Do I have to mill rye malt?

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I always mill mine, it breaks it up into nice small chunks that pretty much dissolve in the mash tun. If you don't mill it I doubt you'd get as much efficiency as you'd like.
 
I feel a little dumb even asking it, but I started wondering if I really needed to mill rye malt since it's hullless.


You do if you want to make beer with it. The grain needs to be broken into pieces for the mash, hull or no hull.
 
Okay, thanks. I did mill it when I used it in my latest batch, but I started wondering if it was necessary afterwards. I'll just keep milling.
 
I had to adjust my mill to a smaller gap each time I have milled rye. It didn't seem to crush much when the mill was set for malted barley.
 
You do need to mill rye. It doesn't have a hull, like wheat, but is smaller than barley, so you may (in the future) need to decrease, or mill separately, your rye grain. Rye may be able to convert itself with the amount of enzymes, but you will be better off by adding some pale malt when you mash. Either way, you need to mill rye.
 
I've been running my rye and roasted barley through my corona-style mill. I like to pulverize that stuff to make the most of it and that's of course what the corona-style is for. :D
 
Yeah, I had to adjust my mill. The first scoop that I put through probably came out 80 percent unmilled. I did a sort of "medium" crush last time. Depending on the flavor of the beer, I may go finer next time. I also mashed it with some crystal; should I have also added some pale? Someone told me the crystal would be fine.
 
There are no enzymes in the crystal malt, so you would get the normal flavour and colour out of it so no worries there. I don't believe rye is completely capable of converting itself (I think it's diastatic power is around 75%) so additional base malt (pale, 2row, munich, etc) is usually desired.
 
well, it tasted ok (a bit sour/tangy i guess?) at racking but it wasn't made to be beer and didn't have any hops :D

it tasted AMAZING the last time i tried it and rather strong, if you know what i mean ;)
 
...so, does anyone know how to read Diastatic Power? is 105 Lintner 105% conversion rate?
This is according to wikipedia so take it for what you will but it looks like 35 Lintner is all that it takes for a malt to be self-converting. I'm not sure how that translates to the percentages we homebrewers usually use. But if rye malt is +100 it should be able to convert itself plus quite a bit more.
 
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