TOPIC:

Just to add a little update.
I crushed 3Kg of grain today.
With my uber elaborate hopper extension as pictured above 3Kg fits easily.
Getting the crush right takes a bit of playing around with and I'm still not sure I'm in the right place.

I ran the 3kg through the mill in under a minute, on closer inspection a good percentage of the grain was not crushed so I tightened it up a little and ran it through again.

I may have gone a little fine with the 2nd run. I guess this is the same for any mill you use, there will be a bit of a learning curve.

Just on the drill, it's pretty heavy on the drill and I found the drill heating very quickly when I adjusted for a finer crush. So much so I took a break 1/2 way through to cool the drill down.

I have a brew on at the minute, that grain making up 1/2 of the grist so will report back with efficiency figures later.
Although I'm not sure what to expect as I used whole wheat from the farmers co-op, it's for my American Wit <!-- s:shock: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_eek.gif" alt=":shock:" title="Shocked" /><!-- s:shock: -->

&amp;quot;Spud 395&amp;quot;:dvmnzjyv wrote: Although I'm not sure what to expect as I used whole wheat from the farmers co-op, it's for my American Wit <!-- s:shock: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_eek.gif" alt=":shock:" title="Shocked" /><!-- s:shock: -->[/quote:dvmnzjyv]
Tell us more about this Shane! I'm interested in using local ingredients where I can, and together with some Irish barley malt and some locally grown wheat the possibilities are endless*.

Is your local co-op Wexford Farmers Co-op? How much did the wheat cost? Are you going to try to malt any of it?

I get it for €10.50 for 40Kg bag, I make up my own hen food mix with this and a few other bits. Seen as a wit uses unmalted wheat I thought this would be the ideal starter brew.

That's what I'm at here 50% Irish lager malt, 50% Wexford farmers co-op wheat.
Hit 75% efficiency which is a little down on normal, but I'm well happy with that.

What turned it American was the hops and yeast I had to hand <!-- s:lol: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_lol.gif" alt="" title="Laughing" /><!-- s:lol: -->

No plans to malt it as of yet but you never know. Barley and oats are also around the same price. When the homegrown hop crop comes in this year it'll be great craic <!-- s:lol: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_lol.gif" alt="" title="Laughing" /><!-- s:lol: -->

Edit, when I had volumes measured properly I was down below 70% which I suppose isnt bad for a 50% raw wheat grist.

&amp;quot;HomeBrewWest&amp;quot;:j8mdly7b wrote: We just knocked a 10er off our cheapie mill , it now:
[url:j8mdly7b]http://www.homebrewwest.ie/grain-mills-179-c.asp[/url:j8mdly7b]
only 39.95.

Continental Europe doesn't do crushed grains. They lose aroma and key factors so fast. You would never oxidise a beer, so why settle for crushed malt?

Vacuum packed hops in UK have 2 to 3 years from packing to expiry without any guidelines on storage temperature. European hops have less that 1 year, subject to proper storage at less than 5 oC, and are properly alum vac packed.

Are the Europeans just being awkward about quality, or am I missing something?[/quote:j8mdly7b]

There's something I just LOVE about this focus on quality. If only I were going to be here a bit longer...


Adam

&amp;quot;Jacob&amp;quot;:3kc9g7xs wrote: To get best efficiency commercial breweries (or lager factories if u prefer <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->) are milling malt to flour and using very fine filters to clean the wort.

Sent from my HTC Desire HD A9191 using Tapatalk 2[/quote:3kc9g7xs]

They're far, far more complicated than "very fine filters" if you're just thinking of a normal filter.

They're called "mash filters" and they're an absolute marvel. The mega lager breweries can get over 100% of laboratory extract with them because mash filters also work to squeeze all of the liquid out of the grain and reduce losses to absorption.


Adam

Saruman & Spud

How are the mills going for ye now?

As I'm moving to 80L batches soon I'll need to be investing in a grain mill and was wondering if this is the way to go? So I guess I'll be using 15-20KG of malt (that's the first time I've thought about the size of my grain bill, going to be massive)

So judging by Spuds 1kg for 10 seconds I should be able to mill 20kg in under 5 mins?

Or should I be looking at something bigger and sturdier for such large batches?