Trying to "mill" grain with a blender

[sandybits]

I've read a few of the opinions about using a blender. Rather than raising the old arguments I was looking for trained eyes to have a look at some quick attempts. Mind you this grain is raw so will most likely perform differently once malted.

The first photo is after 4 pulses and 5 seconds on low in my Omniblender V.


The second pic shows + 5 seconds on low


The 3rd shows + another 5 seconds on low.



There didn't seem to be an excessive amount of flour. A thought, though, was that I could sieve out flour as I go to make sure it didn't get, well, more floury.

I don't know if you can tell from the photos but what am I looking for, ie not too much flour, most grains broken, consistency of "crush"??? And are any of these close?

Edit: 1/2 cup of raw, unmalted barley for BIAB (Thanks Liam).

 

[Liam_snorkel]

depends on how you brew. If you BIAB, you can pretty much go as fine as you like. If you mash with a false bottom or something like it, you will want plenty of husk to avoid a stuck mash.

 

[sandybits]

Righto, 2 more pics then it went to the chooks:

1st is 20 seconds total (plus the first 4 pulses which didn't do much):


2nd is 30 seconds all up.


Oh yeah forgot to add that this was a half cup of raw barley. So surely times and performance will change wildly once more is introduced and it is malted. Just looking for opinions on the texture.

 

[sandybits]

depends on how you brew. If you BIAB, you can pretty much go as fine as you like. If you mash with a false bottom or something like it, you will want plenty of husk to avoid a stuck mash.

I've just updated to mention I am BIAB'ing. Plus I've got the swill voile as suggested rather than the coarser stuff. So I guess you are right about as fine as I want. However, I read/hear/saw something the other day that going too fine can be detrimental. I can't remember where as I've been going mad researching the big step to AG. It may have been the biabrewer forum.

Thanks for the input.

 

[sp0rk]

If you grind all the way to flour (as I do), you'll have a larger amount of trub but you'll (possibly) have a higher efficiency

 

[Weizguy]

BIAB is a new brewing science and I can see that the old wisdom may not be relevant when it comes to crushing/milling/blending/grinding your grain.

It seems that it's nowhere near the same imperative to create broken grain, husks as complete as possible and minimal flour.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so try a few different levels of grain blendering and measure the efficiency.
You may wish to compare with a batch of grain crushed with a grain mill, if you can borrow one.

Good luck and please report back here.

 

[QldKev]

As mentioned above, BIAB will allow you to mill a lot finer than traditional 3V systems.

If it was me I would look at the 30sec one. BUT as you mentioned with malted grain it may look different. Just ensure ALL husks are opened to allow the white goodness out. If you mill too fine you run the risk of it setting like concrete.

I like my crush a bit finer than some. Today when brewing with my 1V and also 3V setups I use the same crush from when I used to BIAB.

This is my crush to give you an idea.

 

[fletcher]

i crush the sh!t out of mine with BIAB. all to slightly more grittier than flour but you can set it higher if you wish like yours is.

i use this: http://www.avancer.com.au/conical-burr-grinder.html

it can grind a 4.5-6kg grain bill in about 5-8 mins, usually less if i am really on the ball, but meh.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Try wetting your grains with about 1/2 cup of water to 5kg and mix in a bucket. It keeps the the husk in tact but allows the grain to be crushed better giving a better crush and increased mash eff%.

But...I dont know of anyone using this method in a blender....you might have to take one for the team on this one. It may work,it may not but I would give it a go with say 1kg and a nip glass of water and see what happens.

Just dont go overboard on the water, you want moist husks, not wet grain.

 

[TheWiggman]

A bit OT, but the concept of using a blender intrigues me. I've run into one case where I accidentally got delivered whole grain and was a bit stuck. I was hesitant to use the blender as I've not seen a thread like this before, and was entirely aware of a stuck mash. Please continue with worked examples to save me the hassle on a false bottom.
My wife went to a Thermomix 'party' and I was completely blown away by the $2k price tag. Dismissed it before knowing what it did. "But it does everything" she said. Then ranted off "... makes custard, stirs risotto, can mill flour..." She stopped talking there, she could see my ears prick up like a Labrador who was asked if he wanted to go for a walk.

Still not buying it.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Did you raise her a WW....

 

[sandybits]

Thanks for the input all.

I did another test, wetting the grain slightly as per the 1/2 cup water to 5kg grain, as suggested above (scaled down to 2mls water to 50g of grain). I also added some food dye to get a bit more contrast on the unmalted grain.

I ran it through another 6 15 second cycles (I have no idea where 15 came from). The photos don't really show a lot so from trial 3 I started weighing the flour (as screen through 1 ~1.7mm sieve - not really flour) and the bigger stuff. On the 6th 15 second blast the amount of flour overtook the chunkier stuff. However I wasn't really scientific and started losing a lot of mostly flour. So the flour may have become the bigger part of the grain from the 5th trial. What does this tell us: I must have had some spare time on my hands this arvo, thats about all

The grain is unmalted, the amount of grain is tiny and the pink dye made it all look like pencil shavings.

The first photo was after the 1st 15 seconds.

This next one was about the 4th 15 second burst.

The next 2 show the "flour" seperated from the chunk.


So the conclusion is that I will do as suggested and will churn out a couple of similar batches, just changing the "grind." I'm expecting a small order from the LHBS next weeks which will contain milled grains. That may as well be the control batch. Hopefully my malting experiment will turn into usable grains to follow up with all this nonsense.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Forgot to metion that you need to allow time to allow the husk to soak up the water..

But **** man...Using food colouring is awsome. Love it Your the first person in at least 10yrs of me being on here and previous sites that has thought of that.

Well done. And I mean well done. You have done something that no one else has done and you deserve a lot for doing that

 

[stakka82]

Nice experiment. I blend when doing biab and have done for years, I find the finer the grind equals better efficiency. The only downside is the bag gets more clogged and is harder to drain/squeeze.

 

[sandybits]

Cheers Ducatiboy.

I'm trying to dig up the reference where I heard someone going on about too fine = bad, other than clogging up the bag.

I figured I may as well chuck those finely milled grains into a thermos and do a mini mash. Mashed in @ 65c. After a hour that thing had lost heaps of temp, down to low 50's so I put my more boiling water in to get back to 65c. At 90 minutes I took a brix reading (bought a refractometer yonks ago on ebay just because - finally got to use it). After diluting with about 210mls of water I got a brix of about 1.3, or an SG of 1.0050...and its pink too

Now AHB know I have no life, well at least not this Friday night. I'm off to see what the dogs brix reading is...

 

[TimT]

I use a blender! Would like to get a grain mill, will some time, but I think I've got the art of blenderising grain pretty down pat now. Did a brown ale today and was expecting a gravity of around 1.040, and ended up with a gravity of around 1.047 - so, must be doing *something* right.

I couldn't say how long I blend for. I just put it on its lowest setting and let it go for a bit. Stop once to stir the grain up with a spurtle and then give it another whizz on the lowest setting. The blender is a bit inconsistent - you end up with a few remaining whole grains, a bit of flour, but most of it is in the ideal in-between range.

Keep on forgetting the 'wet the grains' trick. (Makes mental note: must remember that trick so, er, I can forget it next time I brew).

 

[QldKev]

The theoretical issue with too fine of a crush is extracting too much tannins and resulting in astringency.

I say theoretical as many brewers will argue over this. I personally believe it is highly possible, but have never tried a super fine crush to test it out in my beers. I also think some people are more sensitive to the taste (and many other tastes in beer). I have found a reasonable % of homebrewers all grain beers can become astringent, but there are many causes for astringency including too hot of a sparge and water chemistry.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

You need a certain % of flour in your mash to get good eff. A few years ago I found an artical done by the barley board about % of flour in a grist for a mash using a 3/32 hole diameter false bottom in a commercial size mash tun. At that time they found that about 30% flour was optimal, and it was of benefit to have whole intact husks to allow for better lautering.

The flour % allowed for better conversion along with the ability for the mill to release the grain from the husk but required that the husk basically remained in tact.

I can see that a blender will shred the husk if dry, but wet husks in a blender if pulsed may ( as in I dont actually know ) keep more of the husk in tact.

Really wish I could find that articall, but I doubt it would be searchable. Was prob 6-7 yrs ago...

 

[peas_and_corn]

Why are you using unmalted barley?

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Why are you using unmalted barley?

mm....yes...why