crush gap

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_Mick_

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Just curious to see what different people set their mill to when crushing.
I've been playing around with mine a bit lately ranging from 0.5-1mm finding a good comprises between efficiency and filtration at about 0.8mm

Cheers
Mick
 
Also it'll change between mills, roller configuration, size and quality of knurl will all affect it.
 
Yeah good call, be interesting to see if the BIABers out there use a finer crush to up the efficiency given that stuck spares aren't an issue.
 
My Mashmaster minimill is at 1.4 mm atm and while it's a nice looking crush and filters beautifully I think it's the cause of my efficiency drop. I had it at 1.1mm but opened it up due to sticking mash beds which I suspect were more likely caused by changes to my system and process. Serves myself right for making more than one change at a time.
 
I've got mine fairy wide, 1.2mm or some such, gradually bringing it in, still getting to know the MM3
 
I found once i went into the 1mm+ range my efficiency started to suffer, not dramatically though. I reckon I've found my sweet spot at 0.8 as long as I'm sparging at a rate to suit.
 
keg king here and it's around .042 but it only goes from .25 to 1.0 so is that imperial?
 
1mm, had it finer but my motor struggled with wheat at that width. I find 1mm good for speed and consistency of the crush as well as efficiency on my system
 
Should have specified, I use the keg king mill too (cheap+works well) but I measure the gap with feeler gauges, it's more accurate than relying on their increments.
 
People should also specify what your brew system is. 1mm on BIAB is going to yield a very different experience to 1mm on a 3V system.

As long as efficiency is reasonable in my BIAB system (i.e. around 70%), I'm more concerned with repeatability than faffing about to gain an extra couple of points (and save 5c), only to have a beer that isn't exactly what I planned to brew.
Mind you, there can be lots of variables - such as quality of malt (Gladfield is known to give extra efficiency, for example), length of mash, water chemistry, temperature consistency throughout mash, sparging/non-sparging, thickness of mash, etc.
I've hit upwards of 75% on a 1.3mm crush BIAB system before, but I'm generally at 70%.

Going to be interesting to see how this all changes with my Brau this weekend.
 
I run some grain through and inspect. Then tweak gap if needed before running the rest through. Essentially different grain types/brands are different sizes.

Sometimes the same supplier will also differ between batches too as growing conditions change.

So for me the gap width is a moving target
 
Spiesy said:
I've hit upwards of 75% on a 1.3mm crush BIAB system before, but I'm generally at 70%.
God knows what my efficiency was but last brew as I dint exactly weigh anything or record anything ( there were other factors as well as the crush that were different than the norm) but my first runnings were 1.115 :blink:
 
My Monster mill set at 0.8mm yields around 80% with a 3V system.
For the Brau I run it at 1.2mm for mid to high 70s.
 
Yob said:
God knows what my efficiency was but last brew as I dint exactly weigh anything or record anything ( there were other factors as well as the crush that were different than the norm) but my first runnings were 1.115 :blink:
Haha some of my best beers have come from this method
 
Other factors aside, I am just curious to see if anyone also has a 'go to' crush gap for their system.
Mine is 0.8mm on my 3v with the kk mill.
 

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