How fine should the grain grind be?

...how much wood could a woodchuck chuck...Don't Do What Donnie Don't Does...

Anyway, I'm gonna be brewing my second AG this weekend, a christmas beer. My grains are gound at the LHBS cause they have an elecric mill they let me use. However, last time the grind seemed awfully coarse to me, some grains were not crushed at all.

How fine of a grind should I be looking for? Texture of sand? Texture of cream of wheat? Dust?

I had a low efficiency last time and I'm wondering if that was part of my problem. That and a short sacc rest.

Thanks!

To get very specific - each grain should be divided into exactly three pieces. So, real AG brewers crack grains one at a time to ensure proper grind.































But seriously . . . that's about what you want - each grain in approx three pieces.

You just want to crack the husks, not break the grain into pieces or turn it into flour. It should still have the integrity of a piece of grain after milling.
Cracking the husks allows the water to get in, activate the enzymes that convert starches to sugars while still allowing the water to flow freely around the grains while lautering.

John

Take a look at the picture in this thread. It is a good example.https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=9825&highlight=crushed+grain

To Sonvolt


real helpfull

Take a look at a few grains that seem to be uncrushed. If they are at least cracked, then the mill is set right. Some LHBS set their mills so people don't have to worry about stuck mashes, but that can lower efficiency at the same time.

sonvolt said:

To get very specific - each grain should be divided into exactly three pieces. So, real AG brewers crack grains one at a time to ensure proper grind.

Click to expand...

I know, I'm still working on the first pound from December. I hope to have the 9 pounds finished by February 2007 in my free time. But hey, AG saves me loads compared to DME. :cross:

dblee50 said:

To Sonvolt


real helpfull

Click to expand...

WTF are you talking about?










And you only need one "l" in helpful.

Thanks for that link Blender. The grain I get from the LHBS is not that uniform or fine. The individual grains are mostly cracked, but not all of them. I'd say that 35% of the whole grains are not cracked. But that's probably less then 10% of the total grain mass. Well, I don't have the money or the inclination to come up with an alternate milling solution right now unless the grind is just so horrible that it's having a largely negative impact on my beer.

So it sounds like I'm probably OK for the most part. May not be ideal, but it'll get the job done. Thanks!

I had some poor crushes with the HBS and then one good one. I am going to be doing this awile so I bought a crusher. It helped a lot.

Mezman , ask the LHBS to run your grains through the mill twice. I find that makes a noticeable difference for me.

Hi All. I took a shot of the grain before mashing. Does this look right?

That looks like what I get from both the LHBS and Midwest Supplies. I know both use a quality roller mill to crack em.

I keep planning to take pics of mine to post on threads like this but never get around to doing it. I use a Corona mill and turn the grist into something like coarse corn meal. Works with my system until I start adding adjuncts. Sometime back a friend used some malt ground at the shop with a roller mill and at first glance I thougt they forgot to mill it. Reality is a roller mill just does a much better job than my Corona mill at keeping the husk intact. I think the shop was conservative but no doubt a roller mill is the way to go.