Milling your own vs buying pre milled

[cunnol]

That's a cracking homemade setup, fair play. Do you condition your grains before milling? Think I'll do that, seems to be a pre requisite for a lot of ppl.

[Leann ull]

I have a 3 roller so not much escapes, when I remember I do but the way I do it is rinse out the builders bucket I use and just pour off the excess water, so it's only the water on the sides and a tiny tiny pool in the bottom,  a really good mix and leave it there 15-20 mins.
Sides and base are dry when I pour as water absorbed onto surface of grain

[Pheeel]

CH, what's the model of the drill?

[Leann ull]

Dewalt, 18v from b&q I think it was 180 when I bought it couple of years ago but cheaper now, most modern drills have variable trigger speeds now

[Leann ull]

Doing a brew later tonight and I thought I'd share pics of cracked grain as I know there have been loads of efficiency and mill setting questions recently.
In my book the the objective is to pop the kernel out of the husk and still have to husk intact to form a filter bed. Getting the setting right can be tricky especially if you are using different grains. I didn't moisten this one like previous ones, even though I get a good result, as It gunks up the mill and I am also wary of moisture. I have a 3 roller mill and here's where I'm at with pilsner malt in these pics.

Sorry about size of image Will but needed to illustrate the detail.

[Leann ull]

Good crush allows lovely grain bed for Herms and nice clear wort, this was mashing out

[darren996]

CH, Is that the cip head submerged I the mash

[Qs]

Good crush allows lovely grain bed for Herms and nice clear wort, this was mashing out

Aha, I was wondering why it was taking longer to clear my beer lately, bet thats it.

[Leann ull]

CH, Is that the cip head submerged I the mash

It's set at that level to disperse across the top, even though I know HSA is a myth for homebrewing!

[Leann ull]

Good crush allows lovely grain bed for Herms and nice clear wort, this was mashing out

Aha, I was wondering why it was taking longer to clear my beer lately, bet thats it.

I'm using rice hulls also all the time now where there is a significant portion of wheat in the recipe.

[darren996]

Cheers,  I finally got of me ass and bought one

[Leann ull]

Sorry mine is a design I got from a guy off Jim's and resembles a wort aerator rather than cip.
I'd recommend you block some of the holes on a cip to allow wort to travel across the top of the surface of your grain

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Plansifter Analysis is an important aspect of professional milling. It uses a series of different sieves stacked in a tower. The tower is shaken by a motor for generally two minutes. The top sieve is the most coarse and retains the husk material. The sieves become finer as you move towards the bottom. These collect coarse grits, fine grits and flour. The original sample of grist is weighed, and then it is possible to calculate the percentage of each component by weighing the contents of each relative sieve separately. The volume of the top sieve is also recorded. With these results it is possible to predict issues with run off time and extract efficiencies.
Here's a link to save me some typing
http://beerandwinejournal.com/malt-sieves/

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

[Qs]

Good crush allows lovely grain bed for Herms and nice clear wort, this was mashing out

Aha, I was wondering why it was taking longer to clear my beer lately, bet thats it.

I'm using rice hulls also all the time now where there is a significant portion of wheat in the recipe.

When I was only milling my speciality grains even wheat didn't prove a problem. Fining with gelatin was turning out super bright beer as quick as I could carb it, even with a tin of oats in it was still bright going into the keg. Now its taking more than a week. Problem started exactly when I started crushing all my own grain (previously I just did speciality in a corona mill). I think I'll throw some hulls in rather than adjust my crush and see if that works. I have my efficiency dialled in and don't want to change it again.

[biertourist]

I think people have already mostly covered the benefits: cost savings from buying whole sacks of grain, freshness, and control over the crush. 

For me, the other benefit is being able to "malt condition" (spray 2% water by weight over the husks and let it soak in for a few hours) -this lets me set the crush tight while still keeping the husks intact to avoid tannin extraction.  -Particularly important for light styles like Kolsch, Helles, etc...   -There's no way a home brew store is going to let you wet a bunch of grain and run it through their mill.


Now that my mill has been motorized and installed into a permanent cart (Ikea kitchen cart hacked a bit), it's the most reliable and simple thing to use, too; really doesn't add any extra time to my brew day and doesn't introduce dust, either with my gamma seal bucket solution for catching the crushed grain.

https://www.facebook.com/adamindublin/videos/10154148839526929/?l=3068610855969354772


Adam