HELP - grain crushed?

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tranceamerica

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Oh...s#*t! I'm sitting here working on my FIRST partial mash beer - strike water is cooling, I'm all set up...and I think the grain that NB sent me is NOT crushed...even though the package says 'crushed'...I don't have a grain mill. ... and I'm too much of a NOOB to know if it's crushed or not.

the kernels sure look whole to me, although there's a bit of dust in the bag...the UNCRUSHED crystal I bought (dunno why I didn't order that crushed either...) looked the same...

I crushed the crystal with my rolling pin...and it looks crushed...

can I crush 4 friggin pounds of grain w/my rolling pin? Or should I bag it and do I don't know what!?! help! :drunk:
 
That's lame. Especially since you even gave them a couple dollars to crush it. You should tell them what happened - maybe they'll buy back your love.
 
Kai said:
That's lame. Especially since you even gave them a couple dollars to crush it. You should tell them what happened - maybe they'll buy back your love.

well, I can only hope =) I crushed the grain w/my GD rolling pin, and did the best I could...but many kernels remain uncrushed, while many are also crushed to powder. I will now...

1) take a deep breath
2) drink a couple of beers
3) brew the best beer I can with what I got

enjoy.

thanks for the advice ... and I'll be sure to report on the "no crushie grain pale ale" which is bound to be a fairly low alcohol brew he he he .:mug:
 
If you've got a lower gravity in your boil, you're going to get more utilisation so you'll need to readjust your hop additions.
 
Kai said:
If you've got a lower gravity in your boil, you're going to get more utilisation so you'll need to readjust your hop additions.

being the lame-o newbie that I am...I have neither a friggin clue what gravity I'm shooting for, nor a hydrometer. so...I will follow my recepie...and pray. I think the hops will be ok regardless, only 2 oz total.

but...it will be beer.
 
tranceamerica said:
being the lame-o newbie that I am...I have neither a friggin clue what gravity I'm shooting for, nor a hydrometer. so...I will follow my recepie...and pray. I think the hops will be ok regardless, only 2 oz total.

but...it will be beer.

it'll be good - I rarely even use my hydrometer anymore really. I'm not a purist if it looks done, tastes done and is close I'm happy :D

heck people drink bud all day and think it's great - keep notes when you start off for each batch that is how you learn at brewing. some styles or recipes you'll love some you'll hate. enjoy.

NOTE: I still use a rolling pin at times ;-)
 
get a hydrometer. a carpenter doesn't build a house without a tape measure.

once you've done 20 batches and have a 'feel' for brewing you can forgo the hydrometer if you want.

i use mine constantly.
 
Read, read, read up on the the process virgin brewer - and heed the advice you receive on HBT...
 
Before I got a barley crusher, when I ordered from midwest supplies, the grains I got barely had cracked hulls even when I asked them for a finer than usual crush. I wonder if homebrew stores do a crappy crush so you have to buy more grain to make up for poor efficiency.
 
Jacob said:
I wonder if homebrew stores do a crappy crush so you have to buy more grain to make up for poor efficiency.

that's an awful thought! i hope you're wrong! i think it's probably a losing proposition in the end. i would hope a poor crush from the LHBS would simply come from either ignorance or poor equipment, or both. i have to have a little more faith in people than that!
 
SenorWanderer said:
that's an awful thought! i hope you're wrong! i think it's probably a losing proposition in the end. i would hope a poor crush from the LHBS would simply come from either ignorance or poor equipment, or both. i have to have a little more faith in people than that!
Somewhere out there I'm sure there is a homebrew store that would do something like that, but I've never seen one. My local shop has a big electric job right in the store and they'll crush it to your spec before you even pay for the stuff.
 
Think of it this way; barring the magical proposition that a brewstore can give the perfect crush for every grain bill on every lautering setup, they have two options; they can err on the side of crushing too finely or too coarsely. When they grind too finely, people get stuck sparges and complain, whereas when they grind too coarsely, the worst problem anyone has is lower efficiency. So, they get complaints and horror stories when it's too fine, and nothing except an occasional under-the-breath grumble when it's too coarse; they'll be inclined to err on the side of coarseness. Some more grievously than others. No foul play, just the way service works.
 
sorry, i don't buy the stuck sparge argument. We regularly see people talking about efficiencies around 50% with pre-crushed grain. That's not just conservative. Heck my corona mill is a POS compared to the roller mills all HBS's have and I crush till I'm scared, but I've never had a stuck sparge. I regularly hit 83 to 88%. I'm going with the "idiot running the mill" theory or the "one and a half times as much grain sold" one.
 
SenorWanderer said:
that's an awful thought! i hope you're wrong! i think it's probably a losing proposition in the end. i would hope a poor crush from the LHBS would simply come from either ignorance or poor equipment, or both. i have to have a little more faith in people than that!

I hope I'm wrong too, but when you get "crushed" grain from a place that regularly gets you less than 60% and then getting 82% using the stock setting on a barley crusher with the same grain, I have a hard time believing it's ignorance or poor equipment. Unfortunately I don't have a LHBS in my area, so I have to get all my ingredients over the internet. In their defense, I have never asked them about it, so I don't know if there is an explanation, but they've been great to me in every other aspect so that's why I still buy from them.
 
shafferpilot said:
sorry, i don't buy the stuck sparge argument. We regularly see people talking about efficiencies around 50% with pre-crushed grain. That's not just conservative. Heck my corona mill is a POS compared to the roller mills all HBS's have and I crush till I'm scared, but I've never had a stuck sparge. I regularly hit 83 to 88%. I'm going with the "idiot running the mill" theory or the "one and a half times as much grain sold" one.

But most people come into the brew shop with a recipe in hand ... so giving them poorly crushed grain on purpose wouldn't increase profits, just make their beer watery and lame and driving them away as a customer -- from the shop in particular or from the hobby in general -- therefore, I guess the best theory to date is the "idiot" one!:tank:
 
****update**** northern brewer is sending me more grain ... crushed this time ... no charge. good customer service :rockin:

question though... how do i know when i have a good crush?
 
Mash longer! If your crush looks bad, do a 90 minute mash. My LHBS does an OK crush, but it is nowhere near ideal for All Grain.

My first AG I got 55% efficiency doing 60 minutes for a porter recipe. My second AG I did a 90 minute mash on a blond ale recipe and I got 80%.

I used 5.2 PH stabalizer on the blond ale, which might have helped a little. I do think that if I did a 90 minute mash with the porter not using the 5.2 PH stabalizer, I probably still would have reached 75%.
 
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