How fine can you go for a crush??

Post #1 made 13 years ago
As I don't have a Corona mill or malt mill I'm wondering how fine a crush I can get away with. The only thing available at home is one of those "Magic Bullet" food processors. I've used it before to pulverize steeping grains but I'm thinking maybe I need to be a bit more serious about preparation of grains for mashing. I'll be using 2.25kg of Marris Otter, 250gr Crystal 70L and 250gr brown sugar or Lyle's golden syrup for a brew length of about 9.5 litres. Going to try for something close to an ESB

Is pulverizing the grains 'til pretty fine and floury going to be inadvisable? Being as it's BIAB I'm thinking I don't need to worry about a stuck lauter or sparge so I could get away with going as fine as is possible with the food processor/blender, and generally one of the keys to decent efficiency with traditional mashing is ensuring a good, even, crush, isn't it? :think: The bag I'm using is a really fine mesh. Could one reason for not going too fine be because it contributes to having a lot more material in the wort which will end up as cold break and increase trub volume?

Any opinions or advice gratefully accepted. :salute:

Post #2 made 13 years ago
Welcome to the forum Ogri :salute:,

Generally pulverising the grains is not ideal however with your smaller grain bill and very fine bag, I think you'll be okay. The smaller grain bill means that it will be easier to manipulate the bag so as it drains okay. Any flour that does creep through you can get rid of after chilling with some gentle transferring and maybe even a bit of filtering if y ou have something suitable.

So, I reckon don't be too worried. On the bigger grain bills, definitely avoid the pulverisation.

:luck:
PP
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Post #3 made 13 years ago
Nice One, PP :thumbs:

Thanks for the reassurance. Will give it a bash in the next few days. Hopefully manage to get hold of a cheapo corona mill on Amazon and get it sent here eventually but will make do with what I have for the moment. :drink:

Post #4 made 13 years ago
A normal grind is proper for BIAB. For some reason everyone expects to brew with flour with BIAB. Normal brew store ground grain works just fine and their is no reason to expect any better conversion with flour. Having said that if you have (overly ground) grain it won't ruin the beer, just cloud up the wort. The finished beer will be regular in clarity!
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