Grain Mill recommendations and grain crush for Brewzilla Gen4

[The Baron]

I think from my experience using a grain bill with a lot of adjuncts/crystal etc does seem to cause more issues( could be just they are generally bigger grain bills and it fills the malt pipe up higher which causes more compaction by weight) also I think over stirring the mash on this particular AIO seems to cause a problem maybe because of the small diameter and tall mash pipe but that is only a guess.
So let the mash settle before re-circulating on the mash but use the re-circ down near the built in sensor(between the mash pipe and AIO wall.
Mashing in the grains needs to be done slightly slower so as to avoid grain balls as you need to avoid over stirring, I feed my grain in with a 1 litre jug so to control the flow in whilst stirring and once in a extra stir or two then let it settle.
Heat control in the mash is critical to avoid large over shoots

 

[jambop]

I think from my experience using a grain bill with a lot of adjuncts/crystal etc does seem to cause more issues( could be just they are generally bigger grain bills and it fills the malt pipe up higher which causes more compaction by weight) also I think over stirring the mash on this particular AIO seems to cause a problem maybe because of the small diameter and tall mash pipe but that is only a guess.
So let the mash settle before re-circulating on the mash but use the re-circ down near the built in sensor(between the mash pipe and AIO wall.
Mashing in the grains needs to be done slightly slower so as to avoid grain balls as you need to avoid over stirring, I feed my grain in with a 1 litre jug so to control the flow in whilst stirring and once in a extra stir or two then let it settle.
Heat control in the mash is critical to avoid large over shoots

I did a brew on Sunday which was a simple enough grain bill but contained a adjunct I use only for this particular brew. The adjunct was crushed maize. This addition caused the grainbed to drain a good bit slower than my previous two brews. The slower draining did reveal something quite interesting though. I had the recirculation set slightly too high so that the wort level inside the grain basket rose quite a bit higher than the level I measured at the start of the mash.
What was interesting was that out of interest I increased the flow even more to see if the system would run dry at the bottom. That did not happen at all and the system kept pumping wort. From this I have to conclude that at that point the liquor around the outsude of the malt was being used to make up the shortfall. I did back off again but the level was still higher than at the start of the mash until the end of mashing.
The up shot of my mash was a very high mash efficeincy, by my standards, of 88% . So for me it begs the question should you measure the grainbed height after mashing in and settling period then recirculate at a slightly higher level in order to use the wort around the malt basket?

 

[The Baron]

I always use the pump on full during these "test" brews as that is what they advise and have also kept the basket slightly raised as per my photos previously. I have not had any problems either with full flow.
My tester is going to be doing a Wheat beer maybe not next brew but soon to see if I can get enough flow with a potential sticky grain bill

 

[jambop]

I always use the pump on full during these "test" brews as that is what they advise and have also kept the basket slightly raised as per my photos previously. I have not had any problems either with full flow.
My tester is going to be doing a Wheat beer maybe not next brew but soon to see if I can get enough flow with a potential sticky grain bill

Well I have only made wheat beer once and only used 40% wheat and although slower the wort flowed OK. That was in my S40 though,. Also even though wheat malt is a smaller grain size I did not crush it any different to the pilsner malt at 1.4 mm so perhaps that helped there was very little wheat flour on the mash in fact the wheat was just cracked into bits.

 

[The Baron]

Unfortunately the wheat I have got is pre-crushed but going forward I have now got a mill and future orders of base malts will be uncrushed so I will have more control

 

[jambop]

Unfortunately the wheat I have got is pre-crushed but going forward I have now got a mill and future orders of base malts will be uncrushed so I will have more control

I think it make abit of a difference to the freshness of the malt grains too but if the crushed malt is stored under vacuum or even in a well sealed container it still be good for a while.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

I read somewhere on a malt suppliers site that they said well stored crushed it was good for months which surprised me.

 

[The Baron]

It's not the storage time that's a issue it was that I want to mill my own not as fine so I get less flour in it which was part of the issue with the my problems with the mash in the Bz Gen4.
You are correct though that storage of crushed grain is not as critical as thought of by some brewers, fresh is always best but not always possible for a lot of brewers

 

[Agentgonzo]

If you are getting your own mil, look at "grain conditioning" (basically, wet it a little). You get a much better flow through the mash (and less dust when milling) and it's easy to do.

 

[The Baron]

Looked at that Agent, looks the biz

 

[jambop]

I may give the conditioning thing a try. I have seen many articles about it but never got round to trying it. I doubt I will be changing the setting on my mill to 0.5mm though Ithink for a first tryI will leave my mill as it is set 1.4mm just to see how it goes.

 

[Agentgonzo]

I may give the conditioning thing a try. I have seen many articles about it but never got round to trying it. I doubt I will be changing the setting on my mill to 0.5mm though Ithink for a first tryI will leave my mill as it is set 1.4mm just to see how it goes.

That's what I've done: conditioned the grain but left the mill gap the same.

It's not a magic bullet, but it does make it a bit better.

 

[Elliott 22]

I have done 6 brews now on my brewzilla gen 4 and after my first 2 which I suffered some of the same short falls I have kept the pump on full but controlled it via the recircuc arm and dropped it down to a flow of around 30% and have since not really suffered.

Curiously where does it say you need the pump on full the whole time?

I have also used rice hulls and have the sargeant sparge arm but haven’t really bothered with it

 

[borischarlton]

Just be careful if you are using the Grainfather malt mill as it is not rated for wet malt.

 

[foxy]

Just be careful if you are using the Grainfather malt mill as it is not rated for wet malt.

It does clog the knurling no matter what mill, and it has to be done just before dough in. For me, two passes in the mill gets a crush suitable for a single-vessel brewery without to much damage to the husk.

 

[Agentgonzo]

Conditioning isn't the same as wet grain. It's still dry... It's not even damp. You add ~100g of water to 5kg of grain. It makes the husk "slightly leathery" rather than wet

 

[jambop]

I have done 6 brews now on my brewzilla gen 4 and after my first 2 which I suffered some of the same short falls I have kept the pump on full but controlled it via the recircuc arm and dropped it down to a flow of around 30% and have since not really suffered.

Curiously where does it say you need the pump on full the whole time?

I have also used rice hulls and have the sargeant sparge arm but haven’t really bothered with it

I use the wort spreader as I "think" it prevents the wort tracking through the grain bed. I don't know if you have to but would say that the greater the wort flow through the grain bed the better the sugars will be drawn from the malt grains and also the temperature spikes should be reduced because of the faster the flow from top to bottom the less the wort temperature should change.
There has been some criticism of the Bz gen 4 but alctually like all things new it is a matter of learning how to use it one thing I will be trying to get is the boiler extender I think that even a 25L brew is cutting it a bit fine when the boil comes up boil overs are a definite possiblity I nearly had one the other day but furious blowing onto the foam actually prevented it as I did not have my spray mister handy.

 

[The Baron]

I would not throttle back the pump for the same reasons as Jambop it's the heat you want to throttle back during mash to keep it stable and prevent overshoots

 

[tondy79]

I have done 6 brews now on my brewzilla gen 4 and after my first 2 which I suffered some of the same short falls I have kept the pump on full but controlled it via the recircuc arm and dropped it down to a flow of around 30% and have since not really suffered.

Curiously where does it say you need the pump on full the whole time?

I have also used rice hulls and have the sargeant sparge arm but haven’t really bothered with it

I run the pump at "100%" setting, and I try to flow as fast as possible, but like you I will throttle it back using the valve on the recirculation arm to establish a good balance if needed.

I reckon I have watched most of YouTube by now, and I don't recall any video with any popular all-in-one system where the brewer hasn't done this

Agree with jambop and The Baron though in principle - a faster recirculation rate should get the best out of the system.

 

[The Baron]

To keep as even a temperature between the water flowing from the smaller than most other AIO reservoir (or dead space as called by some) and through the mash you need as much flow as possible hence full flow.
The smaller reservoir heats up quicker than other AIO's as there is less to heat up and that is why you get larger than normal heat differentials between the mash and the reservoir.
Full flow will help to even this out and also that is why you need a grainbed with good flow through so that it can be done at full throttle also the heating element needs to be turned down so the heating of a smaller reservoir does not massively overshoot during mash.