How thoroughly should the steeping malt be crushed?

[Stringer]

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to make Papazian's "Holiday Cheer." This will be my second batch ever. It calls for steeping crushed crystal malt and black malt. How much do I need to crush these malts? For my first batch I basically just used the bottom of a beer bottle to crush the grains until I thought it "looked like I had done enough." I know that if I were doing an all-grain brew, a thorough grinding/crushing would be more important, but for the initial steeping (of an extract brew), is there a certain extent to which I need to crush this stuff? Thanks.

Also, the recipe calls for "7 lbs of plain light malt extract." That's liquid extract, right?

And finally, I'm not sure if the forum community frowns upon endorsing one particular website or another, but is there any way that someone could recommend a good site for buying brewing ingredients? I've googled extensively, and each website I find seems to not sell one thing that I need from the recipe. For example, one site will sell crystal malt but not black malt. Another site will sell black but not crystal. Etc. Is there a "one stop shop" that seems to cover everything? Or am I just not looking hard enough?

Thanks everyone!

 

[hamiltont]

Hey Stringer... A rolling pin works pretty good for crushing grain. Can be a bit tedious depending on the quantity. You should have a Local Homebrew Store (LHBS) in KCMO somewhere. You could buy your specialty grains there & have them crushed on site. Otherwise there are a ton of websites like northernbrewer.com midwestsupplies.com, Austinhomebrew.com............. You can order them crushed if you plan to use them right away.

I'd assume the malt they are referring to is LME as well.. Cheers!!!