Grain Mill

Cracking the malted barley into 2 to 3 peices, without shredding the husk is essential to the production of wort.  Enzymes present in the grains are activated and extracted and allowed to move freely through the “thin mash”, or the liquid portion of the mash, breaking up starches and complex sugars into fermentables.  It is important to not damage the husks too much because they will form a filter that will collect any particles clouding the wort as is recirculated through at the end of the mash.  Sometimes it is necessary to add rice hulls to a mash that has a high percentage of wheat or rye, as those grains lack a hull and can slow or even stop lautering, the process of draining the mash tun.

There are several differnet makers and styles of mills.  The ones favored by homebrewers are the roller-mills that squeeze and crush the malt.  Some of these mills feature adjustable rollers enabling the user to dial in the correct spacing to get the best ratio of big, medium, and small chunks of malt and a bit of “flour”.  While these are a bit pricey at 100-150$, many homebrewers have found that they are able to extract more of the potential sugars from the grains after they have found an optimal spacing, or ran the crushed barley through a second time.

When homebrewers find that they are falling short of their “target gravity”, the crush is the primary suspect.  Some brewers fear that crushing the grains too much can lead to the extraction of tannins from the husks, but this is generally not an issue as the extraction of tannins requires any two out of the three “problems”

  1. Over Crush- Torn Husks
  2. High ph of grain bed and sparging water
  3. Sparging and collecting wort that is below 1.010(SG)

The practice of Batch Sparging eliminates problem #3, because you don’t sparge for as long of a time aiming to collect 90%+ of the potential sugars within the mash – as they aim for in the Macro-breweries where efficiency is maximized.  #2 is something I am aware of while brewing as Nebraska’s water ph is around 7.  The ph of 5.2-5.5 is the target for the mash.
“Crush ’till you’re scared”-Denny Conn

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Water ph has determined what type of beer a region can make through out brewing history. In Ireland, they have hard water that is somewhat similar to ours.  We have limestone aquifers and they have their island.  The pale beers wouldn’t “work” (either enzymes couldn’t convert the starches into sugars, or there was an unpleasing harshness to the taste) there because the mash ph was out of the appropriate range.  Dark malts added acidity, thereby lowering the ph to an acceptable level.  I know that stouts and brown ales “work” very well here.  My pale ales have been decent but the best one had Reverse Osmosis water to cut the ph and the mineral content of Lincoln’s tap water.  The Pils came from an area of Europe with very soft, nearly mineral-free water.  They were able to make the palest and clearest beers there.