Hmmmm... Is it even worth it to brew now?

Homebrew Talk

Help Support Homebrew Talk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

MarcJWaters

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 8, 2009
Messages
122
Reaction score
1
Location
Indianapolis, IN
So, I ordered an all grain kit from my AHB. Because I couldn't brew right away, I decided to get unmilled. When I found out that a certain female owner at a certain LHBS refuses to mill my grains despite spending gobs-o-cash there, I tried to do it myself via a rolling pin. It went well, for the first quarter. Then, my rolling pin broke because I was pressing down on it.

My back up plan was the blender. Turns out, my blender is over powered and turned about 1/2 of my grain bill to dust. Is it even worth trying to brew with this?

Hindsight being 20/20, it was a bad idea... so keep your comments to a minimum. Just need advice.
 
Well, if you're going to toss it anyhow, why not brew with it? The grain is your biggest expense. Why not chance the water, hops, and yeast on what may (or may not) turn out to be something good? all you're really risking is a couple bucks on the other ingredients and your time.
 
Bag it, keep it in the fridge until you get a mill? If cost is an issue, you can get a corona style mill for $20-$25 online.
 
Rather than talking defeat in a ubiquitiously titled thread that very few people will bother to read, why don't you start a thread titled, "Any Indy Brewers Wanna Let Me Mill My Grain At Your Place?" If you post it here AND in the sub forum for the indiana brewers homebrewtalk group https://www.homebrewtalk.com/groups/indiana-brewers/ Someone may be able to help you salvage your brew day. We do stuff like that in the Michigan Masher's sub forum all the time.We have a thread with someone wanting to use a step bit on there right now.

Worst case, if half your grain is flour, half is crushed properly you may STILL get a good beer out of it. Or you could get more grain, or you could brew a 2.5 gallon batch with the 1/2 remaining grain if it is milled properly.

It may not be the EXACT recipe you planned, but it would still be beer. Brewing is kinda like Jazz, or cooking, if you are flexible. The thing to remember is nothing pathogenic can grow in beer, you really have a lot of leeway where brewing is concerned. Whatever you do with the grain, you;ll make beer, not poison....and most beer turns out to be good beer, or at least better that budlight. :)
 
If you wind up REALLY shredding your husks bad, mix in an entire pound of rice hulls. Mash thin. It should sparge, but make sure your grain bed stays about 160*F.

:mug:
 
I food processor my grains. No problems.

Some is dust, so just sparge a little more.

Granted I am doing PM's and not AG, but I sparge.
 
I say get a $20 corona mill somewhere...people do mod them a little and get a reasonable crush from them.
 
So, you have 1/4 crushed and 1/2 powdered. What about the rest?

If you normally fly sparge, you might want to batch sparge this one. Shoot for an extra 1/2 gallon in the fermenter, because you will have a heap of trub. Some rice hulls would be good, if you have them.

But, it will be okay.

When crushing grains using a rolling pin, press on the roller, not the handles. When processing in a blender, short bursts and small quantities.
 
Back
Top