I just tried malt conditioning for the first time yesterday. Wow, that was awesome. Thanks going out to the Brau Kaiser for all the great info he’s getting out there 
That crush does look nice. You’re welcome.
What was the final result, how did this affect your efficiency?
I didn’t calculate the efficiency on this one but the crush is just so aesthetically pleasing and easy to do that I plan to do it on all my brews from now on ;D
If you are looking to have this done automatically, give these folks a call: Grain Handling and Storage | Our Solutions | Bühler Group
Kai
I did malt conditioned on my last two brews.
I brewed the same beer and I did not do anything with my grain mill.
I got about 2 points better brewhouse efficiency.
Runoff is great.
I think it is well worth the extra prep time.
I guess I have to look at that portion of Kai’s site. Because I am clueless as to what you guys are speaking of.
If Kai has any fault, it is that he has so much awesome info, if is more of a reference than a quick one time read.
Man it is awesome!
Danke Schone
Yep I really like how my crush has been coming out after treating the grain with some water.
This is 5.5kg of MO treated with 250ml of water, stir well & let soak for 15min before grinding. As you can see the husk is in great shape while I have plenty of well cracked grain(flour).
Beautiful!
Just finished brewing and this is the grain after the mash. The grain looks to uncrushed but trust me its a empty husk your looking @
clickable pics:
For you guys who are conditioning your malt, what problems did it solve for you? What improvements in your beer or brewing have you found since you started doing it?
This also makes me wonder…do commercial breweries condition their malt too? And why take the extra step when good beer can be made without doing it?
you get less dust.
Great grain cruch (no need for rice hauls)
great run off.
I think it is worth it.
You get about the same efficiency.
Some do, some don’t. Mills with conditioning are more expensive and as a result it is not very attractive for small breweries. Some large breweries don’t want to deal with water in the malt house.
In a German brewing trade magazine I found this statement: “In principle all mills which deliver a grist used in a lauter tun are equipped with a malt conditioning unit” (Brauindustrie). Based on that statement I think the majority of medium and large German breweries are using malt conditioning. Their motivation is improved flow during lautering. In a modern brewhouse running a modern mashing schedule lautering is with about 1.5 hrs the longest step and therefore determines how many batches can be brewed in one day. As a result shortening lauter times is very important.
But Denny brings up a good point. Once you have tried malt conditioning a few times be critical and check if it makes your beer better and/or if it makes brewing more enjoyable for you. In the end, these are the two things we care about. I do it because it allows me to crush finer and keep the lauter flowing at a reasonable rate. But I also have a manifold that easily can easily be overwhelmed by too much grist. And the quality of the grist makes me feel better about my milling.
Kai
I think what Denny is alluding to is what I’m thinking… is this a solution looking for a problem?
I’ll try it a few batches from now when I get to one of my house recipes that I know what the output is consistently like and post my results…
Bottom line.
It looks pretty ;D
Only my third test batch and too early to get any solid proof its better but so its a faster run off, no rice hulls, crystal clear wort. My efficiency has only changed from 77-78% up to 81% but that could be a number of other factors and I’ll just have to keep track and see if it stays stable on other batchs.
Brewing again thursday.
Yes it is really pretty ;D
I don’t get enough dust to worry about
I already get a great crush and don’t need rice hulls
I already get great runoff and never a stuck runoff
And I’m certain that for you and others it is worth it. But my point is that, as Kai says, for many of us there’s no need for it. I’m all for doing whatever it takes to improve your beer or brewing process, but I also firmly believe in not doing things that don’t make a difference. If you have problems you need to solve, conditioning is one way of possibly solving them. But carefully evaluate whatever you do and decide it if really makes a difference for you.
I certainly do need to condition the malt or use rice hulls when crushing at a gap of 0.025". I’ve tried it many times without, and the result was a very slow runoff and several visible quarts of wort being held back in the MT. Alternative solutions would be to crush less fine, or use rice hulls, but conditioning seems a ‘free’ solution with the small sacrifice of 2-3 min of stirring.