How fine do yall grind yalls malt?

[00Buck]

Is there any benefit to grinding it down to a meal, or is it ok to grind them to a cracked corn type consistency? Is there any difference in Corn, Barley, or Rye grinding to see the benefits? Say would Barley need to be coarser than Corn or Rye for some reason? I searched for an answer to this and havent seen it answered.

[subbrew]

Grinding to a course meal gives more surface area to allow the enzymes, either natural or manufactured to better access the starch. For barley some argue that going to a meal, especially using a burr mill will shred the hulls which releases more tannins. that is an issue if making beer so beer brewers use a roller mill and crack the barley to a very course meal. But I have not seen an issue when distilling.

I have done my barley in my roller mill, set up just like I would for beer. And then used the burr mill on the corn and wheat. I have also just run everything through the burr mill and I can't taste a difference so far. Perhaps something will appear in years of aging.

[00Buck]

Ive always ground my corn malt to a little past cracked. I was wondering if Ive been missing out on any more nutrients or possible flavor by not grinding it finer. I just hate have a ball of dough in my barrel when its too fine

[Stags]

IMO it depends on what I’m looking to do.

If I’m looking to do a single malt style I buy brewers grind barley malt from morebeer. Ferment and distill off the grain. No additional grinding required. Makes it nice and easy to lauter and sparge until the fermenter is full.

If I’m looking to do a bourbon, I’m already creating polenta, no harm in grinding barley farther. So I toss it all in my grinder, ferment on grain, and separate the slop before distilling. Working on a steam rig so I can distill on the grain and not have to go through that headache.

[bilgriss]

The finer the grind, the more exposed surface area for enzymes in a mash and the easier to cook corn more to expose starches.

If you wish to lauter, crushing malt rather than grinding is the better option.

[Fletching]

I used to crush my malt and grind my corn somewhere between a flour and a rough crack. I did so because squeezing after fermentation was a PITA.

Since then, I steam strip on the grain, so I grind every grain to a flour. Haven’t noticed any taste differences yet.

Grinding to a flour will help with exposing starches and conversion, but if you’re squeezing/straining to separate the grain prior to stripping, the small increase in yield isn’t worth the sore fingers in my opinion.