Meditations on malt conditioning before milling
Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2017 10:47 pm
After two side-by-side tests conditioning the malt with 2% water w/w vs. no conditioning, I noticed that no conditioning creates much less problems for recirculation vs. conditioning in my system.
The reason I did the test is that since I started conditioning, I have to constantly watch the recirculation flow to avoid a vacuum. Recirculation problems never happened before I started conditioning the malt.
Non-conditioned malt goes to the bottom and makes a good filter bed in 10 min. Conditioned malt creates quite a bit of floating husk shells that refuse to sink (that is my explanation to this moment, and it may be overcome with a different mill...)
Revising the rationale for conditioning, Künze does not appear to be an accurate reference as he is clearly not referring to two (or three) roller mills.
Here are the questions:
- Why do we condition malt in a homebrew setting?
The LOX explanation does not make much sense to me as malt is dry, so until it touches the water, I cannot see that 10-15 min or less from milling to dough-in will make a big difference. Yes, PPO can oxidize fruits very quickly when exposed to oxygen but fruits are mostly water; grains at 5% moisture cannot oxidize that fast.
- I changed many things but my cheap Barley Crusher keeps doing the job, so I have not considered changing it; will a different mill make conditioned malt better as a filter bed vs non-conditioned malt?
Thoughts?
The reason I did the test is that since I started conditioning, I have to constantly watch the recirculation flow to avoid a vacuum. Recirculation problems never happened before I started conditioning the malt.
Non-conditioned malt goes to the bottom and makes a good filter bed in 10 min. Conditioned malt creates quite a bit of floating husk shells that refuse to sink (that is my explanation to this moment, and it may be overcome with a different mill...)
Revising the rationale for conditioning, Künze does not appear to be an accurate reference as he is clearly not referring to two (or three) roller mills.
Here are the questions:
- Why do we condition malt in a homebrew setting?
The LOX explanation does not make much sense to me as malt is dry, so until it touches the water, I cannot see that 10-15 min or less from milling to dough-in will make a big difference. Yes, PPO can oxidize fruits very quickly when exposed to oxygen but fruits are mostly water; grains at 5% moisture cannot oxidize that fast.
- I changed many things but my cheap Barley Crusher keeps doing the job, so I have not considered changing it; will a different mill make conditioned malt better as a filter bed vs non-conditioned malt?
Thoughts?