[hopfenundmalz]

Condition your malt before milling ... 10 minutes well spent

Does this aid in lautering? Or is there more to it than that?

It aids in lautering, keeps the dust down, and the more intact husks will impart less astringency.

Kai wrote about it. Jeff Renner did on the HBD a long time ago.

[mabrungard]

It aids in lautering, keeps the dust down, and the more intact husks will impart less astringency.

Kai wrote about it. Jeff Renner did on the HBD a long time ago.

Since I use a RIMS, I found that conditioning offers a significant improvement in grain bed permeability while allowing my crush to be finer. It's worth it to me.

[hopfenundmalz]

Hey, the buckets outside is a neat trick, it was down to 8F last night, so I have ice. Enough to chill my lager? We will see.

[VictorBrew]

Condition your malt before milling ... 10 minutes well spent

Does this aid in lautering? Or is there more to it than that?

Most already responded, but it does help with lautering.  As Denny said, with a batch sparge it might not help as much, but enabled a bit of finer crush for me and improved efficiency slightly.  Not for everyone, but a tip for some none the less.

[bigmunchez]

If you find that you're always forgetting to put your immersion chiller in the kettle to sanitise it, create a new item in your brewing software called 'Immersion chiller' and put it in your recipe at 10 mins like a hop addition.
You can do that with other process things - I do a few hop comparison brews where I split the boil with 10 mins to go and then add different late hops to each half. I have an item called 'split the boil' to help with this.

[Pricelessbrewing]

If you find that you're always forgetting to put your immersion chiller in the kettle to sanitise it, create a new item in your brewing software called 'Immersion chiller' and put it in your recipe at 10 mins like a hop addition.
You can do that with other process things - I do a few hop comparison brews where I split the boil with 10 mins to go and then add different late hops to each half. I have an item called 'split the boil' to help with this.

That's actually really simple and a really good idea, wish I would've thought about that when I first started out.

[swampale]

I write everything down and my time to do it. However, I do forget so I use the timer on my tablet which has multiple timers to use.

[hopfenundmalz]

Hey, the buckets outside is a neat trick, it was down to 8F last night, so I have ice. Enough to chill my lager? We will see.

I had 4 four gallon buckets outside overnight. Those had enough ice that only 2 were required to bring the temp down to 45 F after using tap water to get to 70F.

I like this tip, the wife doesn't have to run to the store for ice, or I don't have to go in and out for shovels full of snow.

[charles1968]

If you're impatient to try new hops or yeast varieties, splitting wort and fermenting in more than one vessel with different yeasts/dry hops is a great tip. You can easily adapt a used mineral water bottle for the purpose:


Split batch ideas:
* Split a lager and ferment some of the wort with Belgian or Saison yeast.
* Split a pale ale to dry hop with different hop varieties.
* Split a Belgian to ferment cold and warm.

[steppedonapoptop]

Vorlauf schmorlauf.  Use a double mesh strainer atop the kettle to keep the grains out

[69franx]

I like all that I have seen so far. I started using software when I switched to all grain. It has helped me formulate recipes, etc but I think it also adds a lot of what everyone has been saying. The software has individual timers that go off for each and every addition I have to make, and a place for notes. I print out the recipe and brew steps for each batch, scribble all kinds of notes on these, and then save them all in a binder. I never have to worry about missing an addition again. I also added the chiller as a water adjustment with a specific time to add, so I dont forget that anymore. It may not do all calculations perfectly(according to some) but it gets me where I expect to be. As said earlier though, the software you use only does what you tell it to do. Make sure volumes, color ratings, hop Alpha %s, temperatures, and weights are all correctly input and adjusted as you make new purchases