Have you ever gotten into your brew day thinking you had all your ducks lined up in a row, only to discover a game changer? Here's mine, from 10 minutes ago. The WY1728 starter is on the stir plate, the strike water is heating, all that stands between me and mashing in my 70 shilling ale is weighing out my water additions and weighing out 6.5# of crushed Maris otter from the 20# bag that I had the supplier ship me. I reach for the Maris and it's not crushed. I have no good way of crushing the grain, so what do I do? Make an extract batch. I only have 3# of Briess extra light DME, so it is only going to be 60 shilling strength, and will lack some depth. The grist will be 3#DME, 0.75# Golden Naked Oats, and 7 oz Fawcett Pale Chocolate. 1.032 estimated OG. Now that I have a plan, I just have to remember how to brew an extract batch.
Go for it! You could always make a Wee Heavy with your yeastcake and blend the two together. Sorry to hear that your shipment was a flop.
I'd get the rolling pin out, or even a food processor and give them a crack.. Worse case, you get a stuck mash, or your efficiency sucks. I would have crushed them by any means, and if I had to, do a brew in a bag type deal in my mash tun to avoid a stuck sparge if I had to.
I could have tried these things, but they were going to add time to a brewday that already had a late start. In addition to the time devoted to get a (poor) crush, getting a 5 gallon paint strainer to pull off the BIAB is a 1.5 hour drive to get to a hardware store that doesn't close at 5PM on a Saturday. And it would have been my second trip to that store today.
Yeah, but I'm using all the specialty ingredients, so it will have a little more chocolate and GNOs per gallon. Trying to compensate for the missing Maris. Probably end up with something more like a mild. To be honest, it was really looking that way with the original recipe, too.
Right. In case of emergency. For a long time, I've thought about some sort of mill so I could start bulk buying grains. Maybe sometime. But not this time.
I've had a Barley Crusher for four years and I've bought numerous sacks of grain. I don't think I've paid it off yet. I think the lesson learned here is that you just need to double check your grains and maybe buy two or three batches at a time, in case one of them gets botched. I hope you got some shilling in.
I would have to brew more to make a grain mill pay for itself. I would also need to solve a grain storage issue (humidity issues). Got it into the fermenter, with the gravity close to the original plan, via volume reduction. Probably going to be more reminiscent of a mild.
Never had that issue, but I have brewed up my beer, then pulled my Conan starter out of the fridge only to find that it was a total acetic bomb. The can was passed around the club Christmas party end when cultured was infected with acetobacter as well as Lacto. Had to scramble to get yeast. Finally went to a local brewery and was fortunate enough to find that there was a brewer on hand on a Saturday afternoon. Beer turned out well.
Emergency DME for the win! If you cannot or do not want to invest in a mill, I can say with no uncertainty that the DME option hands-down beats the "try to crush it with a rolling pin" option. I did that with 3 lbs of grain, exactly once. I think you made the best call possible on a Saturday PM with no local brewing shop open.
Fair enough. I've never had to crush it by hand, it sounds dreadful, but I rarely have DME around in quantities enough to do more than make a handful of starters!
DME keeps quite well if kept in good storage conditions. I would grab some and keep it handy, beyond what you need for starters, enough to make an average batch of whatever you like to brew. Rotate your stock, of course, but don't worry about it being old or stale when it's three friggin' weeks old. As an aside, my LHBS sells a fair amount of LME, with reasonable turnover rates. They also sell LME in 3 gallon plastic containers that are quite rugged. When I found out that they just toss these in the recycle dumpster (at least there IS recycling there, but don't get me started), I started keeping my eye on them when I go to buy grain. When they get pretty low, I pick them up and use the extract for starters (don't care what kind since it's for a starter, but then I'm not a "extra light only" extract kinda guy either). I also pick up a real nice water container at the same time. Great for camping, emergency water storage, or if you're hunkered down in your bomb-shelter, hugging your guns and ammo and watching fox news, waiting for the ebola crisis to pass.
I had exactly 3 lbs of DME around, a fresh bag that was purchased for future starters. In this sense, I was lucky. For starters, I wouldn't care too much, either. For brewing, as long as you have an understanding of what is in the extract and feel that it works for your recipe, I think amber and dark extracts are fine. But if you don't know what's there and you start throwing crystal and roasted steeping grains at it, you could overdo it. I did this once too, just a few pounds of specialty grains. Then I gave up and used a food processor. But using the food processor for all the base malts I think would have give me a stuck sparge. I've dealt with those more than once, and have no desire to repeat.
