Thirsty Boy wrote:You can dilute the importance of the crush by giving your mash a couple of stirs and a little longer to mash. Really... crush doesn't make a squirt of difference to the potential efficiency... it makes a difference to how fast you will convert and how effective your sparge can be for a given run-off speed.
if you are batch sparging - a good stir at mash in, a good stir at 20mins, 40mins - stir in some water for mashout (if you are doing one) - stir well after any addition of sparge water. That will make sure that you are accessing all the starch, distributing the enzymes evenly along with dispersing their products, and mixing all the sugars into your sparge water.
As the ultimate demonstration of this... I have brewed and gotten 70% efficiency into the kettle, without crushing the grain at all, just to prove I could. Its just that in order to do it I had to mash for 12hrs and sparge in 2 batches that both had a "rest" of 12hrs.
The point is - that with enough time and a bit of stirring to help things along - the water will get into the grain, it will convert and you will be able to rinse out the sugars, no matter what your crush is like. So there are a few options for you to take if you happen to find that a finer crush is unworkable for you.
crush a bit finer first though
TB
Very interesting...a no grain crush mash. Hmmmmm....did you notice any flavor difference in the finished product?
