All Grain for beginners

[Classic Brewing Co]

1 hour ago, Marty_G said:

@Classic Brewing Co I have come to this mill conversation a bit late but I would like to add that I have worked at  the LHBS on Saturdays for over a year now and I am surprised by how few brewers mill their own grain.   

Those that do will buy a bag of their preferred base and when they are making a brew just come in and buy the specialties they need for the recipe. 

Some of the guys just phone the recipe  in advance so we can have it ready when they come in.  Those that don't do that are the ones who like to come in and have a chat while we do it.  We cater mostly for fresh brews with 50 grains and about the same number of hops and yeasts.  It is a great set up.  I have got to meet loads of very good brewers and picked up a lot of small tips. 

Sounds like a great place to work, I won't be bothering to buy a grain mill ( unless something happens in the meantime ) as I would rather get it fresh as needed. Besides I have enough to worry about ATM. 

[stquinto]

22 hours ago, Itinerant Peasant said:

Mate the bit of kit is just pure legendary... it really is a beautiful thing.... funny I was just looking my earlier comms up... he - Francis - aka Frank -  sent me an email 3 years ago that he had a customer - some festive Micro that was milling 1.5 tonnes of grain a week with the festive little fella - so @stquinto mate there's the challenge... I am throwing down the Swiss gauntlet - once it arrives - can you mill more than 1.5 Tonnes a week without @SWMBO roaring downstairs at 0300 to see WTF you are up to?! 

I’ll be taking you up soon IP mate: the mill is already on its way. I missed ordering the hops with it so just ordered separately. I normally prefer getting the delivery in one package as although the tax is only 7.6% each package comes with a 18ChF (27$) “service fee”. Nice work if you can get it…

I ordered 1kg of PoR and 250g each of Enigma and Eclipse. 
I freeze my hops - I assume they keep (relatively) indefinitely when kept frozen? Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Also any thoughts on using Fermentis yeast that’s been opened longer than the 7 day suggested on the packet? I’m using F2 which is a yeast for bottle fermenting, and only use 2g out of a 20g pack. Obviously I don’t want to open a new pack each time,  but there might be 6 to 8 weeks between uses, and I keep it in the fridge. Maybe make a starter?

Appreciate the heads up fellas

 

[kmar92]

@stquinto all I can say is WOW on the hops order, that is a serious amount of hops! When I buy 100g lots I impress myself. From my limited understanding, hops are a very volatile commodity and have a relatively short life, even in the freezer. My understanding is that if the hops are vacuum packed and frozen they may last 2 years, loose packed and frozen maybe 6 months at best. Some of the brewing software actually has a calculation for hop potency over time to allow for hop degradation. Another problem with hop shelf life is that you never know how long they have been stored at the supplier and how well they have been stored.

You may have to increase your beer production to enable an acceptable hop consumption rate to beat the "use by" date of the hops, quite a fascinating conundrum I must say!

Edited April 11, 2022 by kmar92

[Dustin Frothman]

2 hours ago, stquinto said:

I ordered 1kg of PoR and 250g each of Enigma and Eclipse. 
I freeze my hops - I assume they keep (relatively) indefinitely when kept frozen? Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Hi @stquinto, I also purchase my hops in bulk either 500g or 1kg vacuum sealed bags. I then break these down into smaller quantities,  seal in new vacuum bags and store in the freezer. I've seen 2 years and 5 years quoted as their shelf life when stored in this manner. My guess is that it's probably somewhere in the middle of that range.

[stquinto]

1 hour ago, kmar92 said:

@stquinto all I can say is WOW on the hops order, that is a serious amount of hops! When I buy 100g lots I impress myself. From my limited understanding, hops are a very volatile commodity and have a relatively short life, even in the freezer. My understanding is that if the hops are vacuum packed and frozen they may last 2 years, loose packed and frozen maybe 6 months at best. Some of the brewing software actually has a calculation for hop potency over time to allow for hop degradation. Another problem with hop shelf life is that you never know how long they have been stored at the supplier and how well they have been stored.

You may have to increase your beer production to enable an acceptable hop consumption rate to beat the "use by" date of the hops, quite a fascinating conundrum I must say!

 

7 minutes ago, Dustin Frothman said:

Hi @stquinto, I also purchase my hops in bulk either 500g or 1kg vacuum sealed bags. I then break these down into smaller quantities,  seal in new vacuum bags and store in the freezer. I've seen 2 years and 5 years quoted as their shelf life when stored in this manner. My guess is that it's probably somewhere in the middle of that range.

Thanks for the input fellas. I reckon I’ll keep 200g of the PoR then vac-pack the rest in either 100g or 200g packs. Price wise it cost about what I would pay even taking the delivery fee from Oz into consideration, so no biggie. I probably didn’t need a kilo I must admit, 250g or at a stretch, 500g, would have been plenty

 

[stquinto]

On 4/10/2022 at 4:54 AM, Itinerant Peasant said:

Frank's magnificent SS unit is used all over the world... check out the utube vids... and is a pretty good heavy duty produc

Just out of interest IP, and anyone else with the same mill, do you have a dedicated motor or do you use a cordless drill.? Mine is starting to smell of burning …. I think Shamus posted a link for a high-torque drill, I’ll have the find the same here

[Pezzza]

10 hours ago, stquinto said:

I probably didn’t need a kilo

Come on now @stquinto Sainter you know mate that too much is barely enough 

[Pezzza]

4 hours ago, stquinto said:

high-torque drill,

Yes mate mine @stquintois a little Makita_drill (see below) that I had to splash out and buy a new battery for not long ago : (

Yes I believe @Shamus O'Sean has a nice high-torque fella - and I am a little envious of @Aussiekraut who has a reasonable high Voltage Aldi cordless which I think would do the job well.... seems like the higher voltage thing goes w a bit more grunt (but I have been wrong before).

@Otto Von Blotto Kelsey I believe uses an impact driver - now those fellas have "ballllls of steeeeel" and I did have one somewhere but who knows where it has gone... they certainly do not have torque probs but I think are a little more exy usually... and I do not know whether you can set the speed or not - you there Kelsey? 

I think it is better to mill slowly myself - seems to generate less fines unless I am dreamin'

(which is also quite possible )

Cheers all

IP

 

[Otto Von Blotto]

Yeah I'm here

I do have a drill driver yeah, it's set to low speed and highest torque when I use it for driving the mill. As for the mill master they are a decent bit of equipment. I got mine about ten years ago (where the hell did that time go )  and it's still going strong. It's survived a fall off a balcony a few years ago. The original rollers were knurled, and after a while they stopped pulling grain through so Frank sent out free replacements to everyone affected by it. These were fluted so it has one knurled and one fluted, they've been done with two fluted since that time though. 

[stquinto]

9 hours ago, Itinerant Peasant said:

Yes mate mine @stquintois a little Makita_drill (see below) that I had to splash out and buy a new battery for not long ago : (

Yes I believe @Shamus O'Sean has a nice high-torque fella - and I am a little envious of @Aussiekraut who has a reasonable high Voltage Aldi cordless which I think would do the job well.... seems like the higher voltage thing goes w a bit more grunt (but I have been wrong before).

@Otto Von Blotto Kelsey I believe uses an impact driver - now those fellas have "ballllls of steeeeel" and I did have one somewhere but who knows where it has gone... they certainly do not have torque probs but I think are a little more exy usually... and I do not know whether you can set the speed or not - you there Kelsey? 

I think it is better to mill slowly myself - seems to generate less fines unless I am dreamin'

(which is also quite possible )

Cheers all

IP

 

Great setup IP mate 

I have two drills, one of which is a Bosch professional with 1800 RPMs and 55Nm torque. I just don't want to burn that one out... The other one is pretty decent but iis starting to smell of burning but then again I've been using it a lot because of the mill. Any my own incompetence...

 

[Shamus O'Sean]

33 minutes ago, stquinto said:

Great setup IP mate 

I have two drills, one of which is a Bosch professional with 1800 RPMs and 55Nm torque. I just don't want to burn that one out... The other one is pretty decent but iis starting to smell of burning but then again I've been using it a lot because of the mill. Any my own incompetence...

 

Here is my post with a link to the Ozito Spade Handle Drill.  Not sure if it is available in your neck of the woods, but you get the picture.

[Pezzza]

15 minutes ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

Here is my post with a link to the Ozito Spade Handle Drill.  Not sure if it is available in your neck of the woods, but you get the picture.

Yeah that's a solid bit of kit @Shamus O'Sean as well as coming off the 240V mains... and high torque and lower speed gold just what you want I would suggest...  nice 

[ozdevil]

3 minutes ago, Itinerant Peasant said:

Yeah that's a solid bit of kit @Shamus O'Sean as well as coming off the 240V mains... and high torque and lower speed gold just what you want I would suggest...  nice 

i use the same drill as @Shamus O'Sean  , its bit of a bummer being on the mains , but  its a pretty good drill for milling ,  gets the mill going with ease

 

[kmar92]

I use a cheap battery powered Ozito, it seems to do the job very well set on low speed. It seems to handle to handle the milling well, I use it on the lowest possible speed. I am not really too concerned if it burns out, they are cheap to replace.

[Marty_G]

On 4/11/2022 at 9:06 PM, stquinto said:

I ordered 1kg of PoR

That will take forever to use.  PoR is used in very small quantities in Aussie style beers.  Many recipes will only need 20g max.  

[stquinto]

33 minutes ago, Marty_G said:

That will take forever to use.  PoR is used in very small quantities in Aussie style beers.  Many recipes will only need 20g max.  

I’ll end up sending back to you fellas…

[Classic Brewing Co]

1 hour ago, Marty_G said:

I ordered 1kg of PoR

Hey Stquinta I us POR a lot probably will even more now especially Pale Ales, as you would know Coopers use it in their Pale Ale & other recipes.

[Classic Brewing Co]

11 hours ago, stquinto said:

Great setup IP mate 

I have two drills, one of which is a Bosch professional with 1800 RPMs and 55Nm torque. I just don't want to burn that one out... The other one is pretty decent but iis starting to smell of burning but then again I've been using it a lot because of the mill. Any my own incompetence...

 

Well my mind is definitely made up about buying milled grain as I need it as apart from a decent mill, I need to to buy a hopper ( as I wouldn't know how to build one ) & then a drill on top of that. So for know I am content to punt along ordering whole recipes as I want them, that way everything is fresh. 

[stquinto]

6 hours ago, Classic Brewing Co said:

Well my mind is definitely made up about buying milled grain as I need it as apart from a decent mill, I need to to buy a hopper ( as I wouldn't know how to build one ) & then a drill on top of that. So for know I am content to punt along ordering whole recipes as I want them, that way everything is fresh. 

If I had a LHBS nearby I would buy fresh too. The closest to me is an hour away. I changed to a different one as when I started following the recipes and dry hopping, the hops I ordered from them turned up in a bag and weren’t vac-packed…

[Classic Brewing Co]

26 minutes ago, stquinto said:

If I had a LHBS nearby I would buy fresh too. The closest to me is an hour away. I changed to a different one as when I started following the recipes and dry hopping, the hops I ordered from them turned up in a bag and weren’t vac-packed…

That's no so good, they should know better.

[Aussiekraut]

43 minutes ago, stquinto said:

If I had a LHBS nearby I would buy fresh too. The closest to me is an hour away. I changed to a different one as when I started following the recipes and dry hopping, the hops I ordered from them turned up in a bag and weren’t vac-packed…

And there is me worrying about the hops when I weigh them out and put them into individual little zip lock bags for an hour or so  Somebody at a home brew store once told me hops can get oxidised within 30 minutes of exposure. 

[Classic Brewing Co]

I will be bottling my first AG brew tomorrow, an American Pale Ale as I was wondering about the 2l Growler I bought in the Hills last Friday. Has anyone ever used them for home brew & how much sugar did you use for priming ?

I re-call @MUZZYposted a photo of one a little while ago, just curious to hear comments on the success. 50% of the Internet says it's OK & 50% say you can't as they build up pressure.

The Lobethal Bierhaus sell them for $39.95 new & you take the empty back & get it re-filled for $22.00 so I am imagining it should be OK. They are quite heavy glass with a strong swing clip.

Cheers.

 

[Dustin Frothman]

11 hours ago, Classic Brewing Co said:

Well my mind is definitely made up about buying milled grain as I need it as apart from a decent mill, I need to to buy a hopper ( as I wouldn't know how to build one ) & then a drill on top of that. So for know I am content to punt along ordering whole recipes as I want them, that way everything is fresh. 

That's precisely the reason I bought an electric grain mill. At the time I didn't have a decent cordless drill, nor the DIY skills to make a mounting board or hopper, so I figured I'd buy a purpose built device and be done with it. After 6 months of use I can say it was worth the premium price.

I do buy the grains fresh from the store though as I don't feel there's much to be gained by attempting to warehouse it at home.

[Classic Brewing Co]

16 minutes ago, Dustin Frothman said:

That's precisely the reason I bought an electric grain mill. At the time I didn't have a decent cordless drill, nor the DIY skills to make a mounting board or hopper, so I figured I'd buy a purpose built device and be done with it. After 6 months of use I can say it was worth the premium price.

I do buy the grains fresh from the store though as I don't feel there's much to be gained by attempting to warehouse it at home.

Yeah well for the time being I will do what I said, order the required grains/hops as needed for the brew & just go with that, I am no handyman & I don't want to cope with bulk storage & mucking about with stuff I don't really want to buy or store.

To me the overall investment just doesn't cut it.

[Dustin Frothman]

2 minutes ago, Classic Brewing Co said:

Yeah well for the time being I will do what I said, order the required grains/hops as needed for the brew & just go with that, I am no handyman & I don't want to cope with bulk storage & mucking about with stuff I don't really want to buy or store.

To me the overall investment just doesn't cut it.

I'm not trying to convince you of anything, rather just relating a similar circumstance with a slightly different outcome.