Do not try to crush your grains with a rolling pin

I am in the middle of one long, bad, poorly efficient, worst brew days ever. I went to a different LHBS the other day and I had no time to crush my grains (corona mill in the store) as I was on my way to work. I figured, "no problem, I'll go old school with a rolling pin..." bad idea. My preboil OG was 1.012 with 9 lb of grain. I'm boiling and boiling and boiling. This is a major bummer. Next time I'll go back to my normal LHBS and get crushed grains - that'll teach me to wait until the good LHBS is closed to buy ingredients.

ouch

Uh-huh

I think it would have worked if you crushed lines of grain with the rolling pin which would concentrate your pressure to one narrow line.


Sorry for the bad luck...at least grain is cheap.

You crushed 9 lbs with a rolling pin? Once I did 2 lbs and it was a huge pain in the ass. I cant even imagine...

bknifefight said:

You crushed 9 lbs with a rolling pin? Once I did 2 lbs and it was a huge pain in the ass. I cant even imagine...

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And ended up 1.012....................yikes. I didn't even like doing 2 oz. of black patent. Made a mess, wasn't easy or effective. Nine pounds, beyond the call of duty.

i tried to crush 2lbs with a soup can once, this also met with horrible results

Yeah, been there done that...bought the grain mill.

On the up and up, I decocted a bit to reach mash out, and with that long boil, I got the most luscious tasting wort. OG 1.048 post boil. Fermenting at 48, and I'm looking forward to the end product.

1Mainebrew said:

On the up and up, I decocted a bit to reach mash out, and with that long boil, I got the most luscious tasting wort. OG 1.048 post boil. Fermenting at 48, and I'm looking forward to the end product.

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Either pick up your own grain mill, or find a buddy that has one you can use to crush your grains with.

Also, a decent mill (I know, people are going to say the ugly mill is good) won't take much time at all to crush grain. Using a drill to power mine, and it would only take a couple of minutes to go through your 9# of grain (if that). I milled almost 23.5# of grain on Saturday and I don't think it took more than maybe 5 minutes. That's with the drill turning about 200-250 rpm. Eventually I plan to power it with a motor, which will make it easier on me, and easier to dial in the rpm.

For reference, I have a Monster Mill MM2-2.0 and couldn't be happier with it. :fro:

1Mainebrew said:

I got the most luscious tasting wort. OG 1.048 post boil.

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og 1.048? How much? 1 gallon?

~2 gallons. It was the most vigorous boil I've ever had.

I'm only steeping grains and found the 1.5 lbs I did annoying. I just don't want to shell out for a mill.