How to go from Extract to AG for < $10.00

[SpillsMostOfIt]

Perhaps drawing the line a little short of crushing your grist completely to flour ... I'd say that you couldn't crush a BiaB grist too finely.

Sometimes I will use a Braun Stabmixer (I don't actually know what these things are really called, but they are a couple of blades on the end of a handle that spin very fast, chopping everything in their path) to process small quantities of malt. It turns everything to dust. At first I was concerned, but now I welcome the fine crush.

It doesn't clog the bag and make draining difficult if you're using the prescribed voile material. I've had one or two occasions where the bag took a while to drain, but that was more due to the large proportion of rye in the grist, I believe.

You *do* end up with a cloudy wort when you're boiling. It doesn't appear to matter. Whatever cloudiness you get falls out when you whirlpool/rest the wort before draining the kettle. It doesn't appear to affect the final product at all.

[meisterofpuppets]

Perhaps drawing the line a little short of crushing your grist completely to flour ... I'd say that you couldn't crush a BiaB grist too finely.

Sometimes I will use a Braun Stabmixer (I don't actually know what these things are really called, but they are a couple of blades on the end of a handle that spin very fast, chopping everything in their path) to process small quantities of malt. It turns everything to dust. At first I was concerned, but now I welcome the fine crush.

It doesn't clog the bag and make draining difficult if you're using the prescribed voile material. I've had one or two occasions where the bag took a while to drain, but that was more due to the large proportion of rye in the grist, I believe.

You *do* end up with a cloudy wort when you're boiling. It doesn't appear to matter. Whatever cloudiness you get falls out when you whirlpool/rest the wort before draining the kettle. It doesn't appear to affect the final product at all.

You don't get tannins? I would expect that if you tear up the husks. The Ideal crush would destroy the grain into flour, but leave the husk intact.

[SpillsMostOfIt]

No crush that removes the goodness from the grain is going to leave the husk totally intact.

I've heard of megabreweries who use hammer mills to process their grain and that those things *do* produce flour.

It is my understanding that pH is the major contributor to tannin extraction. Which kinda makes sense, otherwise you're going to get *some* in every brew.

Now, having said all that, I don't know the detailed chemistry of tannins and mashing. What I can say for sure is that it doesn't appear to have happened in my beers to date, so I'm happy to run with the 'Crush don't make tannin' argument.

[katzke]

Does the conversion go up on the fine ground grains? Or put a different way do you use less grain if you grind it finer?

I do not have a mill yet but do have a flour mill that would turn it into flour. Do not think I would ever do that as we are doing partials now and use the spent grain in bread and dog treats. Grinding to flour would just make a gloppy mess to try and use for anything else.

I am working on getting everything together for bag brewing. A bit of a drive to the next town with most of the materials including the brew shop. With fuel so high I plan my trips and spring is cutting into my free time with yard clean up.

[SpillsMostOfIt]

I understand that increased extraction efficiency is why the industrial breweries crush fine. Frankly, I haven't done the analysis on my own brewing to say one way or another.

While a lot is written and argued about crushing - and it is all good - I believe that it is not something you should worry about until you've got a good handle on how your system and process works. Any increase in efficiency is only going to save you a few cents and in the early days of mashing, there is plenty of other stuff to focus on that will probably give you greater returns...

I've occasionally borrowed a mill from Thirsty Boy to mill the entire grain bill for my brews and I am thinking about buying one, but I have to say that if you can get your grain supplier to crush it for you, your life will be a helluva lot easier. Whatever they crush to - and it will probably be a reasonable middle-ground - will be absolutely good enough.

[Thirsty Boy]

Does the conversion go up on the fine ground grains? Or put a different way do you use less grain if you grind it finer?

I do not have a mill yet but do have a flour mill that would turn it into flour. Do not think I would ever do that as we are doing partials now and use the spent grain in bread and dog treats. Grinding to flour would just make a gloppy mess to try and use for anything else.

I am working on getting everything together for bag brewing. A bit of a drive to the next town with most of the materials including the brew shop. With fuel so high I plan my trips and spring is cutting into my free time with yard clean up.

Umm, what sort of flour mill is that katzke?? Because my mill is a modified flour mill. I just had to jiggle it a little and drill one hole in a thin part of its adjustment knob.

You migh tbe able to "adjust" your mill for a perfectly acceptable BiaB crush.

Thirsty

[Thirsty Boy]

. . .

You don't get tannins? I would expect that if you tear up the husks. The Ideal crush would destroy the grain into flour, but leave the husk intact.

As Spills said, you need more than just torn up husks to get high tannin extraction. You need a combination of temperature and pH to make it a problem... sure; if you have that combination of temp and pH, then having your husks shredded into tiny pieces is going to make it a lot worse, but if your pH and temp are OK, then the husks wont matter.

The "husk as intact as possible" argument is simply a result of the main way that mashes are separated. Most commercial and virtually all homebrewers use a mash separation system that utilises the husk material of the grain as a filter medium... so the intact husk thing is taken as basically a universal truth - But commercial Mash Filter systems and BiaB brewers (BiaB is really a form of mash filter) don't need the grain to act as a filter, so there is no need to preserve husk integrity at all.

A teaspoon of 5.2 is going to make sure that the tannin thing is never a problem for a BiaB brewer.

Winners all round

Thirsty

[katzke]

Umm, what sort of flour mill is that katzke?? Because my mill is a modified flour mill. I just had to jiggle it a little and drill one hole in a thin part of its adjustment knob.

You migh tbe able to "adjust" your mill for a perfectly acceptable BiaB crush.

Thirsty

It is a Magic Mill III It has a stainless blade that goes a million miles an hour and sounds like a jet engine when you run it. The wife uses her shooting ear muff to keep from going deaf. Even the dogs run to the other end of the house. Do not think there is any hope of it ever making anything but flour.