1st go conditioning grain

Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum

Help Support Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

mynameisrodney

Well-Known Member
Joined
11/9/08
Messages
363
Reaction score
137
IMG_20210505_131643.jpg


OK had my first go at conditioning grain. I definitely got less flour produced than normal. Does this crush look about right? Kept the mill at 0.8mm.

Cheers,
Chris
 
Hi Chris. It looks a lot different to mine, but I tend to set the mill a bit wider than that. What type of brew set up are you using, BIAB, recirculating 2v or 3v? Have you brewed with this or is it just a small amount for test?
 
Brewing my second batch in my guten 70L. Just hit what i think is my worst ever efficiency so I guess it wasn't very good haha.
 
It does look a little like you may have waited to long between wetting and gristing, but if you don't get any recirculation or sparging problems, then I would be happy as **** about that and not worried about a little bit of efficiency, especially as the batches get bigger!
 
Last edited:
How long do you normally wait? I did 2% water, took about 15min to spray and mix through, then left for 10-15 before milling.

Unfortunately is was more than just a little bit. Got 60% mash efficiency. Last one (unconditioned, same mill setting) was 85%
 
@mynameisrodney
I spray the grain with a misting bottle, a little over 2% by weight of the grain stirring it around and then leave it covered for about an hour before milling.
I'm using the Maltzilla and have that set at 0.75 mm normally. Get 74-76% efficiency. But found that the pump running flat out couldn't keep the grain submerged and sparging was almost instant.
Last batch I decided to mill about half of the grain at 0.5mm and the rest at 0.75 mm , was a really tricky lauter and sparge but there were lots of sticky adjuncts but BHE went up to 86% . I'm also using the Guten 70 but most batches are for 30 litres in the fermenter.
Quite a few brews in now with the Guten but still feel like I'm dialling it in each time. But most of the time I'm making a different beer. Some repeat beers planned so I hope to see if my tweaks have worked on them.
 
I have left the grain overnight once after conditioning and didn't see any bad effects. I've never left it for a short time. Maybe it's my mill.
I'll go and take a photo of some grain I milled with the two settings but can't report on the brew until sunday earliest as brewing saturday.
 
Cheers mate. Yeah I haven't had issues with flow either, ran the pump flat out. Just on my first batch I had a decent amount of grain husks make their way through the bottom screen, so I changed a few things to try to prevent that.
 
How long do you normally wait? I did 2% water, took about 15min to spray and mix through, then left for 10-15 before milling.

Unfortunately is was more than just a little bit. Got 60% mash efficiency. Last one (unconditioned, same mill setting) was 85%
I don't wait at all, takes me about 10~15mins to wet about 13kg, then straight into gristing which takes about 10 mins as well. The husk is very porous and gets tough very quickly so if you wait longer, then the moisture will travel further into the grain and produce a more chunky effect. Obviously there will be some tweaking to get the roller gap right for your setup and style.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top