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  • Pre-Milled Grain

    Hi All,

    I was wondering if anyone has any knowledge on pre-milled grain. We are building a brewery right now, and finding a place for a mill is becoming a challenge, as we are already super tight for space. I know a local brewery in town that uses pre-milled grain, and they brew pretty good beer. Does anyone have any good/bad experiences they can share? Can anyone tell me any specs that may affect my decision? I know it doesn't cost that much more per bag, but I'm worried about oxidation, mold, bugs, etc

  • #2
    We ran into this same issue when we were starting up a few years ago - low on space + didn't want to deal with even more dust that milling creates. We haven't had any issues with mold or bugs as we have a separate grain storage room that is dry and cleanable. The oxidation and staling issue, however, is constantly on my mind, especially with specialty malts that take awhile to burn through a full sack (black malt, acid malt, obscure malts). While I can't directly say that any of our beers have ever tasted of stale malt I can certainly say that we are keeping our specialty malts around much longer than I would like to. We tend to receive malt shipments of mostly base malt every 3 weeks, so I'm less worried about that, which of course makes up a huge percentage of our grain bills.

    Another nearby brewer gets all of his base malt pre-milled but mills all of his specialty malt. This could be a nice compromise if you are able to accommodate a small mill. You could burn through the base malt with less concern of staling and be milling your specialty malts fresh all while probably taking up less space and creating less dust than milling your full batches.

    Cheers,
    Tom

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    • #3
      Originally posted by BemidjiBrewing View Post
      We ran into this same issue when we were starting up a few years ago - low on space + didn't want to deal with even more dust that milling creates. We haven't had any issues with mold or bugs as we have a separate grain storage room that is dry and cleanable. The oxidation and staling issue, however, is constantly on my mind, especially with specialty malts that take awhile to burn through a full sack (black malt, acid malt, obscure malts). While I can't directly say that any of our beers have ever tasted of stale malt I can certainly say that we are keeping our specialty malts around much longer than I would like to. We tend to receive malt shipments of mostly base malt every 3 weeks, so I'm less worried about that, which of course makes up a huge percentage of our grain bills.

      Another nearby brewer gets all of his base malt pre-milled but mills all of his specialty malt. This could be a nice compromise if you are able to accommodate a small mill. You could burn through the base malt with less concern of staling and be milling your specialty malts fresh all while probably taking up less space and creating less dust than milling your full batches.

      Cheers,
      Tom
      Hey Tom,

      Thanks so much for your helpful reply, I really appreciate the insight.

      Comment


      • #4
        My experiences as a homebrewer prior to opening a commercial brewery made me decide that no one mills my grain but me. The biggest issue I had was inconsistency in the crush. If the place doing the milling doesn't properly adjust or maintain their mill, you can have changes in your mash efficiency and thus your beers. I think most places are pretty good, but I would rather do it in house and know the maintenance history of the mill than chance it with someone else. The worst I saw was a 10% decrease in efficiency because no one caught the mill being out of adjustment until I said something.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by jebzter View Post
          My experiences as a homebrewer prior to opening a commercial brewery made me decide that no one mills my grain but me. The biggest issue I had was inconsistency in the crush. If the place doing the milling doesn't properly adjust or maintain their mill, you can have changes in your mash efficiency and thus your beers. I think most places are pretty good, but I would rather do it in house and know the maintenance history of the mill than chance it with someone else. The worst I saw was a 10% decrease in efficiency because no one caught the mill being out of adjustment until I said something.
          It's a good point. The thought of premilling has crossed my mind as well to save time.

          But like above, I worry about the different grains that have different crush settings and wonder if these places change the settings to match. For example I set my rollers tighter for the rye I get as the grain is smaller and will not crush properly if I use my regular grain setting.


          The crush your specialty grains only idea is a good compromise though.

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