I picked about 20 5 gal buckets of grapes and will see little white spiders, earwigs, dust, crushed dry grape leaves, little stems, etc in with the clusters. Is it recommended to hose these down gently before putting them through the crusher? Is it important to let them dry off before putting them through the crusher? The hose water is potable.
I want to take care of my crusher/destemmer and am noticing I washed off all the grease from the chain. What lubricant can I put on that chain before I pack it up for next year? Bike chain lubricant? Olive oil? You can sort of get a feel for the size of the chain in this product photo:
Last weekend I tried it. I get considerably less broken hulls, practically whole. Kernel was broken all right. So far so good. I added 0.5 liter of cold water to six kg of malt by pouring it slowly while stirring malt continuously. Waited about half an hour, stirring it once in a while. I milled it with roller mill. Sadly, mashing to negative iodine test took not one hour, but two. OK, after one hour solution was free of starch, …
I am looking for some advice on what a good crush looks like, and whether it matters on my system. The opinions and pics online are all over the place on this. Background: I am buying small-batch all-grain kits at my LHBS, and the grains come pre-crushed. I am pretty new to all-grain. I batch sparge in a two-gallon cooler, using a paint strainer bag instead of a false bottom or bazooka screen. The crushed grains have mostly whole husks …
I recently adjusted the gap on my grain mill to give the smallest gap. I was playing around with going as small as possible until I start to cause problems, i.e. stuck mash. I've brewed very similar recipes only, changing one ingredient, about 5-6 times before. The only thing I can thing to blame the haze on is the smaller crush. Will a smaller crush cause a haze? Batch - 10gallons Grains: 17 lb american 2 row 6.5 lb rye …
What techniques do you use to condition malt? (AKA wet crush) Malt Conditioning is adding a small amount of moisture to grain before the crush. The HomebrewTalk Wiki recommends raising the moisture content by 2%, or 100ml of water per 5kg of grain. What techniques and equipment do you employ to condition grain before the crush? The squirt bottle technique sounds a little laborious and error prone. I'd like something more sure. The February 4, 2010 episode of Basic Brewing …
I recently found that there was a home brew store much closer to my house than the one that I had been visiting. The new store has a larger selection of grains, yeast, and hops; but I've been having a lot of trouble with slow or stuck mashes since I started going to the new store. I don't have my own mill, so I rely on the LHBS to mill my grains. I thought that the mill at the new …
I'm wondering if I need to be mindful of how well my grains are crushed if I'm just using them for steeping. Do I need to get my LHBS to crush my grains or use the rolling pin / bag method? Or can I just whiz them in my coffee grinder? Does it matter how crushed they are? What harm could I cause if I end up with a fine powder? In this question, Denny mentioned a couple of things: …
Looking at the process for steeping grains I see that it omits a vorlauf. Would crushing steeping grains in the same way as mashing grains produce too much fine particulate? Should wort from steeping grains be filtered in a process like vorlauf (either in purpose or practice)?
For an all-grain or partial-mash brew, I'll go to the homebrew store and have them mill my grains for me. But extract w/grains brews are all about how short I can make them (because I'll do them on a weeknight with a friend). That means having my steeping grains on hand, rather than making a trip to the store. The standard way of crushing grains without a grain mill is the old rolling pin and Ziploc method. It's annoying and …
I just received a Barley Crusher mill - is the default roller setting sufficient for most grain types, or do I need to worry about adjusting it? Do you guys change roller spacing based on what grain you mill (i.e. barley vs wheat) or just keep it the same and crush away?