Grinding your own malt

Hi all,

I have been brewing since the turn of the year and have already managed 3 kits and 9 all grain batches. Upon moving to all grain I have noticed that I am a bit low on my efficiency of sugar extraction. I have adjusted my brew water pH, moved from BIAB to a Mash/Later tun and I am still on the low side of brew house efficiency (50-60 % calculated using the brewers friend application on my phone).

I typically buy enough malt for 4 batches and have it delivered already milled. It can take maybe 2 months to brew through all the malt. The malt is stored in a dry environment at room temperature. Could this be the reason for my low efficiency, would freshly ground malt have a higher sugar content? Or should I try a different malt supplier? The grain is malted by castle maltings, is their malt generally of high quality?

I am considering buying a malt mill. As I am based in Denmark my best option is a brewferm maltmill, I can get one for ~£76. Is it any good? If there is a better or cheaper alternative (that I can get delivered out here) please let me know.

I have to say my beer has been pretty good so far. Will I taste the difference in beer made from freshly milled malt?

Thanks in advance for your advice

i found this elsewhere while researching the very same thing..
Malted barley should be protected from moisture and stored at temperatures between 50¡ and 70¡ F. Any quantity of malted barley, whether its a 50-pound sack of two-row or a one-pound bag of crystal, should be stored in containers that keep the grains airtight and dry. And the container should be able to keep bugs out.

Plastic bags you can seal (like a Ziploc) or rigid plastic 2- to 3-gallon containers with a sealing lid (like a trash can) are ideal for long-term storage. Uncrushed grain will store for a year in these conditions, and crushed grains will be good for two to three months. Big bags of grain usually come with a plastic lining inside.

Hi Needabrew, I doubt that your efficiency problem is to do with storing the crushed grain for a little while.How are you sparging and how certain are you of your temperature control while mashing. Have you tried doing an iodine test on your mash to see if you have unconverted starch? These are shots in the dark really, I have no idea what is going wrong, but it won't be the age of your malt, I don't think.

To be honest I doubt it too.

What is your mash and sparge procedure (with water volumes?)

On the subject title milling your own grain I have found much better efficiency doing this (my first pre crushed ones were similar to your efficiencies) a finer crush for BIAB certainly helps.

Thanks for the input. Maybe I don't need to buy the grain mill after all. For my mash I generally heat my water (15L) to 74°C then add it to my mash tun (an insulated coolbox) then I add my malt (~6 kg, 4.5 kg base malt). This gets me to a mash temp of 66°C approx which only drops a couple of degrees over the hour mash. My last brew I mashed for 90 minutes (no improvement). I am pretty new to sparging but the last time I brewed I oversparged by maybe 10 litres. So that was 20L sparge water in total. But the hydrometer was telling me that the final runnings had barely any sugar. I only have a 27L kettle (to the brim) and I aim for 20 L batch sizes. It could just comedown to optimising the mash volumes and sparge volumes for my setup.

With this setup what would you aim for?

27 L electric tea urn.
45 L coolbox converted to mash tun
15 L fermenter
25 L fermenter

The kettle (tea urn) is sub optimal size wise but it made sense in my flat. I brew in my bathroom with it plugged in. To give you a better idea of my setup here is my blog.

WWW.yeastyeastyeast.blogspot.dk

If there is anything I can improve please let me know.

Recently I had been doing two boils from the one mash but I don't think it worked too well. I was keeping the wort for the second boil in a bucket until the first boil was cooled and in the fermenter with yeast. Maybe I should have kept it in the insulated mash tun because on each attempt the beer from the first boil was the best.

I should add, my grain comes in plastic bags that are well sealed and I tie a knot in them once open. The grain shows no sign of moisture or bugs thankfully. Its kept at room temperature about 24 °C (75 °C). Should be OK?

I'm a newcomer to AG having done about 9 AG brews but I nearly always get about 75% efficiency. I can't see anything wrong with what you are doing at all. The 90 minute mash should get all the conversion you can get, but it might be worth doing an iodine test, just to see if there is any unconverted starch left in the grains / mash.

You have taken SG readings of the final runnings and have got the sugar out..... Are you confident in your measuring scales? Just scraping the barrel of ideas here, but if your scales were reading high, you might be putting in less grain than you think. There has to be some explanation and I'm just casting around wondering what it is. You already seem to have the water PH sorted as I recall from your first post.

I brew in a bag and mash in the boiler like you aiming for about 75C strike with around 3 litres per KG of grain. After mashing for about 65 minutes, I dunk the grains in a FV with about 10 or 12 litres of water at about 75+ C and stir the grains in the bag and water for ten minutes and repeatedly lifting the bag so it can drain and then dunking it again - probably about five times, then I add this sparge water back to the boiler. I don't see that your method should end up different. Check the scales maybe... Nothing else I can think of.

Thanks Tony, I will get some Iodine test solution before my next brew. I am not sure it would be my scales as I have done brews where I have used the full bag of grain (4.5 kg) and that didn't change things. I suppose I could be getting more husk that I should somehow. I order the grain online. I could rule this out by milling my own grain. But could try a different supplier first.

Thanks for everyone's input

Tony1951 said:

I'm a newcomer to AG having done about 9 AG brews but I nearly always get about 75% efficiency. I can't see anything wrong with what you are doing at all. The 90 minute mash should get all the conversion you can get, but it might be worth doing an iodine test, just to see if there is any unconverted starch left in the grains / mash.

You have taken SG readings of the final runnings and have got the sugar out..... Are you confident in your measuring scales? Just scraping the barrel of ideas here, but if your scales were reading high, you might be putting in less grain than you think. There has to be some explanation and I'm just casting around wondering what it is. You already seem to have the water PH sorted as I recall from your first post.

I brew in a bag and mash in the boiler like you aiming for about 75C strike with around 3 litres per KG of grain. After mashing for about 65 minutes, I dunk the grains in a FV with about 10 or 12 litres of water at about 75+ C and stir the grains in the bag and water for ten minutes and repeatedly lifting the bag so it can drain and then dunking it again - probably about five times, then I add this sparge water back to the boiler. I don't see that your method should end up different. Check the scales maybe... Nothing else I can think of.

Click to expand...

Do you mill your own grain Tony?
How so you sparge?

TheRedDarren said:

Do you mill your own grain Tony?
How so you sparge?

Click to expand...

Yes I mill my own grain sometimes, but not always. I find it a bit fiddly keeping a consistent grind with my mill, which can tend towards grinding a bit too fine even though it starts off correct. The issue seems to be one of the auger compressing more and more grain against the wheels. If I monitor it carefully, I can adjust it on the fly.

On my sparge - I said it above:

I brew in a bag and mash in the boiler like you aiming for about 75C strike with around 3 litres per KG of grain. After mashing for about 65 minutes, I dunk the grains in a FV with about 10 or 12 litres of water at about 75+ C and stir the grains in the bag and water for ten minutes and repeatedly lifting the bag so it can drain and then dunking it again - probably about five times, then I add this sparge water back to the boiler.

Click to expand...

I think it is pretty much standard bag brewing stuff, but it seems to work.