Do All Grains Need to be Cracked?

[greenfrog5]

Last Saturday I made the American 'Home Run' Red Ale which unplanned, was my first mini-mash, among other impromptu experiments (half dark DME, no hop bags).

My girlfriend picked-up the ingredients while I was at work, so I didn't realize until I was warming water that I had grains that might need to be mashed, and then realized I couldn't crack two of them? The White Wheat and Munich(I think) I was unable to really crack in a plastic bag with a mallet.

Do these need to be cracked open? The White Wheat, especially, was incredibly hard and I doubt I could crack it without a mill or something.

Do all grains need to be cracked? How do people best do it? (I'd like to avoid a mill just for this)

Thanks
Aaron

 

[Ace_Club]

Yes, they all need to be cracked.

If you want to avoid a mill, ask your LHBS to crush them for you. Most will do this with no added charge (or very little).

 

[jonmohno]

You think thats bad try carapils. GEt those grains precrushed. I use a wine bottle a cutting board lined with a paper bag and just roll it on top of the grains.Plastic bags suck for hard grains, they just tear through it and probably embedd it in some of those grains. You need grains cracked or else your wasting your money on them not being as utilized as much as they could.
Basically its like making tea but with uncrushed its weak tea. Less efficent less flavorful less color less sugars for the yeast.or unfermentable sugars.
And except for crystal and roasted grains you dont want to lightly crush them like they say you really have to crush them good to pieces not pulverize them to dust though.

 

[Bobby_M]

Mashing encrushed grain is like wearing a condom. Plenty of fun but not productive at all. Seriously, not even worth using.

 

[greenfrog5]

Thanks all for the guidance, I had a hard time finding any of this with Google. I figured they probably needed to be cracked, I figured not being able to do so probably was limiting my use of them, and that is probably for the better as my first mini-mash was an experiment in temperature control (gone wild), so not cracking them all probably limited the damage somewhat.

For now, I'll generally be sticking to extract+steep, and dabbling in mini-mashes on occasion, so its good to know my LHBS can probably mill them for me for the time being.