What's your best mash efficiency?

[warra48]

Milling, yeah, it's important.

I reckon too many brewers crashing through milling at top speed with a drill or other device suffer from lower efficiency than they should expect.

I tried milling with a drill for a couple of years, at the lowest speed I could get it to run, and my efficiency suffered and sparging slowed right down with frequent stuck mashes..

Since reverting to hand milling, I'm back to where I should be at never less than 90%, and my run off and batch sparge are all done and dusted in half an hour.

Geez, 5 minutes to hand mill about 5 kg of grain is no great sacrifice of my time.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Yes milling is almost the devils magic.

I condition and try to get 20-30% flour and lots of in tact husks

I gained a few decent eff points just getting the milling right

 

[BrissyBrew]

I actually recommend a slower launtering process and a courser grist to improve efficiency. I know contary to intuition regarding finer crush higher efficiency, have a read of this paper, its all about channelling or reducing it, from about page 26 http://www.craftbrewersconference.com/wp-content/uploads/ImprovingBrewhouseEfficiency-Havig.pdf

 

[dannymars]

I've finally got my mill gap and speed set up right. Took much trial and error though, from low numbers, to stuck mashes... I've had it all.

Never hit over 70%... now I'm pushing 85% +

SLLLLLOWWWWWW sparging really helped a lot too. I fly sparge, and resisting the temptation to get that kettle filled quickly is/was hard...

I usually try to run-off/sparge over at least an hour (sometimes longer) for a 50-60L batch.

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

IMO milling and lautering are the hardest parts of the brewing process to get right. They are also the parts where the gap between professional and amateur equipment is widest.

I've yet to see an amateur mill that uses sieving and separation of roller passes, which is essential to accommodate the range of grain sizes in a typical malt*. I have also yet to see (commercially available) amateur equipment that measures differential pressure during lauter running, let alone one that controls it.

Correct me if I'm wrong and these actually exist, as I said I haven't seen them.


* The first brewery I worked in was built with a 2 roller mill and later upgraded to a proper malt mill (a 4 roller Kunzel IIRC). Nothing else changed, the difference was night and day. IMO 2 roller mills suck.

 

[BrissyBrew]

IMO milling and lautering are the hardest parts of the brewing process to get right. They are also the parts where the gap between professional and amateur equipment is widest.

I've yet to see an amateur mill that uses sieving and separation of roller passes, which is essential to accommodate the range of grain sizes in a typical malt*. I have also yet to see (commercially available) amateur equipment that measures differential pressure during lauter running, let alone one that controls it.

Correct me if I'm wrong and these actually exist, as I said I haven't seen them.


* The first brewery I worked in was built with a 2 roller mill and later upgraded to a proper malt mill (a 4 roller Kunzel IIRC). Nothing else changed, the difference was night and day. IMO 2 roller mills suck.

Mash tun design is where the difference is night and day between professional brewing equipment and home brew equipment, the Van Havig the author of the above paper especially pointed out to me an email that he thinks there is a massive difference between a slotted false bottom that might only have 10% open area and most home brew false bottoms which might be manifolds/mesh slotted copper, perforated based with huge open areas etc and the requirement for underletting.

I agree that 4 roller mills with shaker sieves can deliver greater efficiency, may I ask what type of / brand two roller mill you had before you upgraded.

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

Sorry, I don't remember, this was almost 30 years ago. I think it was green if that helps.

BTW it wasn't just the efficiency, it also improved the lauter runs and had a noticeable effect on quality, presumably these are both due to better particle size distribution: smaller husk particles have a higher surface area to volume ratio so they contibute more polyphenols.

I assume by "mash tun" above you mean lauter tun?

 

[Lindsay Dive]

It's a bloody long time since I checked my efficiency, however, the last Ale I made I wanted to check the efficiency and I was rather pleased and surprised to come up with 86%

 

[RoneMac]

136.2%. In retrospect I may have messed up my equations.