From grain to beer help...

[Mr Majik]

Thanks for all you info everyone

Oldjiver, when you say flour too fine, how fine do you mean and how does it affect the beer?

I did a test grind with some unmalted grain and the results are a bit random. Some are craked, some broken in to pieces and there is some dust (quite course but dust all the same) there too. As well as the odd untouched kernel too..

My drying regime should be finnished later today and final articals should arrive tomorrow. it looks like im set for a brew this weekend. Hurrah! :drink:

 

[screamlead]

loDont worry about it -- it will be fine once you bung it in the mash tun, Just run off a couple of ltr when sparging until it runs clear and it will be fine. I only have a single piece of copper in my mash tun and it works very well - although a little slow - takes me about an hour sparging but never had a problem with a stuck sparge either.

 

[oldjiver]

Thanks for all you info everyone

Oldjiver, when you say flour too fine, how fine do you mean and how does it affect the beer?

I did a test grind with some unmalted grain and the results are a bit random. Some are craked, some broken in to pieces and there is some dust (quite course but dust all the same) there too. As well as the odd untouched kernel too..

My drying regime should be finnished later today and final articals should arrive tomorrow. it looks like im set for a brew this weekend. Hurrah! :drink:

The idea is to crack open the grains so the flour (dust!) can mix with the mashing water and convert to malt sugar. You dont want to grind up the outer husk as this acts as a filter when you drain the mash into the boiler. Basically if you could bake bread with it, it is too fine.

 

[oldjiver]

Should look a bit like this..

 

[Loetz]

I hate to be a party pooper, but I have a bad feeling that the mill you bought isn't going to work out for you. I think that is designed to make something more like flour for baking bread.

Look into buying a Corona Mill if you want to go cheap. I got mine on Ebay for something like 60 Euro. Yes, 60 Euro is cheap for a grain mill. I think that the corona mills are originally designed for crushing corn, but it works well enough for barley.

Party poop #2:

Malting your own grain is a very big task. It also adds a lot of guesswork to recipe formulation. If you don't know how well your grains are malted, it makes it hard to know exactly how much of each malt to use.

 

[Mr Majik]

Dont worry Loetz, you have pooped no party here...

i will, possibly, invest in a proper mill one day. but for now you are right, the mill i have is made to make flour and thats pretty much what i got the first attempt. however i popped a few washers in and now i get this...

as for the possibly unknowable malt strength... i'm going to play with it and make myself a few mistakes to learn from. i've just done 4kg of malt. 3.5 pail and 500g caramel. is it good? not a clue... it smells good, tastes quite nice... i'll tell you more on brewday.

This could be a complete disaster, or not. thats the fun :

 

[oldjiver]

Looks about right to me!! Good Luck :

 

[screamlead]

Yep fine m8 crack on get some brews made :thumb:

 

[Loetz]

Dont worry Loetz, you have pooped no party here...

...This could be a complete disaster, or not. thats the fun :

Well, as long as you have that spirit about it, then good luck!