I’ve read in numerous places, including this forum, that store crushes tend to be less efficient than those you can get with your own mill. Depending on your level of cynicism, this is because either the store sets their mills for a less fine crush to reduce stuck sparges -or- in order to sell more malt.
I’m wondering if this article simply reflects that dynamic. Or is the Captain Crush really that much better? With the price tag, it is extremely unlikely that I’ll ever purchase a Captain Crush. But I am hoping to purchase a mill this spring. Any thoughts?
35% more of what, using what method? The article isn’t complete.
Mail order houses and homebrew stores are notorious for not giving a fine crush… For any number of speculative reasons.
My LHBS lets me adjust the gap to my liking.
I don’t know how the writer will equally compare a gapped knurled mill with a slotted roller mill as the gaps may not match.
Looking at the CC mill in the NB store you simply turn the knob for the adjustable roller and it seems to tighten against a flat milled face on the roller shaft.
It is a nice mill, as long it’s an apples to apples comparison.
Is the CC better? Meh, I’ve used large industrial mills, hammer mills, etc… Heck the NB stores have the large mills made by Barley Crusher (I believe) and they work well.
The key is know what a good crush looks like; adjust mill to that point and voila your done.
Doesn’t seem unreasonable given the pictures of the crush. Problem is that often the decision isn’t just the NB mill vs. a store mill but also against other mills available for purchase. Pretty sure he’d have also seen a large jump in efficiency using something like a Barley Crusher vs. what he shows as a store crush.
That said I have the Captain Crush and I do like it. Only have brewed with it once but I did see a small bump in efficiency compared to when I did basically the same beer using my Barley Crusher though there are a ton of variables that could have caused the difference. Only real reasons I bought the CC was I had a friend ready to buy my BC, had a bunch of Norther Brewer gift certificates from Christmas and it was a fun new addition to my brewing stuff. I do like the performance of the mill so far but it wasn’t like I had poor performance from the BC.
Based on the pictures I’m guessing the author got pretty low efficiency with the store milled grain(can barely tell the grain even went through a mill) and relatively “normal” efficiency with the captain crush milled grain. I think that is the dynamic at play with his results. I’d be very surprised if you were able to get significantly better efficiency with the captain crush mill versus other adjustable mills available. Being able to adjust the rollers on any mill allows you to control the crush level and the efficiency(to a point).
I may read the link which is probably a guessing game at best anyways, but I usually average 80% with the NB grand ave crusher which is at a preset gap now. Thank goodness, too many mooks up there were making flour or other wild ideas. What I would like these mill or LARGE LHBS companies to do especially a new/ unproven one with slotted rollers like this is to use a standard gap on 5 machines with the same controlled RPM and then show me the ASBC sieve test which would without a doubt show its effectiveness or lack thereof.
I still have no need to buy my own mill, but I am still on board with only buying a J. Schmidling. Matter of fact G. Fix did a sieve test using Jacks mill and the results were impressive.
[color=#000080]"Dr George Fix, Author and brewing consultant, wrote in the Internet Homebrew Digest:
Subject: MALTMILL
I received Jack's mill in Jan, 1992. Shortly thereafter it was taken to the Dallas Brewing Co (DBC) for the test. The latter was done with a standard and well established screen sieving procedure. It in effect consists of weighing out the grain fractions that are retained on screen meshes of diminishing width. The following is what we measured:
ASBC screen grains retained, % by wt
screen no. width, mm MM DBC Mill
10------------2.000---------14---------13
14------------1.410---------18---------20
18------------1.000---------33---------32
30------------0.590---------25---------25
60------------0.250----------5-----------5
100-----------0.149---------3-----------2
Not Retained----------------2----------3
_______ ___________
100% 100%
For those interested in the details, the malt crushed was a Canadian 2 - row from Prairie Malting. The mill at DBC was made by Mangel, Scheuermann, Oeters, Inc of Huntingdon Valley Pa. It costs around $6500. It is a “BMW” as far as mills go for micros. The Commercial mills have been constructed so they can process 100 to 1000 lbs of grain in minutes. Jack’s mill can not touch that sort of throughput. Nevertheless, the data show that the same type of crush is achieved.
I concluded my original review of Jack’s mill by congratulating him for producing such a good mill. I also observed it was very much worth the price he was asking. Nothing I have seen or heard since then has altered this opinion.
George Fix"[/color]
If you mentioned this test to a LHBS employee or even the mill companies guess what you would hear. Crickets…
[quote=“ITsPossible”]
I still have no need to buy my own mill, but I am still on board with only buying a J. Schmidling. Matter of fact G. Fix did a sieve test using Jacks mill and the results were impressive. [/quote]
Interesting. First I’ve heard/seen of this information.
