grain crush

[whitstella]

Hi

I'm thinking about making a grain crusher for all grain once I get round to it. What is the best gap to set my rollers at because I'm not making it adjustable.

Cheers Steve

 

[pittsy]

you need it adjustable , coarse grind the final grind .

 

[zgoda]

My standard gap for barley malts is "2", whatever that means (possibly milimeters?), it produces much of flour and grain particles no larger than 2 mm in diameter. But I use "1" for wheat and chocolate/black malts. There is also "1/4" and it gives only flour and "3" which gives groats and no flour at all.

 

[Aleman]

I'm thinking about making a grain crusher for all grain once I get round to it. What is the best gap to set my rollers at because I'm not making it adjustable.

I think the answer really is . . . It Varies and although once set you rarely have to play with it, getting it 'right' needs a degree of adjustability.

The Barley crusher is set to 0.38" from the factory, although I have reduced mine down to 0.036" over a couple of years.

IIRC The non adjustable malt mill is set to 0.045", which might be too wide for things like wheat and rye.

The real answer is to judge the crush, NOT set a gap and hope, as malt is a natural ingredient and will vary from year to year, maltster to maltster, variety to variety (If not from bag to bag of the same year/batch code, from the same maltster and the same variety)

If I had my time again I would buy the Crankenstein 3D/E rollers and build my own hopper . . . In fact if anyone wants a fully functional Barley Crusher with Large Hopper, I'll swap it for a set of Crankenstein 3E Rollers

That is not to say that the BC is a bad malt, it is damn fine and fit for my purpose, but fiddly for things like Double milling (milling at one large gap, and then again at a smaller one)

 

[rpt]

For BIAB you need it finer for better efficiency.

 

[artyb]

For BIAB you need it finer for better efficiency.

you may not.... :hmm:

taken from the biab forum..


'' The grain you buy crushed and the grain you crush (mill) yourself is fine for BIAB. There is no need to crush it any finer for different from 3 vessel brewing.
The conversion rate is about the same for a 90 minute mash. The conversion from starch to sugar depends on temperature, pH, time and luck.
So to make it simple accept the milled grain from your local homebrew supply shop or give your home milled grain a normal grind. It doesn't need to be flour!''

 

[rpt]

Do you have a link for that? I don't know if it's true or not - I was just going on advice I read here and ordered my grain with a finer crush from the Malt Miller.

 

[artyb]

there ya go, :thumb:


not much on that thread but there are more on there somewhere...

http://www.biabrewer.info/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=2108