[quote=“JMcK”]I’m used to being pretty anal about cleaning all my brewing equipment, but I’ve just recently added a grain mill to the party.
for my first batch, I tried “conditioning” the grain, which I have in quotes because I clearly screwed it up. I’ve been scraping the gunk off the rollers with toothpicks and wire brushes for about a week now; so I think I’m going to forego that procedure for a batch or two.
So assuming crushing dry grain, how much effort does it typically take to clean-out your mills? what are your cleaning procedures? do you ever COMPLETELY strip down and somehow wash the rollers?[/quote]
I’ve got ten years of use on my grain mill, and I’ve never done anything more than wire-brushing the rollers, and wiping off the dust. There isn’t really a need to do more.
I condition my grain, and I learned the hard way that you shouldn’t get the grain too wet; that leads to gunked up rollers, and a very difficult to process crush. If you use less water, you’ll find that you can tighten down the gap much more while still keeping the husks intact to enable both a improved efficiency AND easier lautering. I also find it is helpful to set aside about a cup of grain before conditioning the rest, and running that dry grain through the mill at the end. It helps to unstick anything that might have globbed on.
