Beating Those Grains

[boobiedazzler]

NickJD has previously championed the use of a coffee-grinder to prepare grains for a BIAB mash. While I have never been entirely comfortable with the idea of five kg's of dust, inclusive of husk powder, there has been occasion where I have whipped up some grain with this method.

But let's think about some of the other power tools in the kitchen. About a year or so ago I received quite a few kilos of base grain which I asked to be 'fine cracked'. For whatever reason, it came to me 'coarse cracked', quite the opposite of my request. It wasn't a problem though, I whizzed it up in the food processor and it then looked to be a satisfactory crack.

So this gave me the idea that I could start buying some uncracked grains, and prepare as required. The first failure with this was a few weeks ago, when I tried to prepare a kilo of matled wheat. Apart from about 15% of the processing pot, those husks refused to crack.

Fast-forward to this evening, I just finished roasting a kilo of pale grain for 90 minutes at 100 degrees, with occasional hand-shovel (malt shovel's younger, cruder sister) turning, and took a decent sample into the same food processor, thinking that wheat husks are tougher than barkey husks, so I could repeat my early succes with the 'coarse cracked' experiment. No such luck. Doesn't frikking do much. Tried different volumes in the 'pot' too, from 50g to about 400g and all parts in between.

What to do, I have a baking tray full of beautifully buiscuty fresh roasred malted barley in front of me, but need to crack the buggers before tomorrow morning. The mind is going back to the coffee-grinder method. OK, it's only 1/5th of the total mash, with no worries about stuck sparges, but the self-discovered undesirable in the process for me lately is goddamn trub. And we're talking pre-ferment here. So pulerised husk powder isn't high on my list of repeatables.

But wait ! Bobbie has a blender ! Not just any old blender, but a big, heavy duty testosterone machine that makes me wimper like a shcoolgirl when I lay my eyes upon it. It doesnt get much use, because mostly I am too much in awe of it's poweful demeanour. This kitchen gadget is from the school that brought us James Dean, Evil Kinevil and Arthur Fonzerelli. Needless to say, it has a glass jug. a THICK glass jug. Pee Wee Herman could never lift this ******* of it's cradle to serve you a smoothie, evn with both hands on the handle. <walks away><walks back> I just weighed it with the brew scales, and the jug is roughly 2.3 kilos in weight.<walks away><walks back> The base, ie the motor unit and controls, weighs in a about 2.8 kilos.

SO how does it perform ? Earlier I fisted in about 200 grams and hit 'pulse' for a count of 10 seconds (using the onethousand, twothouand, threthousand method of time) and the still warm grain was totally demolished. Ok, not totally, it wasnt 100% baby powder, but most of it was. Eactly what I think my cheapo coffe grinder would do.

Nest batch, I got all cocky and put twice as much in. It ended up a mixture of powder, but at least 50% was uncracked, untouched. Wizz a bit more, still no joy.

So I tried another 200g or so, reducing the last volume by half, and the same as the original whirl. This time for five seconds. The result ? A beautiful crack, finer than a 'shop crack' but with the same amount of untouched grains, that is not many at all. I repeated the volume and the pulse time a few times more, and would say that it produces a really good crack. I wish I could take some photos, but words will have to suffice.

Right now, I am giving a big thumbs up for my own discovery of having a pre-existing peice of apparatus that will no doubt become my new friend on a brewday prep.

 

[NickB]

Has been discussed many, many times in the past.

General consensus is that it works for small amounts, and works if it's your only option, but tends to make too much dust to do a full batch with (unless you BIAB, then it's not really an issue) as you have issues sparging. A proper mill designed to crush the endosperm and leave the husk of the grain intact will give you much more consistent and repeatable results.

Cheers

 

[bum]

I'm envisioning three responses based on experience of similar threads in the past. The first is that a rolling pin would probably give you more control over your desired crush. The second is that some might not like your desired crush. The third is tl;dr.

I guess another potential response is "Cool story, brah".

[EDIT: I cannot believe it took me 3 minutes to write that]

 

[boobiedazzler]

Sure, belittle the first-hand experience if you must.

That is, MY first-hand experience, with the grey-hat open observation of how it performs. I am not suggesting that a big, manly blender will supercede a home-mill setup, but with the right understanding of the devices capabilities in relation to cracking grain, I might suggest that it's a viable option, of the usre understands the relevance of 'chopping time'.

To throw it out there, Im gonna say that I could probably 'crush' a full grain bill in 5 minutes, and have the mix looking like milled cereal.

 

[bum]

Sure, belittle the first-hand experience if you must.

Sure, assume I am belittling you even though my post explicitly relates to my observations of previous threads.

As Nick B has already pointed out, this has been done to death and only certain "guerrilla" brewers have anything positive to say about the consistency and repeatability of the crush from this method. But, shit, if it works for you keep doing it.

 

[rendo]

Hey BD,

Good story, thanks for sharing. What brand/model blender do you have. Maybe you can post that here so i/We can google it to have a look. Pics of the grain would have been sweet. Oh well, next time maybe?

I have a breville blender, similar to the one pictured at the link below. Although mine is a bit beefier, bigger jug, kinda a scary powerful beasty thingy with jaws of death type things

http://www.johnlewis.com/jl_assets/product/230212457.jpg

rendo

But wait ! Bobbie has a blender ! Not just any old blender, but a big, heavy duty testosterone machine that makes me wimper like a shcoolgirl when I lay my eyes upon it. It doesnt get much use, because mostly I am too much in awe of it's poweful demeanour. This kitchen gadget is from the school that brought us James Dean, Evil Kinevil and Arthur Fonzerelli. Needless to say, it has a glass jug. a THICK glass jug. Pee Wee Herman could never lift this ******* of it's cradle to serve you a smoothie, evn with both hands on the handle. <walks away><walks back> I just weighed it with the brew scales, and the jug is roughly 2.3 kilos in weight.<walks away><walks back> The base, ie the motor unit and controls, weighs in a about 2.8 kilos.

 

[felten]

I blend, sieve, and blend again.

edit: oh and tldr

 

[boobiedazzler]

<br /> Sure, assume I am belittling you even though my post <i>explicitly</i> relates to my observations of previous threads. <br /><br /> As Nick B has already pointed out, this has been done to death and only certain &quot;guerrilla&quot; brewers have anything positive to say about the consistency and repeatability of the crush from this method. But, shit, if it works for you keep doing it.<br />

<br /><br /><br />

Whoa up there, cowboy. I only shared my observations for the purpose of expressing another point of view in an otherwise barren, book/net -smart assumption based majority mindset. Somewhere in my rant I suggested that the best-scenario crush ability of this megablendmachine was on par with a modern traditional crush.

Rendo, your sample looks like a pussy. Even though you talk your one up.

Does anyone else drink too much of their own brews and attempt to write shit on the internets?

My ass is all laughed out. Or, for the kids, MAILO !

 

[boobiedazzler]

Behold the power.

http://www.brevilleusa.com/media/catalog/p...l550xl-zoom.jpg

 

[rendo]

nice blender, its the newer model from my one. Its a about 100W or so more powerful, about the same capacity glass, maybe smaller...cant remember, either way, not too much in them. SWEET. I might give my blender a go next time, even though I am happy with the coffee grinder. I guess if it doesnt work I can just dump it all thru the coffee grinder.....

BIAB of course...


rendo

Behold the power.

http://www.brevilleusa.com/media/catalog/p...l550xl-zoom.jpg

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Always nice to have a back up option anyway... worth an experiment every now and again. Besides, while most of the alternative crush methods have indeed been talked to death... the different requirements for BIAB crushing makes it not too odious going over them again... different sized problem, so old clothes from the back of the cupboard might fit after all.

One word of warning - learn from my experience on this one....

If you think that perhaps your electric meat mincer might - maybe - if you are lucky - do some sort of a job of reducing grain to grist. Well - what happens is no grain comes out, your mincer makes a loud thump/crack noise and you you not only don't crush any grain, you throw your mincer in the bin.

I now have a shitty little hand mincer... it came with a coffee grinder attachment that I haven't yet tried (gun-shy) but I suspect will give an appropriate crush for BIAB. $25 or thereabouts off evil bay and maybe a faster if not necessarily better option than blenders or little electric coffee grinders.

TB

 

[boobiedazzler]

Is the word you're looking for "Corona"? Poor you, but at least your dominant arm would be muscley. (sp?)

Moving right along... There is no way I would ever do a BIAB with 5kg of dust.

Just to be clear, OK bruddah?

 

[boobiedazzler]

my post <i>explicitly</i> relates to my observations of previous threads.

That's the beauty of a paranoid mind, hey bum? Personalities bounce all over the shop.

You are drifting off-topic.

 

[unrealeous]

Well I thought it was a lovely story, and after reading it, I am now stroking my grain mill lovingly

 

[MHB]

There are just so many things I would like to say but let's start with

WHEAT DOESN'T HAVE A HUSK, your OP just went downhill from there, as have your responses to the replies received.

Thankfully brewing is a natural process, it almost wants to happen right if you let it, a bit of basic knowledge will make brewing a lot easier. You don't want or need to reduce the grain too much (even for BIAB) the grist must be reasonably permeable so you can drain the liquor out when you pull the bag, if for no other reason. A good mill will crush the grain to a fine free draining kibble and still keep the husk relatively intact, a food processor is going to reduce everything.

MHB

 

[Trent]

2 things come to mind for me when reading your post, and neither of them have anything to do with my opinions on the coffee grinder crushing!
1)- I am pretty sure that wheat doesnt have husks.
2)- I am also pretty sure that after you make your own toasted malts, you should put them in a brown paper bag and leave them to age for a week or so, to allow any unwanted volatile flavours and shit to dissipate.
Good luck with the blender method, I'm sure it will do a fine job.
T.

 

[manticle]

When I first started playing with cracking small amounts of grain for steeping, I tried the coffee grinder.

Pain in the balls as far as I'm concerned - in order to get what looked like a decent crush I had to put very small amounts in and whizz very quickly. I was not using a bag so dust was not great in my steep/mini-mash.

It will work for you if you have no other options - as might your blender or a wooden rolling pin (I tried cracking around 3 kg of pilsner for a partial with a rolling pin - ended up with a wooden mallet and the malt in 4 plastic bags, took more than 2 hours to get most of the malt looking like it was cracked and got an amazing 40% efficiency) or a mortar and pestle.

I think it was around this time I started looking at options like grain mills since that's what they are actually designed for. I understand the need for budgets and respect the lateral thinker but I'd much rather my trusty corona and a bit of exercise in the morning than using another kitchen appliance designed for something else. This is from my first hand experience too.

Easy mistake to make about the wheat I guess but maybe a bit more reading should be done.

 

[sandjeep457]

a rolling pin would probably give you more control over your desired crush.

 

[bcp]

:icon_offtopic: warning - off topic.

Please!

Before posting anything -
1. Please read all prescribed texts.
2. Conduct a literature review of previous posts on AHB, and submit a 3 page summary.
3. Don't post anything we already know unless it rates at least 4-5 on the Mocha Pan Scale of 'interesting to us.' You'll find that helpful little scale in the Brewing Calcs section.
4. Please check the 'done to death' blacklist. This is airlocked in the forum section.

This little bit of effort on your part will help us, because you have to remember that most of us couldn't be arsed or don't know how to just skip over anything that we already know and are tired of hearing.



[Ok, having said that i do see the other side of the argument too. But once i got started i kinda liked the irony.]

 

[Creedy]

(Exits Lurking Mode)
I'm also wondering about using home appliances for grain crushing.
I've been considering using a coffee grinder aswell, but not one of the "spinny blade" types, one of the "conical burr" type grinders.

Linky!

$90 bucks for a cheap one, I've got a little hand one that I might try later and see how consistent it is, but I've been using it as a spice grinder so it's probably only good for experimentation. It does give a nice even grind though so worth looking at.

has anyone had any experience using this type of doover?

Cheers,
Creedy