Crushing my first grain

tominboston · February 4, 2018, 9:32pm

Trying to Broaden my horizons and put my new cereal killer to work. I just ordered my grain bill for a slightly modified Kama citra IPA.

I will have 10 lb of Rahr 2- row and 1 lb of caramel 40L

Then lots of hops, and also going to try some NB “Cyro” cascade and citra for the dry hop.

I plan to do a single infusion with a mash out ( maybe) and fly sparge.

I do have a feeler guage but have not set the crusher yet. Any suggestions on the gap?

I am also going to give the omega tropical IPA liquid yeast a try. It sounds interesting anyway.

Going to use the light and hoppy water profile with my RO water as the base.

I just want to avoid making a blunder with the grain crush, so any suggestions and warnings would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Tom

porkchop · February 4, 2018, 10:09pm

Mine is set at .032”. You can probably go finer, but it’s a good starting point.

tominboston · February 4, 2018, 11:08pm

Thanks, I will go with that to be safe.

loopie_beer · February 4, 2018, 11:55pm

Your gap is significantly more important with fly sparging. .31-.32 is a good starting point. Next time go .29-.30. If you still get a good runoff then dial it down to .27-28. You’ll need to find your happy place.

If you’re fly sparging I highly highly highly recommend a mashout.

tominboston · February 5, 2018, 1:21am

Thanks Loopie I guess you go finer and finer until the runoff starts slowing / sticking ?

I haven’t really learned enough about the mash out. Some say forget it , some not. I try to do it when fly sparging but I am not confident I really get the mash temp up to the 170 when I try it.

loopie_beer · February 5, 2018, 1:37am

Correct. with fly sparging you’ll hit your happy space. Too course of a crush and you’ll have poor efficiency. To fine and you’ll have a stuck sparge. FUNNY THING ABOUT EFFICIENCY, TOO HIGH CAN BE DETRIMENTAL TO YOUR BEER.

A mashout is paramount with fly sparging. You need to set your body of beer. Fly sparging should take 45-60 mins and if you dont denature the enzymes they’ll continue to convert. This will leave you with a thin body. 168°-170° for 10 mins will denature those enzymes. If you pH is correct a little high in temp will be fine.

sneezles61 · February 5, 2018, 2:36am

Again… pH, pH, pH… Sneezles61

WMNoob · February 5, 2018, 4:30am

This is a great thread.

wilcolandzaat · February 5, 2018, 9:47am

Me do at .32. But if you not happy you can put it small or mill again

mhall2013 · February 5, 2018, 6:38pm

Haven’t used mine yet but bought a feeler guage set to check the gap. Think they mentioned it comes set to .035".

brew_cat · February 5, 2018, 11:38pm

I did .030 with batch sparge in a cooler tun for about 75% .025 BIAB I get 80%

tominboston · February 15, 2018, 8:21pm

Thanks for all the help, I decided to crush and brew this morning as weather and impending kitchen renovation would make it difficult this weekend.

I set the gap at .030 and it looked good. Another thing I tried after reading about it on brulosophy, was to use the BIAB bag I had and I used it in my mash tun. So the sparge went well and no vorlouf required. Clean up was much easier for me as well.

I have to plug in my numbers and see how I did for efficiency. I seemed to hit the gravity numbers beersmith predicted so I think I must have done something right. Mash ph seemed a little high at 5.31 but I forgot to cal the meter this am, so I don’t know about that reading. I did add exactly the amount of lactic acid that was calculated so I think I was prob ok.

Each brew goes a little smoother with less worry on my part.

This will be the Kama citra IPA with a bit more base malt and some double strength cascade and citra in the dry hop later. So a slightly bigger Kama citra but not too much.

I am hoping my brew bucket doesn’t lift off with that omega tropical IPA yeast… It likes the temp 75-85 f. Got the big blow off tube on it now.

Thanks again for all the help, looking forward to drinking this brew.

Tom

sneezles61 · February 15, 2018, 11:18pm

Tom, I wouldn’t worry too much as pH is from 5.2- 5.6… There is some leeway there… I seem to be more at ease when I brew by myself… I brew aloneeeee… YEAH YEAH, you know when I brew alone… I prefer to be by myself… George Thoroghgood!! Sneezles61

brew_cat · February 15, 2018, 11:48pm

I like Biab because you can crush tighter to really squeeze out some efficiency. I crush at .030 when using my MT but Biab I go .025. Of course I have two different settings for my calculator

tominboston · February 16, 2018, 2:10am

I think I was at about 82%. Maybe next time I will lower the gap a bit more. I really liked the bag in the mash tun. I have the ss brewtech mash tun and it weighs quite a bit empty so being able to just pull the grain and bag out was nice.

wilcolandzaat · February 16, 2018, 8:39am

Works perfect feeler gauge

tominboston · February 16, 2018, 11:07am

Yes I definitely use a feeler guage. Don’t remembe using one since doing a tune up on my car that had points to set under the distributor cap.

brew_cat · February 16, 2018, 12:07pm

My cereal killer has marking numbers on it just use those

sneezles61 · February 16, 2018, 1:36pm

That there is old school… belongs in the old timers corner! Sneezles61

loopie_beer · February 17, 2018, 3:28am

Be careful of hitting too high of efficiency. Many recipes are created at certain level of efficiency (70%) and too high of efficiency can reportedly result in a thin watery beer.