Question on grain crush

[delcosansgluten]

I am struggling with knowing if my grains are being crushed at the correct size and in researching I found what seems to be conflicting information from glutenfreehomebrewing.com team.

In this YT video, they say that too coarsely ground malts mostly likely lead to stuck mashes even though this grain crush get the most starch.

However, this blog post says the best way to mash is making it a flour.

I had a more floury grind for my last brew and ended up causing the recirculating pump on my M&B to not function. So I thought a less coarse grind would prevent this from recurring but then I read the blog post. So now I am wondering, what is the best way to grind the grains that also does cause a stuck mash?

(For the record I am a fan of GFHB and purchase all of my materials through them.)

 

[ESBrewer]

Like its says in the second link, adding rice hulls makes it possible to crush a little bit finer without a stuck mash. Stuck mash could be a problem if you crush/grind your huskless malts too fine and don't add any coarses particles such as rice hulls to help lautering.

 

[skleice]

Flour will give you better extraction, but your recirc will struggle and u may end up with starch in your beer. Rice hulls help. Rice malt and buckwheat malt (hulled) also help. I try to keep 10-15% rice in the grist.

I generally crush Millet & buckwheat at .6-.65mm (twice) & rice at .9mm.

 

[kh54s10]

Coarsely ground grain will not lead to stuck mashes in most cases. What you will get is less extraction. (the grains not broken up enough so the water cannot get to all the endosperm, the middle of the grain kernel) I am not familiar with all the gluten free grains that you can use. But I would grind any grain as fine as I could without getting a stuck sparge or re-circulation. If you need to rice hulls act as grain husk adding little to no flavor and allowing the liquid to pass through the grain bed.

 

[delcosansgluten]

I have a corona mill, how do I translate those dimensions to it? what mill do you use?

Thanks as always @skleice, you've been very helpful.

 

[skleice]

I have a corona mill, how do I translate those dimensions to it? what mill do you use?

Thanks as always @skleice, you've been very helpful.

I have no experience with the Corona style mills. I know that plenty of people use them and would guess you just need a lot of rice hulls, but I can't really say. I use a Monster MM2.

 

[Wayne1]

Maybe a bit on the technical side, but this article from MoreBeer gets into differences in grain size and proper mill gap settings: https://www.morebeer.com/articles/crushin_it

 

[glutarded-chris]

I have a carona mill but switched to a roller mill right away because the roller mill was a lot less effort. The roller mill cracks the grain while the carona grinds the grain. It is not really possible to set an accurate gap on a carona mill, and because it is grinding rather than cracking, you are going to get a certain amount of flour no matter what. However, I don't think it matters that much. Lots of people stick with the caronal type mill for cost reasons and they do just fine. Just monitor the plates continuously throughout the grind and make sure they stay tight enough so that the grind is not too course and go with it. With the enzymes we use, it will convert. I built a simple enclosure for my carona because it generates a lot of fine dust that gets everywhere.

If you get a roller mill, make sure the gap is fully adjustable. Many mills are designed for barley and are either not adjustable or don't allow for adjustment of a small accurate gap. To crack millet, it has to be small and consistent over the full length of the rollers. An MM2 is an excellent choice.

 

[skleice]

This is like the perfect blog entry for this thread...

https://www.glutenfreehomebrewing.com/BLOG/128/Increase-Efficiency-By-Improving-Your-Grist.php

 

[chaps]

For your M+B you can also get a screen made for the bottom. That helped my brews a lot. I had an 800 micron screen cut to fit inside the grain chimney. Then I put a thick layer of rice hulls at the bottom. Seems to work well even if I throw millet flour in there.

I would second getting a better grinder. Getting a real grinder with a precut base board was one of the best upgrades I made. Double grinding 15# of grain with a corona mill felt like some sort of weird Crossfit workout.