Help please

[Tweek]

This is sorta a continuation of the other grain mill thread I had started.

I was going to buy the Malt Mill by Schmidling. So I went to go order it from my local and he tells me that the newer phils mill (phils mill 2) is better. So I go make another call to another shop I know. He tells me that he carries the phil mill 2 as well. I asked him about the malt mill, he said he only knew one person who owned one and they were very happy with it. He said the reason he carries the phil mill is because it has the best specs for the grind. I know all the people including the 2 shop guys that I have talked to about these mills and I respect all of their opinions. So it looks like I need to find some technical specs on these mills and go from there. I cant for the life of me find the specs on either mill. Have any of you ever come across this info or perhaps mind taking a peek to see if you can find them, maybe it is one of those things where it has been right under my nose the whole time.

Thanks for any help

[paul84043]

You've probably already seen this, but here's a page with a few spec on the schmidling malt mill

http://schmidling.netfirms.com/maltmill.htm

I can find alot or places selling the Phils Mill 2, but no real specs on it...

[Tweek]

Thank you Paul. I had actually seen that. What I was looking for was more a tech sheet on the grist that these diferent mills produce.

Here is a funny thing that I learned for those of you that are interested. I traded some emails with Dan Listermann, the guy that makes the Phils products. He says that for homebrewers he would reccomend the Phil Mill 1 over the 2. He says that it produces better grist, the smooth plate keeps more of the husk material intact. He said the drawback to the 1 is that it is slower than the 2 roller versions. Speed doesnt matter to me at this point in time the phill mill can still do 3 lbs a minute with a 1/2 drill so that should be sufficient as long as the quality is top notch. I still ahvent completely decided but if I decide to go with the phil mill one that will be cool as it is a little more than half the price.

[paul84043]

That's a handy little tidbit to know. I wonder why the smooth roller does a better job?

One question that I have had on full grain brewing, and I guess it could even apply to partial..
How do you know how much grain to use to achieve your correct extract sugar content?
I have read alot of contradicting info including people saying that you never really realize the full potential of the grain so overshoot by X amount, and that different types of grain yeild different amounts. It's all very confusing.

That's probably been one of the biggest things that's keeping me away from grain brewing, I just don't fully understand it yet..

[Tweek]

that part is actually pretty easy once you have it explained in a way that makes sense to you. Let me try. Hopefully this helps and not hurts your understanding of this.

Each type of grain has a certain extract value. For this example we will use American 2 row which has an average value of 1.037. So if you were able to reach 100% effeciency you would get 1.037 points of gravity per gallon of water per pound of grain. Lets also use wheat which has an average value of 1.038.

Efficiency.
So here is where everyone will differ based on their style and equipment. My personal efficiency is between 72-80 depending on the style, the bigger the beer the less efficiency I have. The way you come up with this number by calculating what your final gravity should be on several recipes, then brewing them and seeing what you actually end up with. Your efficiency is the average percentage of the target gravity that you get. This number will never be 100%, it is not possible in the homebrew environment to hit 100% efficiency.

ok so now you have a gravity value for your malt and you know your efficiency (we will say 70% for this).

Gravity units
So now you want to calculate how much to put in your batch. You need to start by choosing a target gravity. Lets say we want a target of 1.056, We then take that number and convert it to gravity units. To do this we just multiply it by 1000. SO for this we have 1000x1.056=56 gravity units.

So we need 56 gravity units, now we multiply that by the number of gallons that we want to produce, most people here are doing 5 gallon batches so we will do that so 5x52=260. So for 5 gallons of wort we have 260 total gravity units to reach a starting gravity of 1.056.

Pounds needed
OK so now lets say we want our grist to be 40% wheat and 60% pale malt, the way to decide this percentage is up to you. There are plenty of style guidlines that can be followed to work with. I prefer trial and error myself. Once you decide now we need to figure out how much of each we will want in order to hit our target gravity. in orderto do this we multiply the % by the total gravity so we have .40x260=104 (for wheat) and .60x260=156 (for pale). now to convert these numbers from gravity units to pounds. you take the gravity units and divide by gravity per pound, so 104/38=2.74 lbs (for wheat) and 156/37=4.2 lbs (for pale)

Ok now to account for efficiency. We currently have 2.74lbs of wheat malt and 4.2 pounds of 2 row. If were 100% efficient we would end up with an og of 1.056. so take the lbs and divide by your efficiency so 2.74/.70=3.9 (for wheat) and 4.2/.7=6 (for pale)

so now we have 3.9 lbs of wheat malt and 6 lbs of 2 row pale malt to make 5 gallons of 1.056 og wort with 70% efficiency.

that help?

if all else fails you can just buy a copy of promash or use one of the free mash managers on line. I use promash and I love it. it is a great tool and one of the best things I have purchased for my brewing. Promash (and other ones I am sure) do most of the calcs for you. Promash is really cool it has all sorts of fun stuff in it and a ton of stuff I havent even attempted to figure out yet. You can get an eval version that is available for download on the promash site, www.promash.com i think.

Cheers!

[shughes600]

Promash is an excellent product. I'd seriously recommend the book designing great beers. The first 10 or so chapters talk about the things tweek just said. The final chapters give all the guidlines for all the styles. This book is an excellent resource. I used it for a long time before I got promash. I basically got promash so i would have a centralized record fo brew notes, I got so much more than that.

[paul84043]

Wow, thanks Tweek you answered my question perfectly.
I have seen the calculators, but they have 1100 fields and a bunch of acronyms that don't mean anything to me yet!

That really sums it up, all I need to do now is begin to assemble the equipment.

Thanks again!