Jmarsh544
Well-Known Member
This forum has proven time and time again that many long held "truths" in the homebrew world are actually not based in fact and are inaccurate (i.e. autotolysis, need for a secondary, ect.). While hand cranking 24 lbs. of grain this evening in preparation for tomorrows brewday (my drill burned up last brewday), I started to examin the crush that I was getting out of the mill. I was getting a fairly fine crush (corona style mill) and instead of adjusting things to compensate for the widely held belief that grain should be just cracked to expose the interior of the grain, I left it on the fine side. I think in Revvy's ugly corona mill thread he noted that he shoots for 1/3 flour, 1/3 large hull pieces and 1/3 whole cracked grain. I usually stick to this combination and have always had great success with no astringency issues. My question is this... has anyone every crushed their entire grain bill towards the four/ pulverized end of the spectrum on purpose, to see if overly crushed grain astringency is another one of the long held homebrew myths?
If grain astringency is a myth, could someone use rice hulls and their flour/ pulverized crush to get some amazing efficiency numbers?
Does anyone know where the supposed astringency comes from? Could the "astringency" be from flour making its way into the boil kettle (poor vorlouf technique) and the boiling of the grain flour be what causes the astringency?
Any thoughts?
If grain astringency is a myth, could someone use rice hulls and their flour/ pulverized crush to get some amazing efficiency numbers?
Does anyone know where the supposed astringency comes from? Could the "astringency" be from flour making its way into the boil kettle (poor vorlouf technique) and the boiling of the grain flour be what causes the astringency?
Any thoughts?