Pugilist

Recipes 

The HBS in my area keeps there LME in 55 gallon white plastic drums mounted on their side with a tap on it. I was noticing that they have the long bar mounted flourescent lights in the ceiling above the drums and they are exposed to that light for at least 8hrs a day.

Can that storage method lead to low quality LME? Especially if you are getting the bottom of the barrel (which I just did!).

EvilTOJ

Recipes 

Nope, it's perfectly fine. What'll kill LME is exposure to oxygen and germies which you won't get when it's pushed by sterile CO2 into the bucket.

__________________
There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."

indolent

Recipes 

From Pugilist's post, I get the impression that it is gravity fed from the drums, not CO2. In this case, the remaining LME in the drum would have contact with oxygen.

avidhomebrewer

Recipes 

I agree with indolent that it is probably gravity fed LME. However, I disagree with indolent in the statement that the remaining LME will have contact with O2. I think the LME near the tap will have contact with O2; seeing as LME is rather viscous, I doubt the rest of the drum will have contact with O2 past the spigot. The drum itself will not allow UV penetration (to a point). Ask your LHBS if they brew with the same LME from that same drum; if not, question as to why not and why you (the customer) should.

Pugilist

Recipes 

Thanks for the input guys. What raised an eyebrow with me was when they poured warm water on the outside of the drum on a cold day to make it easier to get out of the spigot. That coupled with the basically see through packaging had me a little concerned.

I am going to use some muntons extract on my SNPA clone so will be curious to see if there is a difference.

EvilTOJ

Recipes 

I only mention the CO2 because that's how my LHBS does it. it's a ginormous barrel on its side, and has a CO2 canister hooked up to it. They open the spigot on the barrel, and then turn on the CO2.

__________________
There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."

david_42

Recipes 

UV isn't a problem for extract.

My original LHBS used the gravity feed method. They have 4-5 barrels going at once.

__________________
Remember one unassailable statistic, as explained by the late, great George Carlin: "Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider!"

"I would like to die on Mars, just not on impact." Elon Musk