crushing grains?

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Bills Brew

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So, if you didn't get your grains milled/crushed, and you don't have a mill, what can you do to get the job done?

Can the grains be put into a food processor and "pulsed" a few times? I realize you don't want to make flour, but what are the options?
 
Bills Brew,

I have forgotten to get them crushed in the past. What some folks do in that case is place your grains into ziploc bags and crush them with a rolling pin. Or if you don't have a rolling pin use an empty beer bottle. This might be a bit tedious for an all grain amount though but it gets the job done. I think you would have to be extremely careful with a food processor like you mentioned as not to create too much dust from your grains.
 
Find someone local to you with a mill and rent/borrow/use it.

Food Processor is going to give you very poor efficiency , a stuck sparge and lots of extracted tannins. If you don't have much grain to crush, you could try a ziplock bags + rolling pin.
 
JimC said:
Find someone local to you with a mill and rent/borrow/use it.

Food Processor is going to give you very poor efficiency , a stuck sparge and lots of extracted tannins. If you don't have much grain to crush, you could try a ziplock bags + rolling pin.

Bill,
This may seem like an obvious suggestion but I figured I would mention it anyways. Do you live near a homebrew shop? My LHBS has a grain mill set up in the store and lets you crush all the grain you want for free.
 
How much grain are we talking about? If its only about a pound or so for steeping you should try the rolling in or a hammer. If it's much more, try to find a mill. As the others said, food processor doesn't work. Check here for malt processed with a food processor.

Kai
 
Thanks guys.
I do extract with specialty grains so the amount of grains is small. So, it is the rolling pin and/or hammer.
 
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