I've been told that you can, I'm only going to be brewing with speciality grain so I don't have a lot to mill and I'm patient. What are some tips and techniques to using a coffee grinder for this?
Eh...I'd personally avoid coffee grinders, since they tend to pulverize anything and everything in their path.
Per a previous post on milling that I read, just take a standard rolling pin, 2 sheets of wax paper (1 on top, 1 on bottom), and gently crush until you get a decent consistency of crushed grain vs. hulls. Too many crushed hulls would result in heavier tannins in the final brew.
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I was thinking the same thing,but you want them cracked not pureed.
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well... its probably not great, but for partial mashes since I'm still brewing with plain dried extract I will just use my small starbucks blade grinder and pulse my grains. Takes about 1-2 minutes to get 2-3 pounds of grain into my very-fine straining bag. I'd say 1/4 is pulverized, 1/2 is cracked just right, and 1/4 is barely cracked or intact. Anyway since its a partial i'm really going for increased and robust flavor not so much high effeciency fermentables. I've been really pleased with the results. I don't find much if any tannin flavor leeches out during the partial mash and its been very handy for me personally. The key is the very-fine straining bag so almost no particulate matter enters the wort during boiling afterwards.
It's certainly not optimal, but I live in a small apartment and I can't have more beer equipment like a grinder right now. I will just make do for now. Someday i'll have lots of room and a man area that won't disturb the significant other as much as it already does.
Coffee grinders are designed to do very small batches......1-2 oz. of beans at a crack, tops. The directions that came with our very nice quality burr coffee mill (Baratza Maestro) specifically enjoin against grinding continuously for more than a few minutes without allowing the machine too cool off a while. My conclusion would be that milling grain in a coffee mill -even a pound of specialty grains- is just asking to burn out a perfectly good coffee mill for no good reason.
I mill all my grain in a very inexpensive Corona-type mill, bought off eBay for less than $25 delivered. To take out the hand labor, I just adapted an electric drill to it with a $ 0.25 hardware store bolt.
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I always have small amounts of specialty grains that I can't get at my LHBS at home that I order from NB or William' Brewing. I use a mortar and pestle to crush them. I end up with a variety of sizes of crushed grains, but most importantly the hulls are still intact. It's not ideal, but it works for a quarter or a half pound here and there. Plus, I already have it.
Coffee grinder just turns whole grain to cut up grain, including the hulls.
Can you use a coffee grinder to mill grain?
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