Milling Grain

[raturay]

I just completed my first all grain batch where I milled my own grain. I suspect I milled a little too fine for my Grandfather G30 system. The issue I had was missing my pre-boil gravity of an estimated 1.041 by 4 points at 1.037. I tried to make up for it with a longer boil so at least the opening gravity is respectable. The grain bill consisted of:

3.85kg Gladfield Ale Malt
860g Weyermann Caramunich
220g Gladfield Roast Barley

I just bought a Malt King 3 roller mill and after reading a plethora of opinions on roller settings settled on 0.9mm. It's seems to be a bit lower than many suggestions but I thought - somewhere to start. The grist looked pretty good. A nice mix of particle sizes with plenty on intact hulls. Some grains even looked as though they hadn't been cracked but when a little pressure was applied they easily broke open.

The mash went well apart from not being able to get a good coverage on top of the top plate. The wort just seemed to run though the grain bed far too quickly. Same with the sparge. There was no build up of sparge water on the top plate. My assumption is that 60 minutes plus 10 for the mash out just wasn't long enough to get an efficient extraction from the grain and a courser crush is needed.

Any suggestions on the process and/or gap settings from some of our experienced millers?

I don't really need a mill as my LHB is close and their crushes have always been spot on. I was given some malting barley by a grower friend so I thought I would have a go at malting it myself. Ahead of doing this and crushing it I planned a couple of recipes as some practice. I'm half way through malting the barley (never again!!) so keep your eyes peeled once I have finished that brew. There just might be a reasonably priced "only used three times" mill for sale.

 

[Grok]

Look up "Malt Conditioning " on Google, avoid Lets Brew Beer article, it has errors!

 

[philrob]

Possibly channeling through the grain bed too. If the milling was too fine, then you might have had some dough balls.
I hand mill at home with an original MillMaster, and mill at about 1.2mm. To me 0.9mm is a bit fine, although lots of the BIAB girls and boys seem to like a fine milling.

 

[raturay]

Look up "Malt Conditioning " on Google, avoid Lets Brew Beer article, it has errors!

Will do. Thanks.

 

[raturay]

Possibly channeling through the grain bed too. If the milling was too fine, then you might have had some dough balls.
I hand mill at home with an original MillMaster, and mill at about 1.2mm. To me 0.9mm is a bit fine, although lots of the BIAB girls and boys seem to like a fine milling.

Thanks philrob. I was pretty careful to avoid dough balls but you never know. I'll increase the gap for the next one and see if that slows it all down a bit.

 

[MHB]

Sorry if I’m missing something here, but.
If both the recirculating wort and the sparge are running through the grain bed too quickly, add in low extraction. Wouldn’t that suggest you’re a grist bit too coarse rather than too fine?
With a three roller mill there are two gaps to set, the first should be freeing up the husk and pre-cracking the grain. The second should be reducing the grain to a fine kibble without making too much flour.
Mark

 

[raturay]

Damn Mark - fine vs course - that sounds logical. Perhaps with a bit more thought I may have........nah completely missed it!

Mark, if you have the time, can you expand on setting two gaps. The Malt King does have two adjustments with one at each end. Am I right in that these should be set to the same so the bottom roller is consistent along its length. The two driven rollers on top seem to have a fixed gap at the input. The scant instructions that come with the mill suggest that this is all that's needed.
Appreciate your input.
Ray

 

[MHB]

I don’t know the details of the Malt King, had a look at the blurb on KK.
Looks like the first (feeder rollers) aren’t adjustable, so you can only adjust the third roller.
Getting the gap right can be a bit of an art rather than a science. It's really important to get the bottom roller parallel so you have the same gap all along the roller.
A feeler-gauge is commonly used to do this but I'm not sure how you would get one in there to measure the gap.
In the old days a length of lead wire was often feed through the mill then measured with a micrometer. If you went to a hardware store you could get some lead free solder wire.
I have seen feeler gauges with a bend in them.

I would probably start at around 0.9mm and have a play from there, just remember to make sure both ends are the same.
Mark

 

[raturay]

Thanks again Mark. I’ll be sacrificing a few grain samples over the next few days to get this nailed down.

 

[bird]

Hi raturay.

I've had the 3 roller malt king for a year or so now. Top rollers aren't adjustable only the bottom one. I messed with the gap a fair bit to start with and have now settled on just before the 1.6 mark. I use a gluten and recirc at almost full speed no problems and get 75% plus efficiency generally.

 

[raturay]

Hi raturay.

I've had the 3 roller malt king for a year or so now. Top rollers aren't adjustable only the bottom one. I messed with the gap a fair bit to start with and have now settled on just before the 1.6 mark. I use a gluten and recirc at almost full speed no problems and get 75% plus efficiency generally.

Hi bird
Interesting. I ran some samples yesterday. Set at it's finest it produced what I thought was quite a course crush. In fact some grains hadn't been broken at all. I removed the side plate and the gap measured 1.5mm with a feeler gauge. I adjusted the gap to the minimum I could see by eye and the indicator marks on the dials were nowhere near any of the marked settings. It measured close enough to 0.8mm. I ran a sample at this setting and it compares well with a crush from my LHB. Maybe a little finer.

It would be interesting to know what your gap is when measured with a feeler gauge to see if the markings are accurate on your unit.

I've sent photos and information to Keg King and asked them for their thoughts. Should hear something next week after they reopen.

Thanks for the info. Hope your keeping your feet dry up there!

Ray

 

[bird]

Have just found some feeler gauges and pulled mine apart. Even though both dials we're on the the same setting one side was much more open than the other. 1.5mm in the middle but less on one side and more on the other. Have adjusted to 1.5mm evenly across the roller and now one side reads halfway between 1.1 and 1.4 and the other side just shy of 1.9. ran some grain through and looks like a pretty good crack to me. But I am far from an expert when it comes to this. I know sometimes the bottom roller will spin the opposite way and then I get a really fine crack so I keep an eye on that while milling grain.

And yes wet feet, wet everything up here at the moment. I've recorded over 350mm at home in the last 48hrs. Lucky it's an island. Takes alot to flood this place.

 

[raturay]

Have just found some feeler gauges and pulled mine apart. Even though both dials we're on the the same setting one side was much more open than the other. 1.5mm in the middle but less on one side and more on the other. Have adjusted to 1.5mm evenly across the roller and now one side reads halfway between 1.1 and 1.4 and the other side just shy of 1.9. ran some grain through and looks like a pretty good crack to me. But I am far from an expert when it comes to this. I know sometimes the bottom roller will spin the opposite way and then I get a really fine crack so I keep an eye on that while milling grain.

And yes wet feet, wet everything up here at the moment. I've recorded over 350mm at home in the last 48hrs. Lucky it's an island. Takes alot to flood this place.

Thanks again. That does look like a good crush. It's interesting. The guys where I bought the mill said that 1.5mm is a good setting for the Grainfather. I should set it at that as well using the feeler gauges and run another sample. Getting closer!

I've noticed the bottom roller's different directions as well. There's a reason for it but don't recall where I saw or read about it. Might be KK's video. Have to have another look.

 

[dkril]

If it uses a cam/offset bushing to adjust the gap, you can get the two at different settings while the indicators read the same.

And that's assuming that it was assembled correctly in the first place. Can you pull the knobs off and realign them both so that they both agree with your feeler gauge?

 

[mofox1]

Have just found some feeler gauges and pulled mine apart. Even though both dials we're on the the same setting one side was much more open than the other. 1.5mm in the middle but less on one side and more on the other. Have adjusted to 1.5mm evenly across the roller and now one side reads halfway between 1.1 and 1.4 and the other side just shy of 1.9. ran some grain through and looks like a pretty good crack to me. But I am far from an expert when it comes to this. I know sometimes the bottom roller will spin the opposite way and then I get a really fine crack so I keep an eye on that while milling grain.

And yes wet feet, wet everything up here at the moment. I've recorded over 350mm at home in the last 48hrs. Lucky it's an island. Takes alot to flood this place.

Looks like a perfectly good crush to me!

All broken up, but plenty of big bits. Great if you're a 3v setup. For a 1v maybe it's too crunchy? For measurements, I would go by your feeler gauges - same distance apart on both sides.

End of the day though - did you get your numbers on your brew? If yes, then awesome! Keep it consistent! If your missed your gravity and you think it was the crush, the try brewing the same beer again but mill it finer. Try to change only only one variable & keep everything else the same.

 

[wooster]

Just noticed the thread, I have the same 3 roller mill, ex KK. First time I used it, I was playing around with the settings and had both knobs come loose and bottom roller fall out. Was not sure how to reassemble the knobs with the original (assume calibrated?) configuration, so in order to get up and running I just used a credit card to set the gap as well as I could (don't have feeler gauges unfortunately). Also tried to keep the gap uniform as along the length of the roller, as mentioned above. So far, with this setting, I've done 4 batches and the crush seems quite good, although I think a bit on the fine side (do get a little back up during recirc). Efficiency has been consistent (around 75%). I use a BrewZilla.

 

[raturay]

Just noticed the thread, I have the same 3 roller mill, ex KK. First time I used it, I was playing around with the settings and had both knobs come loose and bottom roller fall out. Was not sure how to reassemble the knobs with the original (assume calibrated?) configuration, so in order to get up and running I just used a credit card to set the gap as well as I could (don't have feeler gauges unfortunately). Also tried to keep the gap uniform as along the length of the roller, as mentioned above. So far, with this setting, I've done 4 batches and the crush seems quite good, although I think a bit on the fine side (do get a little back up during recirc). Efficiency has been consistent (around 75%). I use a BrewZilla.

Good to know. Not about it falling apart but about the gap setting. I saw a David Heath video about milling grain and his general recommendation, subject to adjustments for different grains, was a credit card setting. Apparently credit cards the world over are a standard 0.85 to 0.9mm thickness.

 

[raturay]

Just to put this thread to bed. I've been talking via email with KK about the issues I had with the mill. The up shot is that the markings on the mill are there as a guide only as it's not considered a precision machine. This is to keep the cost to something that is affordable to as many brewers as possible. I have encouraged KK to include this info in the instructions so that novice grain crushers, like myself, know they will probably have to use something, other than the marked settings, to set the gap to achieve their preferred crush. They seem quite open to this.

Thanks everyone for their comments.

Ray

 

[bdkelly.nz]

Just a passing comment. Gladfields recommend a gap of 1.45mm. Mines a two roller both rollers driven and seems to work for me. .9 was too fine.
Sorry didn't realise this thread was so old!

 

[Neil Buttriss]

As all grains differ in size it is always a good idea to put 200g or so through and check it, In general mills are not set and forget.