We have gotten lots of questions about grain crush and I would like some validation on my crush. I spray my grain with about 8 to 10 oz of water per 20 lbs and let it sit 30 minutes before crush. Then on to a Barley Crusher and Dewalt cordless dril run slowly. Maybe 10 minutes crush time. Here is a picture.
That actually look really good. Looks like the moisture is keeping the husk from shredding and you have nice crush on the grain.
I'm constantly pushing finer and finer for more efficiency. As we all should to know what your system can handle.
Stuck sparge isn't the end of the world. Easily fixed by pumping or flowing wort back through false bottom, then mix in rice hulls and reset the bed.
In general, what you're looking for is removal of the husk and to increase the surface area to volume ratio, to a certain extent. Why to a certain extent? Flour has a very high surface area to volume ratio but if you use that, a lot of your grain is going to get stuck during lauter (we refer to this as a stuck sparge). So, to prevent this, we compromise and get the grain particles big enough so that they won't go though our lauter (and by leaving the husks in the mash or even adding husks, like rice hulls, we achieve this).
So, basically, what I've said, with a lot of words, is that you want the husks removed from the grain and the inside of the grain to be broken a few times. "Best result" is according to how your lautering. What I do (and most of my brewing friends do) is use a credit card as a gauge for the space between the rollers. I'm not sure if I'd even heard of anybody needing to wet they grain before milling it. That seems like a potential to create a mess.
Geeks Mental is a community that publishes articles and tutorials about Web, Android, Data Science, new techniques and Linux security.