Cedar Rapids Brewing Society

I have a cereal killer grain mill and wondered what you set you gap to for most grains or is there something to go by for wheats, barleys, etc. or do you set it at 0.XXX" and forget it? Run it through twice?

Last two brews I had a stuck sparge in my cooler mash tun with SS toilet screen. I wonder if I am too fine (need to check my gap)

Cooler set up is for sale and I now have a 3 keegle system, false bottom, blah blah blah so I am hoping the stuck sprage is a distant memory. I do however want to up my efficiency as much as possible and as easy as possible. I am still pretty new to all grain and all self/internet taught so I wing it and learn from mistakes. Not the greatest method.

My barley crusher is set for a .036 inch gap. I get about 70% efficiency on beers under 1.060 OG.

I do have an undersized false bottom, but I'm holding out to buy new Stout tanks kettles at some point. Stupid life keeps getting the way of my toy purchases.

I run my Barley Crusher at 0.045 - 0.050 (it's really hard to measure the gap precisely) and get around 75% efficiency with either my HERMS system or BIAB.


On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 3:27 PM, Steven P <brew-equipment@crbeernuts.org (brew-equipment@crbeernuts.org)> wrote:

My barley crusher is set for a .036 inch gap. I get about 70% efficiency on beers under 1.060 OG.

I do have an undersized false bottom, but I'm holding out to buy new Stout tanks kettles at some point. Stupid life keeps getting the way of my toy purchases.



Cedar Rapids Beer Nuts Secretary

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I saw this which sparked my curiosity. He runs 0.024 and 0.036

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/better- ... ost5784837

For what it's worth, for about a year I fought astringency and haze problems from excessive polyphenol extraction due to too tight of a gap setting on my mil.  Turns out I was crushing around 0.025".  I changed water profiles, wet vs dry milling, mash thickness, mash temps, boil pH, mineral additions, mash techniques (e.g. single infusion vs HERMS), etc, etc, etc.  Nothing fixed the problem like opening up my mill gap to around 0.045".


On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 4:24 PM, Bones <brew-equipment@crbeernuts.org (brew-equipment@crbeernuts.org)> wrote:

I saw this which sparked my curiosity. He runs 0.024 and 0.036

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/better-way-gap-your-mill-451038/#post5784837



Chris

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I just checked and I'm at 0.040" so that shouldn't have been the issue with the stuck sparge

I am also running around .040".

Bones wrote:I have a cereal killer grain mill and wondered what you set you gap to for most grains or is there something to go by for wheats, barleys, etc. or do you set it at 0.XXX" and forget it? Run it through twice?

Last two brews I had a stuck sparge in my cooler mash tun with SS toilet screen. I wonder if I am too fine (need to check my gap)

Cooler set up is for sale and I now have a 3 keegle system, false bottom, blah blah blah so I am hoping the stuck sprage is a distant memory. I do however want to up my efficiency as much as possible and as easy as possible. I am still pretty new to all grain and all self/internet taught so I wing it and learn from mistakes. Not the greatest method.

There are a few things that can cause stuck mashes other then mill gap.

Are you recirculating your mash, if you are reduce the rate at which you recirculate your mash, recirculating to fast will cause your bed to compact to the point that water will not flow threw.

Another major issue is types of grain, if you are using large amounts of wheat or rye (at least I think rye does as well). These grains are small than barley and due to size again will settle into a bed that is to tight for proper flow.

Try adding a little rice hulls to your mash and see if that clears things up a bit.

BrewHound wrote:

Bones wrote:I have a cereal killer grain mill and wondered what you set you gap to for most grains or is there something to go by for wheats, barleys, etc. or do you set it at 0.XXX" and forget it? Run it through twice?

Last two brews I had a stuck sparge in my cooler mash tun with SS toilet screen. I wonder if I am too fine (need to check my gap)

Cooler set up is for sale and I now have a 3 keegle system, false bottom, blah blah blah so I am hoping the stuck sprage is a distant memory. I do however want to up my efficiency as much as possible and as easy as possible. I am still pretty new to all grain and all self/internet taught so I wing it and learn from mistakes. Not the greatest method.

There are a few things that can cause stuck mashes other then mill gap.

Are you recirculating your mash, if you are reduce the rate at which you recirculate your mash, recirculating to fast will cause your bed to compact to the point that water will not flow threw.

Another major issue is types of grain, if you are using large amounts of wheat or rye (at least I think rye does as well). These grains are small than barley and due to size again will settle into a bed that is to tight for proper flow.

Try adding a little rice hulls to your mash and see if that clears things up a bit.

No I was not recirculating, but I will be with my new setup. That will be a nice learning curve and more hands on. I have read about the rice hulls and will remember that if I have issues with my false bottom setup

Also things to consider:Rate of draining during the lauter, some indicate a fast rate will compact the grain bed too much.   I think I generally run 4-5 min/gallon.
How much liquid is sitting on top of the grain bed, if batch try doing 2-4 mix dump cycles, fly slow the input [or wait longer before starting the HLT].
Time between mixing the grain bed and when lauter starts could be a factor with plugging the screen with small particles, too.

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