OOPS! Easy enough to check

[Dawg LB Steve]

Was having some efficiency problems as of late, figured I would tighten the gap on my grain mill. Weeeelllll, I pulled out the feeler gauges and combined two to make .036 and the gap was much bigger than the .039 I thought it was set at. Don't know if it was from leaving thumb screws not against the block or couldn't do simple math when I first set it up, but the gap was .045. Was missing by anywhere from .003 and .009 on OG, was putting the blame on boil-off till now. Yesterday after adjusting hit every number on the screws. Have a brew tool box with salts and other brew things near where I mill and the set of feeler gauges is in the box, will definitely check before each brew.

[Inkleg]

Sometimes our process becomes so automatic we forget to double check things. Glad you got it figured out.

[BlackDuck]

It's amazing how the smallest of things can have such a large impact. Good to hear you have it fixed.

[ScrewyBrewer]

Unless you have brewed beer yourself, people will have no idea on just how many dozens of little things there are to check. I guess that's why we love the challenge of brewing so much.

[Dawg LB Steve]

No kidding! The difference was like 2 sheets of paper thickness from what it was to what I thought it was. When I got to the end of the grain I watched as it was going thru the rollers and getting crushed, where before (which should have raised a red flag) I could see the grain almost drop thru the roller with minimal crush.

[FedoraDave]

I'm glad you found the source of the problem and that it was a quick fix, Dawg. I just got a new mill myself, and I didn't use a gapper to set the rollers; I just did the credit card trick. I also ran some old grains I happened to have as a test, and eyeballing told me it looked pretty darn good.

I've brewed two batches using it, and hit my OG right on the screws, so I guess I can't complain.

[ScrewyBrewer]

@Dave are you double crushing your grains?

[FedoraDave]

@Dave are you double crushing your grains?

Nope. Never felt the need to.