First AG - Low efficiency?

[maxdog]

As asked above, because I too am at the liberty of the LHBS mill and looking to improve efficincy, is there any problem with running the grains through the mill twice? Thanks.

[Kaiser]

As asked above, because I too am at the liberty of the LHBS mill and looking to improve efficincy, is there any problem with running the grains through the mill twice? Thanks.

If you can't change the crush, you'll have to improve other mash conditions to compensate for that. Here are a few thoughts. You can use all or only the ones that work for you:

- run the grain through the mill twice. This seems to work for many.
- mash thinner. 1.5-2.0 qt/lb is a good start.
- mash longer. Go to 90 min mashes
- use a dextrinization rest at 160-165f for 15-20 min. The higher temp may help convert more starch

have you tested the gravity of the first runnings?

Kai

[Corcis]

Slothrob: The mash thickness experiment may be reinventing the wheel, but I like to do that sort of thing to figure out how things work. However, I might try doing two thicknesses with milled and with double milled.
-The thermometer I had borrowed was reading 213degF during the boil (sanitizing it for the cooling), so I don't think it was completely inaccurate. I don't have any ice, as my freezer is full of fermentables for non-beer products


ALSO, I might have hit a lucky break. My friend has a burner and I thought it had no stand. Turns out it does. That'll cut down the effort to get this stuff together. I need to purchase a bulkhead fitting and get the keg setup already! If the double-milling doesn't have a significant effect, I'll look at getting a mill.

[drf255]

Those rice hulls cant be counted as a half # of grain. They contribute no starch. Is it possible that you didnt roast that pumpkin enough to gelatinize it? Just a few problems I noticed in addition to the good advice above.

[Slothrob]

Slothrob: The mash thickness experiment may be reinventing the wheel, but I like to do that sort of thing to figure out how things work.

I understand, because I do the same thing. I'm a biochemist and I long ago learned to reproduce peoples experiments before accepting them as fact.

One nice thing about double milling is that it allows you to see what role crush is playing in your efficiency loss, but significantly reduces the chance of shredding the husks that a tight gap has the potential to create. I mill tight but condition the grain to avoid that potential problem, but it's good to keep it as simple as possible in the beginning.

Your thermometer is probably about 2F high, depending on your altitude, but the deviation isn't always linear. Checking that it also reads 0F (or probably 2F) in a glass of crushed ice just covered in water is another good calibration check. Even then, thermometers can be off in the middle of their range, especially mechanical ones, so it's good to have a reference lab thermometer to check the calibration at mash temperatures. For now, I'd probably just assume 2F high, or whatever is appropriate to your altitude.

[Harlan]

I had the same problem for a while e.g. was getting around 65% efficiency no matter what I did. Eventually noticed that I had better efficiency ordering from NB then from the LHBS and reasoned it must be something to do with the grind.

I bought a corona mill for 20$ on ebay and started grinding my own grain.

Got an immediate and huge efficiency boost.

My first self-ground batch was a repeat of a double IPA I'd brewed before with a starting gravity of 1.072 from 16lb of grain.

The second time my OG was 1.122!

I'd accidentally made a barley wine just by milling the grain to my own standards.

Good thing about a corona mill is it doesn't seem to shred up the husks too much. The grains get sheared by the counter-rotating plates, the husks get flattened and then they pop out the sides of the mill mostly intact. Plus it's cheap and a great work out.

[Corcis]

http://www.onestopshopcatalog.com/un500.html

How does that look for a cheap mill?

[Harlan]

That's the exact one I have.

The pieces didn't mesh perfectly out of the box but a couple washers solved that problem and I've used it dozens of times since.