Crushing grain without a mill

[Soulshine2]

If I was in your position I would do the food processor or coffee grinder unless you have a tractor supply or hardware store and they might have some hand crank flour mills . THEN you should buy yourself a mill so this never is an issue again.

 

[JohnSand]

I used a $5 garage sale Waring blender for several years. The only trick to it is how much to grind at once. Too little just flies around in the jar, too much won't whirlpool through.

 

[SmokeyRydr]

Long story short- I need to crush 3 lbs. of grain but I don't have a mill. I was thinking of smacking it around with my meat tenderizer until it looks good, or using the small coffee grinder I have if the tenderizer doesn't work, but I'd like your suggestions.

This is only about 1/3 of the grain bill so the lower efficiency if it isn't quite a perfect crush won't ruin the beer, also I'm already going to need to use rice hulls so mangling some of the husks won't be the end of the world since I can just add more rice hulls.

Short story long- I got a gift card for Northern Brewer for Christmas, because that's the best way to get usable brew stuff from my family, and I used it to order some grain rather than go to my LHBS. Somehow I ordered all but 3 pounds crushed, I checked the original order and it seems I screwed up not them. I don't have any friends that homebrew so I can't mooch a mill and it seems incredibly tacky and potentially insulting to take the grain I got from Northern Brewer to the LHBS. Keep in mind the only LBHS around is run out of the owners basement and while he has some regular hours he CAN be available you basically need to schedule time to go through the store or pick up orders (he has a good website so it's actually pretty easy to arrange things but it's not like you can just walk in during business hours). As I said it seems like a real d!(k move to make him take the time out of his day for a non-sale! On top of that I haven't placed an order with him in quite a while (insert long uninteresting story about why I haven't brewed in months), and I don't know when I will be placing another order since I got a couple batches worth of stuff from Northern Brewer. Since I'm not really a good customer or friend of the LHBS guy I really don't want to bug him with this since I feel like that will only ensure I never become a customer he looks forward to. Any suggestions are welcome.

P.S. Check your order 3 times!

If you have patronized the LBHS before and you got a gift card for somewhere else, I don't think it a dick move at all. Just a little awkward.

1) it's only 3 damn #
2) brewing is largely about community
3) it's a good story to share with owner
4) you aren't cheating in your LBHS by using a gift.

Just make sure you buy your next batch of ingredients from LBHS.

Cheers

 

[archthered]

Just a follow up- I used the food processor and it worked well enough. It was kind of inconsistent with some of the grain being basically dust while a fair bit was virtually untouched. As I said it worked well enough because I hit my target gravity exactly. I did kind of layer my grain in way I normally don't, I put my rice hulls in the bottom, then the stuff I had that has hulls and was crushed properly, then my rye, and I threw the stuff I crushed in the food processor in on top of it all as suggested above.

Thanks

 

[Toastman]

I came into this situation recently. I moved to central Mexico and I'd stock up on supplies whenever I'd drive back to the US. Because of my move though I've not been doing AG and have switched to extract/partial mash. Lo and behold in a different city I moved to is a product supplier. Has been great because LBHS just don't exist too much. Or finding/buying equipment. But this past week I went to get small amounts of grain. Their milling machine is down. So I had to figure how to crush this. I tried 4 ways.
1. Rolling pin--takes forever with marginal effect.
2. Car -- double bagged it and rolled over it a few times in my Jeep. NO good. Tried to also bag it, lay plywood on it, roll over it,..not much effect.
3. Coffee Burr Grinder- I have a Cuisinart DBM-8. On the lowest setting it definitely worked still made it into too fine a powder
4. Nutribullet- I used the "milling blade" that comes with it. This worked the best! I went a cup of grain at a time and did a 1 second pulse, rest, then another 1 second pulse. Easier to control too if you need to pulse more.
Results were much better and I went through the grain in short order. Pic attached shows the burr grinder on the left and the result from the Nutribullet. This might really be tough if it was an AG batch but for the few pounds you might use in a partial, it works good. Hope this helps anyone else caught in a spot.

 

[bracconiere]

2. Car -- double bagged it and rolled over it a few times in my Jeep. NO good. Tried to also bag it, lay plywood on it, roll over it,..not much effect.

LOL, i believe that was said tongue and cheek... (but surprised it didn't have any effect?)

 

[Ragman]

If the LHBS has the same grain in stock I would just go buy the 3lbs, crush it and take the loss. Would definitely keep me from making the same mistake or give me more incentive to buy a mill