Is this what Crushed Grains are supposed to look like?

There does appear to be some shredded husks in there, so maybe it was crushed. Perhaps it was crushed and the flour settled to the bottom of the bag. We don't have a good picture, so it is impossible to tell. Like I said, we need to get that stuff out of the bag and on a background that isn't the same color as the grain.

EDIT: The pictures above are a fantastic example of what we need.

wildwest450 said:

Funny, I actually said definitely not crushed by the picture, and after reading the first four post's, actually convinced myself they were.

Miss Information wins again, this place is infested by her.



.

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Same here... I thought "no" - then looked down and... "uhh...erm... I guess it probably is, what do I know" Trust your gut!

I've gotten crushes from BMW and my LHBS and while BMW's is a lot finer, both looked waay more crushed than that

I think that malt was milled, but not fine enough. It also appears that the malt somehow got segregated from a lot of the flour. The malt that got bagged was grabbed from the top and sides of a pile where more of the lighter empty and partly empty husks tend to accumulate. The small amount of coarse flour in the bottom corner of the bag is disproportionate to the total amount of malt in the bag by a large degree.

Defintiely get the malt out of the bag and spread it out on a dark background. That will solve the mystery for certain.

Ask Midwest if there is a difference between cruhed and milled, because it is not milled. Maybe crushed means they drove over it with a car, like a kitten.

After my first "milled" grain order from Midwest got me 54% efficiency, I put a comment to have them run it through the mill twice. My second grain order from them hit 72%. I've since stopped ordering grain from them until I can get my own mill...

Definitely not crushed to the point of getting good mash efficiency...

Reelale said:

If those are all empty husks, I've got to get a new mill! One that sucks out the kernel while leaving the husk completely intact.

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Yeah, no kidding.

I would be on the phone to whoever I bought that from right after I saw that. If, those are crushed grains..then its the worst crush in history of brewing

MetallHed said:

sweet jesus, just when i thought things were going to be simple for once.. lol

i can always go over it with an empty bottle to be sure.. it's for steeping, btw

i'll roll over it a bit and use it.

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A lot of us All-Grainers would not be happy with this crush for ALL GRAIN batches - but for the love of God, this fella is asking if it's okay for STEEPING! He didn't mill it, he received it this way...(read OP).

Can we answer the OP's question as he intended?
I say it's okay for steeping. (cracked is all you really need).

MetallHed said:

I ordered my specialty grains from Midwest crushed, and they came like this, supposedly crushed; but, are they really crushed

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His original question is if the grains were crushed, from the look of the pics they are not. The steeping question wasn't until his 3rd post in.

Hang Glider said:

A lot of us All-Grainers would not be happy with this crush for ALL GRAIN batches - but for the love of God, this fella is asking if it's okay for STEEPING! He didn't mill it, he received it this way...(read OP).

Can we answer the OP's question as he intended?
I say it's okay for steeping. (cracked is all you really need).

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You might call grain milled if it were run through a mill but what if the roller gap is set to 3/8"? It's like waving a closed vial of white labs over the bucket and calling it pitched.

Answereing previous question if there is a difference between rolled milled.

Yes and no, there is carona mill and roller mill. Both are milled but there are types of mills. Roller mill works best with malted balrey because is punches the grain in the face without damaging the husk to much. I use a "barley crusher" mill after getting 20 percent efficiency from grain I had milled by some jerk at the brew store. Thing works great.

Hey all thanks for the discussion. I'll shed more light on this situation.

This was an 8 oz. bag of carapils that I ordered from Midwest Supplies for the Lemon-Coriander Weiss extract kit.

The original pics were with the grain in the bag as I took them out of the box. I don't know anyone that brews and apparently have never seen properly crushed grains. I just assumed (and we all know what happens when you do that) that since I ordered them to be crushed, that they'd come crushed.

After opening the bags and looking closer I can see what everyone was saying about the kernels still being mostly intact. I dont have a mill, so I took an empty 22 oz bottle and used it as a rolling pin. I did the best I could. Here's a before and after (my camera isn't that good, I used micro so hopefully you can see it):

BEFORE:



AFTER:



Hopefully it worked okay. FWIW my first beer I didn't look closely at the grains and, again, assumed. It turned out pretty good, IMO. I brewed today, and the airlock is bubbling less than half an hour after pitching, not that the grains have anything to do with fermenting.. lol
:rockin:

That's exactly what every bag of uncrushed grain I've ever seen has looked like. There's always a little powder in the bag. Your bottle rolling probably did the trick and is fine for an extract batch.

I'm glad this thread came about. The pictures posted have been a great, great help. I assumed if my bag of grain was marked as milled then it was milled to an adequate level. This thread proves otherwise.

I have done a few partial mashes and luckily only 1 all grain batch (at 60% effeciancy, gee, I wonder why?) My next equipment purchase will most defintiely be a grain mill so that I can make sure my grain is crushed properly.

It makes me wonder though, how many people out there are brewing with grain like this and wondering why their effeciancy is suffering?

BrookdaleBrew said:

I'm glad this thread came about. The pictures posted have been a great, great help. I assumed if my bag of grain was marked as milled then it was milled to an adequate level. This thread proves otherwise.

I have done a few partial mashes and luckily only 1 all grain batch (at 60% effeciancy, gee, I wonder why?) My next equipment purchase will most defintiely be a grain mill so that I can make sure my grain is crushed properly.

It makes me wonder though, how many people out there are brewing with grain like this and wondering why their effeciancy is suffering?

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Low efficiency = need more grain = buy more grain. I'm not saying that they are giving you a poor grind intentionally, but I will say that it is not in their best short-term interest to worry too much about your grind.

Imagine what your gas mileage would be if Exxon built cars

The before image shows me that your grain was most definitely not crushed. At all.

The after image is better and should be sufficient for steeping. I wouldn't recommend it for mashing, but for steeping I bet it is fine.

Good luck and have fun!

If this can help ONE PERSON besides myself.... then I have successfully contributed to HBT. This is, apparently, something that needed to be brought up.

mojotele said:

The before image shows me that your grain was most definitely not crushed. At all.

The after image is better and should be sufficient for steeping. I wouldn't recommend it for mashing, but for steeping I bet it is fine.

Good luck and have fun!

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yep. not great for mashing, but looks good for steeping. hope it comes out good, and have fun. it's a tasty hobby to have :rockin:

I just sent an email to midwest with a link to this thread. Hopefully they'll give us a bit of info or atleast it'll be a step in directing them to some of their customer's concerns.

Schlante,
Phillip

After the first pics in the bag, I would have said the grain might have been cracked, like they do for animal feed. Just open it up so the digestive enzymes can get to work, but don't make powder. But the second set of pics looks like whole grain for sure, you can clearly see whole kernels that are not even scratched. Very, very poor milling, probably not passed through a mill at all.
Hope everything worked out in the end.

I need to examine this grain for further evaluation. Please mail it to me, along with all the other ingredients for this recipe. I will email you back in 6-8 weeks with results.

Thanks.

Eric

Last night I checked some milled grain that I had gotten from AHS just to see what I had been working with. It is definitely crushed (unlike the midwest grain) but it's definitely not as fine of a crush as some of the examples posted in this thread.

This is an extremely useful thread. I shop at Midwest and do PM batches, and I didn't realize that most folks used more heavily milled grains in their batches. That would explain why my efficiency was lower than I'd hoped for.

A grain mill is definitely on my shopping list as a result of this, but in the interim it's time to pull out the rolling pin.

Hello.
I just wanted to post this link to a DIY project that uses a $20.00 pasta maker and turns it into a grain mill. I have not done this yet but plan to in the future.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/using-pasta-maker-mill-grain-75784/

of course you can still buy a grain mill...

Uncrushed and Crushed.
However, for an Extract brewer, using grains for steeping - color and flavor, (grains already converted) - a lighter crush is fine. Converting a base malt during partial mash or all-grain requires the better crush (obviously).

I just wanted to offer some final thanks to the people who started and contributed to this thread. I had a huge gain in efficiency yesterday when I took a rolling pin to my Midwest milled grain prior to using it.

Huge protein layer and nice gravity that was a couple of points higher than I was expecting.

It's been maybe a year ago or so, but the last time I got some equipment from Midwest, I got some kind of deal on an AG kit from them at the same time and ended up getting around 70% efficiency on that batch according to my notes in Beersmith. I don't really remember what the crush looked like...

glad to hear some people could be of help. i'm fermenting a coffee stout right now, and i learned how to make it here

looks like the steeping grains that were in my amber ale kit from midwest... I too got a bag that looked identical to yours... mine were crushed also, the brown grain in the last picture is what got crushed... I just took a rolling pin from the kitchen and beat it a little bit more. I think they are fine to use and will be great with your batch your making. keep us posted on the results!

Anyone have follow-up information on this issue? Im just trying to get good information so i know what to expect. I just ordered five AG kits from Midwest and shipped them to Italy. I am curious of they have adjusted their customer service and/or mill in the year that followed this issue.

I will report back when I receive my kits with photos. Out of five kits, most of which have large base malt contents, I think I will be getting a good idea of their milling fidelity.

Over here in an FPO area code, it is difficult to get companies to ship grain and alcohol supplies, so options are limited. Midwest seems to work with the shipping and prices are good.

Any thoughts on company alternatives in case things don't work out this time around?

Did Midwest ever reply to the email about this thread?

I will post pictures in a few weeks of all the base malts.

~William

MetallHed said:

I ordered my specialty grains from Midwest crushed, and they came like this, supposedly crushed; but, are they really crushed?

My last kit was also with crushed grains and they looked similar. I should have asked the question then, but forgot. Just wanna make sure I'm getting what I'm supposed to be getting.

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Yes

Yeah,
I read that. I didn't create a new thread since this one already addressed the issue,, hence my post within. My question specifically addresses post numbers 1, 48, 60, and 70. I'm asking if in the last year since this thread has been active, people have received better milled grains from Midwest or if the company has responded directly to product quality assurance concerns via email or other correspondence.

I apologize if this was not clear. Either way, the point is moot as in a few weeks I will see for myself. I just wanted to see if i had to make a homebuilt mill or not.

Thanks for the help.

~Wm

winterparkmg said:

I'm asking if in the last year since this thread has been active, people have received better milled grains from Midwest...

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Not really. I have used two extract kits from Midwest and both have looked like the OP's pictures.

As mentioned earlier in this thread...

These are specialty grains. They are not mashed, they are steeped. As such if you grind the heck out of them it will be hard to keep them in the grainbag due to the small particles. You don't want to have the husks in the boil b/c of tannins. However the finer crush the more sugars can be extracted during the boil. So there's a balance. Would I want my grains crushed finer?

If I was doing extract brewing, I would want them crushed more than that. Just get out your rolling pin....