don't get any stuck mashes, maybe it won't be an improvement for me.
Malt Conditioning - German brewing and more

 

[Agentgonzo]

How did it go foxy?
I've just heard about this on a podcast and think it'll help with the recirculation rate in my grainfather.

I'm wondering whether it'll be even simpler to just fill the grain basket with uncrushed grain, then give it a quick dunk into the mash water and pull it out, then give the grain a stir. But I have a feeling if it was this easy people would be doing it already. I assume it makes the grain too wet. I might to a quick trial with a half kilo of grain in a sieve and weigh it before and after dunking.

 

[foxy]

How did it go foxy?
I've just heard about this on a podcast and think it'll help with the recirculation rate in my grainfather.

I'm wondering whether it'll be even simpler to just fill the grain basket with uncrushed grain, then give it a quick dunk into the mash water and pull it out, then give the grain a stir. But I have a feeling if it was this easy people would be doing it already. I assume it makes the grain too wet. I might to a quick trial with a half kilo of grain in a sieve and weigh it before and after dunking.

No that wouldn't work, the water used is very little. I was reading Sierra Nevada brewing actually use heated water from the mash tun to condition their grain before milling. I will probably go down this route. My grain mill is mobile so I can mill the grain by the kettle as the water approached strike temperature.

 

[Agentgonzo]

Well that was fascinating today. Yes, dunking the grain into water, even for a short second, will wet it too much. I did the spray bottle technique, and it took maybe 10 minutes whilst the strike liquor was heating up. Milling was a lot harder work on the drill (I had to set it to the high torque mode). After milling, there was an obvious difference, and much less flour was got blown up around the room. The grain looked like the other photos, but some of them looked like they hadn't been crushed at all. On further inspection, they had, just lightly cracked open. My first reaction was "wow. Maybe I need to tighten the gap and run it through a second time", but then I though better of it and focused on changing one variable at a time.

In the recirculation in the grainfather, at first it seemed no different. But after about 15 minutes I could open the flow valve more than normal, and by the half way mark, I could open it fully and the level of the mash stayed well below the overflow. I've never been able to do this before, and the mash was bright and clear.

This is by far the simplest change I could make for sparging/recirc and will be part of my regime from now on!

 

[RoomWithABrew]

@Agentgonzo
Wondering any change in extraction efficiency of your mash. I found I could tighten the gap and had a lot more whole husk. Paradoxically recirculation can be so efficient I can't keep the mash bed covered unless some oats in the mash. Double milling part of the grain bill is a good experiment to see how a finer crush works.

 

[Agentgonzo]

Ah, I should have said. Efficiency was the same as normal (80% for me). I hit the target OG bang.

I think I'll tighten the gap slightly for the next brew, expecting a sightly higher efficiency.

Sparging was quick, but not "too quick". Efficiency is just a number at the end of the day so my priority is keeping a good recirc (ensures homogenous temperature in the mash) and an easy sparge.

( At the fact that gboard autocorrects "easy sparge" to "easy diarrhea")

 

[clyne]

Reading this thread with interest. Doesn’t it leave your mill rollers in a bit of a mess and make them more difficult to clean? I’d also have thought it makes them more susceptible to residual water that could rust over time?

 

[RoomWithABrew]

My rollers are stainless with diamond grit on them.
I use 2% weight of grain for conditioning water.
So 100ml water on 5kg of grain is damp at best. Vacuum your mill and then use vacuum cleaner on blow after to dry it if you're concerned. I don't personally bother vacuuming will unless milling lager grains after a stout grains selection.
PS my autotext changed mill to will!!

 

[Agentgonzo]

Even calling them 'damp' would be overstating it. They felt dry (just not bone dry) when they went through the mill. There were a few bits more husk hanging around at the end than normal, but easily dislodged and the mill was dry

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Agreed wetter than dry after conditioning.

 

[clyne]

Cool thanks chaps - going to give this a go next brew

 

[private4587]

I am considering this along with my new keg land 2 roller mill, what gap are you all using

 

[Agentgonzo]

I am considering this along with my new keg land 2 roller mill, what gap are you all using

I've only used it for one brew so far, and left my mill (BarleyCrusher) on it's default gap, which was "slightly wider than a Credit Card". I've since narrowed it down to to the homebrewing standard of "a credit card". I'm not going to brew for another couple of weeks, but I'll post here once I do.

I've only done it once, but from that one batch, it made the draining of the mash SO much better that I can't recommend it enough. It's REALLY easy to do and made a big difference (for me)

 

[foxy]

I am considering this along with my new keg land 2 roller mill, what gap are you all using

Depends on the size of your grain, I have 2 base malts Gladfield Pale Ale and Veloria Compass Schooner. If I tried to mill the Veloria through the Gladfield size gap then it wouldn't touch the sides. Just do some tests until you get it right, start at the credit card and open or close the gap to suit your grain.

 

[Weizenberg]

I am considering this along with my new keg land 2 roller mill, what gap are you all using

0.5mm for conditioned grain. It's advisable to not exceed grain temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius when conditioning with water or steam.

Motorized mill. 0.55kw motor + 20:1 right-angle Worm Gearbox, 138 RPM.

Not sure I'd want to use a drill for that.

 

[Weizenberg]

Thinking of getting this mill.... someday....