Crushing Wheat

[losp]

Hi Guys,
crushing wheat always makes my drill struggle.

I was just curious, do you guys change the roller width for wheat, or leave it as is?
I am thinking about next time mixing the wheat in my grain bill with something else before crushing it.

Any tips?

 

[manticle]

My mill is a corona so maybe different to those with rollers but I adjust my gap and do find I have to grind a bit harder.

 

[losp]

My mill is a corona so maybe different to those with rollers but I adjust my gap and do find I have to grind a bit harder.

thanks for the reply manticle. i didnt change my width today, and the drill was damn near smoking! i am a little too lazy to adjust my gap as aswell, but i guess thats probably the only solution.

 

[Banshee]

I have already burnt out one heavy duty drill on my mill. So I now use a pnematic driver to turn it.
And I leave my gap. As long as you have cracked the malt it is ok. Don't need flour.

 

[warra48]

Wheat has a harder kernel than barley, even though it doesn't have a husk, that's why it is harder to mill.

I just mix mine in with the rest of my grist, and mill it that way.

Some brewers mill their wheat seperately on a slightly smaller gap, but I just leave mine as is for everything at 1.1 mm.

 

[Weizguy]

you might crush twice instead of crushing separately.

Just close the gap a little the second time. You will lose a bit of husk content (same amount of husk, but more broken).

Crushing separately can be done, but I have been struggling with my hand-crank mill, so good luck if you go that way.

 

[losp]

thanks guys. appreciated.

 

[roller997]

Wheat has a harder kernel than barley, even though it doesn't have a husk, that's why it is harder to mill.

I just mix mine in with the rest of my grist, and mill it that way.

Some brewers mill their wheat seperately on a slightly smaller gap, but I just leave mine as is for everything at 1.1 mm.

+1 for mixing the wheat with the other griste. If I have more than 40% wheat content I do notice it but less than that there is enough barley amongst my griste to make it easy on the drill.

 

[QldKev]

thanks for the reply manticle. i didnt change my width today, and the drill was damn near smoking! i am a little too lazy to adjust my gap as aswell, but i guess thats probably the only solution.

I found my drill struggled with wheat so I decreased the size of the feed from the hopper into the rollers to about half. I found overall crush time increased by about a third, but the drill was free'd up a bit.

QldKev

 

[roller997]

QldKev,
That is actually a brilliant idea. A couple of larger objects at the base of the feeder which can't drop into the mill would obstruct enough grains to reduce the strain on the drill. Even on the lowest of three gears, my Dewalt is getting quite warm when milling griste for my wheat beers.
I might make up some timber wedges with similar angles to the hopper at the base. I prefer to run the drills longer and with less torque.

Thanks

Roller