Grinding Grains

[SBB]

Just been in the shed looking at the pile of Malted barley Ive acquired and pondering what to do with it.
Ive had an old hand operated Enterprise Grain Grinder buried up the back of the shed for ages and thought Id drag it out and see if it still worked. Bought it cheap at an auction ages ago then sort of forgot about it.
It looks just like this one except mines brown ( Rust) :(

Anyway the old girl seems to work pretty well ....I chucked in a few hand fulls of corn and some wheat I had laying around for UJSM and it came out ground to about the same consistency of some malted barley that I bought from 5Star.
Questions
A is it worth grinding all grains before adding them to washes??? Im presuming ground up corn and wheat have to add more flavour.
B How fine a grind is too fine ????
C Im getting a small percentage of fine stuff maybe 10-15% like course ground flour.....is this a worry????
Thanks for any help in advance SBB

[maheel]

depending on your process the "flour" is going to clog up how you get the liquid out of the grain (makes it like glue)
it also might make a lot of crap settle out in the bottom of your fermenter

brewers look for a "crack" not a grind to try to keep the shell of the grain mostly intact, this allows the mash to be sparged extracting more sugarz.

so it depends on what your planning and how you make your mash

BIAB brew in a bag ?
ferment on the grain ?
some sort of mash tun and sparge?

if your lookin to convert the corn your going to need to grind it somewhat to get at the inside

[stubbydrainer]

Hey SBB
Get that other pile of rust goin', you know...... the one over by the big onion :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: , It's a corn cracker isn't it ??, Might need some WD-40 and a bit of TLC but you could do it ... for a try , that is

Cheers Stubs

[Modernity]

I have just got my hands on two commercial coffee grinders and have been playing with course grinding grains to good effect. I have a plan to remove the hopper on the front and shoot the cracked grain straight into the mush tun. As they are designed to grind coffee beans (think large split peas) into (table salt) powder they have a very fine adjustment built into them. I have been able to crack rice grains in half with very little flour.

While these puppy's don't come cheap at $200-$600 second hand they can be found from time to time for a lot less.
I will be keeping one and are thinking to do a swap on the other.
This picture is pretty close to the second one I have find a good home for:
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Coffee-Grind ... 604wt_1370

PM if you are interested.


(Mod edited.)

[maheel]

Hi Modernity

be careful running rice through it will dull the blades very quickly... and make sure you often vacuum out the base of your grinder if you plan to do grain in it. the bit of flour created will get sucked into the cooling of the grinder

i dont think it would like corn or cracked corn at all :(

the rosi RR-45 are built like a tank i have had a few of them (i now use a mazzer) but i am not sure how long they will "last" doing grain.
coffee and coffee machines are one of my other hobbies... :)

i would suggest you sell one and buy a real mill like this one and keep one for coffee
http://mashmaster.com.au/p/4571858/mash ... -mill.html

or maybe one from USA that can handle corn i think monstermill make one that handles corn ok

[Modernity]

I have the collected coffee makers for 30 years as well as starting a coffee roasting business in the late 1990's. I still own a 4kg Sevitz fluid bed roaster for my personal use and am not sure that you could expect to greatly reduce the life of the grinder or the blades by using it on grain. I think clogging would be a major issue if I was trying to produce flour because of the speed the blades are spinning, but the rice doesn't seem to get sticky like the coffee does.

I will keep you posted.

[maheel]

I have the collected coffee makers for 30 years as well as starting a coffee roasting business in the late 1990's. I still own a 4kg Sevitz fluid bed roaster for my personal use and am not sure that you could expect to greatly reduce the life of the grinder or the blades by using it on grain.

lol then you will know more about it than me :handgestures-thumbupleft: i had seen some info about people using rice to clean grinders and it dulling the burrs real quick. i tried some grain through a grinder and it worked OK. but i noticed the flour issue in the base so sold the spare grinder and bought a grain mill :)

my roaster is much more low tech :oops: a heatgun and bread maker... i would love a proper roaster but the $$$ involved are :o

i've got a few toys, a Brugnetti in daily use here at home, a La Dorio in resto, couple of carimali part machines, a boema.... :ugeek:

if you have any old single group levers your interested in letting go let me know :mrgreen: ....

[Modernity]

What I am actually looking for right now is a boiler out of a big three group coffee machine to use as steam generator. Then I can use steam to heat the water bath under the pot still but that is another story...

[crow]

Hi anyone know what these things are like http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/190570207394 ... 1423.l2649
kinda looks like one of my old meat grinders with a grist mill instead of a blade
EDIT the more I look at this the more familiar it looks , got the weirdest feeling my granny has some fitting like this for her grinder . Anyway they look like they'd work anyone used one

[R-sole]

A lot of people use them when they are just getting into it or they need only a small amount of grain.

Search corona mill on any of the beer sites to get a lot of opinions.