Sooo...am I crazy or are these not "Crushed"

So after a couple extract kits I went and bought the Oatmeal Stout kit from Midwest. I had them crush the grains for me since I don't have a mill.

Now this is the first time I used specialty grains, so maybe I have no idea what to look for but to me.....these do not looked "crushed"



Anyone care to chime in?

Thanks!

 

Those are, as you say, not "crushed".

 

Nice to know I am not crazy

 

if in a pinch you can use a rolling pin. but yeah those are not crushed at all.-

-=jason=-

 

Not crushed. Feed them into your paper shredder!

 

I am soooo stealing my paper shredder from work tomorrow!!!! :rockin:

 

Come on man...don't make me think stealing the paper shredder from work is a bad idea...A rolling Pin...that's no fun!!!

 

WOW!!! I'm now going to sell my MM2 and get a shredder.:rockin:

 

Yeah, this isn't the first thread I've seen about grains from Midwest and their crush. I bought some grains ("crushed") from them a while back and they looked the same, so their definition must be different than everyone else's.

 

Maybe Midwest just crushes the grains' self esteem before shipping.

 

I am thinking the same thing. Oh well bust out the paper shredder and its all good.

 

I wonder how much they pay to insult and scream obscenities at their grains?

 

This is pretty standard for them from what I've experienced. The grains I've gotten from them the few times I've ordered look about like this. It's a very coarse milling. They do work for steeping, but I would hesitate to ever buy milled base malts from them. I have to imagine the efficiency would be terrible.

 

I read somewhere (and now I have no idea where, but I do remember it) that when crushing grains for steeping you actually want a very light crush, basically just crack the hull open, as opposed to breaking the things apart. My first kit (from midwest) came with these uncrushed-looking grains and I used a mortar-and-pestle to crush them up a bit more. Seemed to work fine. Next kit was a Northern Brewer, grains also looked sort of uncrushed, but this time I left them alone (because the first kit ended up with little bits of grain pieces coming out of the bag). That beer tastes and looks great too.

For a recipe I'm about to make, I just ordered a pound of crushed CaraPils from NB along with a pound of uncrushed for a future batch. I plan to do a direct comparison of the two, to determine if "crushed" does indeed mean a light hull-cracking for these guys.

EDIT: oh, and I made a Brewer's Best kit that I got for Christmas...those grains were CRUSHED. Dust and sludge coming out of the muslin and floating on top. I was kind of concerned about that, but so far it seems fine, too.

 

Midwest has several employees and they do get busy. Sometimes they forget to take the grain out and crush it. Things like that happen at most businesses with employees and sometimes even at a sole proprietorship. If that is the worst you see at Midwest, keep on using them.

 

I've seen that and they all seem to settle out in the trub with the hops and yeast.

 

I had to stop ordering grains from MW until I built my own crusher. My efficiency was clocking in at a whopping 51% with their crush. I hit 82% regularly now. I even asked them to run my grains through the crusher twice once and they still came looking like the ones above...

 

I would contact Midwest and show them the grains being sure to reference the order number. I've had problems with them but their customer service has been pretty decent in my opinion. I had the same problem as Mischief Brewing so I ended up buying my own mill.

 

Gridlocked: Love your Avatar... Instead of U2's "Achtung Babies", it's "Mash-tun Baby".

Never mind...

 

I'm pretty sure there is another online brew supply who is renown for the quality of his crush. I don't remember who, because I have my own crusher and it works fine.

Back when I was steeping grain I'd just use an old wine bottle as a rolling pin. A real rolling pin can be damaged by hard grain.

 

Brewmaster's Warehouse has had rave reviews on their crush. I can't state this from experience (I have a mill).

 

The steeping grains in both of the kits I received from Midwest looked the same as that. Those were the first kits I ever brewed, and I gave the grains a mash with a rolling pin before steeping, even though I wasn't sure if they were sufficiently crushed or not from the shop.

 

Once had the same thing happen too me only my LHBS crusher did a crappy job on the crush. I hand rolled 12lb's of grain. It took all morning and even then I had to dump the batch (low efficiency). I actually stopped going to that shop due to sh#** crushes. You can't make great beer with lousy ingredients. I would'nt bother trying the rolling pin method again. I would just email them and tell them the problem.

 

After reading these posts, I decided to check all my grains in my inventory all of which I bought from Midwest Supplies. I checked about 25 lbs. of assorted grains and all were nicely crushed. I have been quite pleased with all aspects of doing business with them.

GW

 

Those are definitely uncrushed. I used to get everything from MW (spend my money locally now) and I never had grain show up looking like that. I will say that I never got the best efficiency from them, somewhere in the 65% range I think, but I believe they do it that way to prevent beginners from getting frustrated with stuck sparges. Give them a call, their customer service is top notch ime.

 

Being new to brewing, I brewed MW Pumpkin Ale kit last week and my grains looked like that.

Definitely know now what crushed and uncrushed is.

 

I've read that if you have a choice, a sparkling wine or champagne bottle is a better choice than a standard wine bottle because of the thicker glass. When I've had to crush my own specialty grains, I've used a sparkling wine bottle with pretty good results.

 

I can, I've always had good success with their crushed grains.

 

Well I took a empty wine bottle to the grains on Saturday before brewing and gave them a good crackin...hope this all works out well...I don't see why it wouldn't. Nothing ever goes wrong while home brewing right