Rubbish efficiency

Toast · Mar 11, 2009

Hello folks,
Since moving to the other side of the world, I am buying whole grain and milling it myself. The grain in question is Baird's from Scotland (Maris Otter) and the mill is a Barley Crusher (borrowed). Well, without changing anything else my efficiency has dropped to 64%

It used to be 85% :shock:
My guess is that Invernesshire's finest grain is not to blame it is the mill. The owner informs me it is set to default factory settings. I'm just about to buy one. For the uninitiated, is there a method of milling that works best? (fast slow, whatever) is there a setting that works best? should I set the rollers to a narrower setting? Having now forgotten what decent milled malt looks like, what should I be looking for as the grist produced looked, well fine....
It's bloody annoying to produce an 'Old Ale' that is 4.8%, when you were aiming for a little under 7%, let me tell you.

Bru4u · Mar 11, 2009

I mill quite fine, they say, whoever they are, that the grain should be in about 4 or 5 parts and the husk more or less in tact, I go finer but the tun has a large surface area and has not even hinted at sticking so far, I always mash for 90 min and boil for the same, my sparging method is a mix of fly and batch, I fly untill I get down to 1.010, the grains are still covered in liquer and after about 10 mins I start draining and checking the gravity, when it's down to a corrected 1.008 I stop, I normally get about 8-12 ltr from the draining from an 80ltr length, I belive I pick up quite a lot of efficiency there. My mill is two large granite stones so the husk does get a bit torn and each grain is probably broken into 8 parts and some flour. I frequently get 90%, my brewhouse calculations are set for 85%
Hope that is some use to you T
Bru

Vossy1 · Mar 12, 2009

I'd go for a finer crush T, see how it works for you :thumb:
You haven't mentioned whether you did a starch test at the end of the mash, always worth doing until your familiar with your process.

Toast · Mar 12, 2009

I didn't do a starch test: don't have the necessaries! I guess I need some iodine and a white dish yeah?
Probably a good idea.
I think when I get a mill I'll set it finer, but when borrowing someone else's mill I'll leave it be, as it's not mine.
I had heard that if you crush too fine then you get more stuck mashes...please disabuse me!

Toast · Mar 12, 2009

Bru4u said:
I frequently get 90%, my brewhouse calculations are set for 85%

Thanks for the advice Bru (or bro' as they say here). My efficiencies with pre-crushed malt from the Farnborough HB shop was 85%, so it's not my established process. I just bought some Golden Promise so we'll see if that provides a different efficiency. I shall certainly consider a starch test.
Vossy: if starch is still present, what should I do?