Is it worth it to buy bulk grains?

I've been brewing for a couple of years now. I made the switch to AG about 6months ago and I'm thinking of expanding into the realm of bulk grains and a mill but I have a couple of concerns.

1. Variety. Those who do this, do you have to keep a lot of grains in inventory in order to brew enough variety? Or, are you just picking your 4 variety beers and brewing in rotation? I like to experiment with styles and recipes. Can I reasonably do this while buying in bulk?

2. What frequency do you brew your batches? Is there concern that grains will stale before you can use them up? Is bulk buying more suitable to the 10 gallon brewer?

3. Anything you wish someone told you when you considered expanding in this way?


Thanks for your input.

I buy two-row and Maris Otter in bulk, and everything else comes from the bins at the LHBS. That way, instead of paying LHBS prices for 13-15lb of grain on a typical batch, i pay LHBS prices for 3-4 pounds and bulk prices for 10-12lb. Variety comes from the specialty malts from the LHBS.

Unmilled grain is good for at least a year by most everyone's account. I brew 5G batches and have gone through almost 100lb in the last 6 months. I have 100lb more coming in the next month from a group buy.

The above advice is what i was told before i bought grain in a group buy 6mo ago, and it's worked well for me. If you brew a lot of a particular recipe or style, adjust your bulk buy for that.

Thanks! Great thoughts.

Are the MO and 2 row generally used together?

I tend to buy the base malts I use most in bulk:
1) Breisse 2-row; bulk price $0.84/lb vs $1.85/lb
2) Maris Otter; bulk price $0.91/lb vs $2.00/lb
3) Continental Pilsner malt; bulk price $0.82/lb vs $1.85/lb

As you can see you are usually paying less than half as much when buying sacks of grain. Those are the 3 malts I use the most of so I tend to keep them on hand, but any other specialty malt I just pay the full hbs price for as I only buy as needed.

I bought a Barley Crusher for $149 in January of 2013 and it had paid for itself in increased brewhouse efficiency and allowing me to buy sacks of grain by June. Efficiency went from 70% to 80%

I also bought 1lb of U.S. Magnums to use as my all purpose bittering hop and that can cut down on costs too. Buying hops by the pound is half as much as buying by the ounce. About $1 an ounce vs. $2 ounce.

TallDan said:

I buy two-row and Maris Otter in bulk, and everything else comes from the bins at the LHBS. That way, instead of paying LHBS prices for 13-15lb of grain on a typical batch, i pay LHBS prices for 3-4 pounds and bulk prices for 10-12lb. Variety comes from the specialty malts from the LHBS.

Unmilled grain is good for at least a year by most everyone's account. I brew 5G batches and have gone through almost 100lb in the last 6 months. I have 100lb more coming in the next month from a group buy.

The above advice is what i was told before i bought grain in a group buy 6mo ago, and it's worked well for me. If you brew a lot of a particular recipe or style, adjust your bulk buy for that.

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To follow up on the OP's questions: What do you store your grains in? Do you mill at home, too? How messy is milling in terms of dust? Thanks!

RmikeVT said:

I also bought 1lb of U.S. Magnums to use as my all purpose bittering hop and that can cut down on costs too. Buying hops by the pound is half as much as buying by the ounce. About $1 an ounce vs. $2 ounce.

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I hadn't even considered the bulk hops aspect. Thanks.

Are you brewing specific styles with those base malt combinations?

Yep, decide which base grains you want to have on hand and buy those in bulk, and everything else buy in small amounts like usual. I bought six different base grains, which is like 300 pounds, but I should be able to use it all within a year. You don't really need that many though. You can use the same base for most beers. Probably 2 or 3 would have been plenty, but I wanted to experiment with different ones.

DRonco said:

I've been brewing for a couple of years now. I made the switch to AG about 6months ago and I'm thinking of expanding into the realm of bulk grains and a mill but I have a couple of concerns.

1. Variety. Those who do this, do you have to keep a lot of grains in inventory in order to brew enough variety? Or, are you just picking your 4 variety beers and brewing in rotation? I like to experiment with styles and recipes. Can I reasonably do this while buying in bulk?

2. What frequency do you brew your batches? Is there concern that grains will stale before you can use them up? Is bulk buying more suitable to the 10 gallon brewer?

3. Anything you wish someone told you when you considered expanding in this way?


Thanks for your input.

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1. I only buy sacks of the base malts. Most of my recipes use either pale malt 2-row or wheat as the base, so I usually buy those by the sack. I usually buy 5 or 10-pound bags of lesser-used base malts like vienna, pilsner, maris otter, etc. All of my specialty grains are purchased as-needed and if I have any leftovers then I usually seal them back up in their original plastic bags with duck tape or I have a number of small tupperware cereal containers that I will put them in.

2. I try to brew at least one 10-gallon batch of beer per month. No, I am not concerned about my grains going stale. I store my grains in sealed plastic containers in my basement which is relatively cool and dry. I usually have to get a new sack of 2-row every two or three months and a new sack of wheat every four or five months. If my grains were sitting around unused for over 18 months then I'd start to worry about their freshness.

3. I wish I had invested in a set of plastic containers that were stackable instead of purchasing cereal containers that aren't designed to stack. They tend to take up a lot of shelf space. Uline has some nice grip jars that can stack nicely. I'm thinking of buying a case of the the 48-ounce jars and the 1 gallon jars. The 48-ounce jars can hold about 2 pounds of grain, and the gallon jars can hold about 5.5 pounds of grain.

When you calculate the cost per 16 oz serving, the extract adds about $0.10 per serving. When you go all grain, and buy in bulk bags, your cost goes way down. If you're kegging the cost can go down from around $0.80 down to around $0.60 per serving. I'm sure yours will be different than my calcs, but you get the idea.

DRonco said:

Thanks! Great thoughts.

Are the MO and 2 row generally used together?

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Nope, usually use one or the other as a base malt.

RmikeVT said:

I tend to buy the base malts I use most in bulk:
1) Breisse 2-row; bulk price $0.84/lb vs $1.85/lb
2) Maris Otter; bulk price $0.91/lb vs $2.00/lb
3) Continental Pilsner malt; bulk price $0.82/lb vs $1.85/lb

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That's actually high compared to what I'm paying. $0.65/lb for 2-row in 50 pound sacks from the group buy. Well, $0.72/lb including tax and shipping.

Woodbrews said:

To follow up on the OP's questions: What do you store your grains in? Do you mill at home, too? How messy is milling in terms of dust? Thanks!

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I store mine in food grade plastic 5 gallon buckets with the gamma lids. Purchased from Lowes/Home Depot. Cheap and stackable. I have a grain mill, Milling does produce noticeable dust, so I do my milling either in the garage or outside depending on the weather.

I have also been wanting to go to bulk items, but don't know of any group buys in the area.
Other than group buys where are people getting bulk grain for a good price?

The only investment in buying bulk is a mill (my $30 corona works awesome), and a couple of buckets to store it in. No matter what you buy you can save money.

I buy grains and hops in bulk, and usually keep some yeast propagation going, and a typical batch for me now is about $15. W00t.

I just have to ignore the $400 I've spent on random homebrew equipment...

The only investment in buying bulk is a mill (my $30 corona works awesome), and a couple of buckets to store it in. No matter what you buy you can save money.

I buy grains and hops in bulk, and usually keep some yeast propagation going, and a typical batch for me now is about $15. W00t.

I just have to ignore the $400 I've spent on random homebrew equipment...

Like many others I buy two base grains: pale ale and pilsener. Specialty grains get purchased as needed. I store my grains in large plastic Tupperware.

I'm lucky enough to live near a Northern Brewer so I just purchase my sacks from them. I pay $38 for Rahr Pale Ale and $50 for Rahr pilsener. Each are 50lb sacks.

I was buying hops by the pound from my LHBS but recently switched to half pound bags from Yakima Valley Hops. They have good prices (especially the variety packs) and $6 shipping.



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The way I look at it is that I plan on brewing for a long time. If I don't, it probably means I'm dead and I won't really care all that much what I spent my money on. So if I spent a little money here to save money down the road, eventually it will pay for itself.

I buy base malt by the sack. I usually have wheat, 2 row, and Maris Otter. I pay about $42 a sack for 2 row and wheat, and about $60 a sack for Maris. The specialty grains I usually buy 5 pounds of at a time. I have about 15 different specialty grains and I can brew just about anything.

I store them in food grade 6 gallon buckets with gamma seal lids. I bought 10 of them from Sam's club for about $100.

LovesIPA said:

The way I look at it is that I plan on brewing for a long time. If I don't, it probably means I'm dead and I won't really care all that much what I spent my money on. So if I spent a little money here to save money down the road, eventually it will pay for itself.

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Peach it Preacher!

Lots of great input. Thanks guys!

Woodbrews said:

To follow up on the OP's questions: What do you store your grains in? Do you mill at home, too? How messy is milling in terms of dust? Thanks!

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my lhbs will sell you bulk sacks and then store it and mill it for you at no extra cost. So you get the great price but still have the simplicity. I still prefer to store and mill myself. adds to the brewing experiance.

For storage, I have found most large grocery stores that have a large bakery will gladly give buckets away. I have a stack of 3 gal buckets/lids and growing. In my area, Walmart tough, but Publics is fantastic. I have only walked out of a store once with nothing. These buckets are great, even have rubber seals on the lids!

Excellent thread. I've been giving this a lot of thought too.

Generally my base grains are Pils, MO, & Munich. I think I could go through a sack of each in a year. The Munich might be a stretch. And if it saved me just $0.50/lb, it works to $82.50/year.

I'll have to put some hard numbers to it.

Not for me, but I'm lucky. My LHBS happens to be HomeBrewStuff. They have a "Virtual Bag" for like $39 where you can get 50 pounds of any combination of base malts (including 2-row, 6-row, MO, Vienna, Munich, Pilsner) and they'll keep track of how many you've used. Crazy cheap, and amazingly convenient. Of course, they make money on it because I buy a ton of other stuff every time I come in to get 10lbs of base malt, but it works for both parties.

I'm paying $23.00 per 55 lb bag of 2 row. Can't beat that. Bulk is the way to go.

Bulk for base grain, head to the LHBS for your specialty. Store in some kind of sealed container. Profit.

So, where are you getting 23.00 for 55lbs? Local? Or is anyone getting that kind of deal online?


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I have in bulk:
2 row, MO, wheat malt, golden promise, pilsen malt, vienna, munich.
Also I've split sacks of C10, c30, c40, c60, c120, c150, carapils, corn, rice, quite a few other things.
For the base malts, I generally keep in sealed food grade containers using gamma seal lids. For specialty grains, I generally have sealed them using a vacuum sealer (seal a meal style). With some recent bulk purchases I decided to go the mylar + oxygen absorber route for some of the grains that I don't expect to use for a while, and regular vacuum sealing for stuff I expect to use within the year.

I've had no perceived "staleness" in my brews.

I vacuum seal all hops (which I try to buy by the # or more) and keep them in a freezer with a manual defrost.

I recently bought my first 50 lb sack. And definitely think it has lowered my costs. Where I save the most money though is buying hops in bulk and having a yeast library. Recently did a pale ale for around 15$

rekoob said:

So, where are you getting 23.00 for 55lbs? Local? Or is anyone getting that kind of deal online?


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If this exists, I want in!


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aryoung1980 said:

If this exists, I want in!

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Yes, I would jump on that right now.

Best I can find is $49 for a 50 lb sack of 2 row.

I buy bulk base grains for about $35 per 50lb bag. Well worth it. I store in Lowes white buckets with Gamma lids. I can get ~25lbs in each pail.

I also buy bulk hops. It's more than worth it. It's close to half the price depending on what hops you buy. I've got 16lbs in my freezer.

If you are near Minneapolis, MN you can get base malts pretty cheap. http://www.midwestsupplies.com/homebrewing-ingredients/brew-malt-grain-adjunct/bulk-sacks.html

More Beer is selling 50# sacks of 2 row for $35.99 right now. This is great if you live near one of their retail stores. Not so great if you need to pay shipping.

DRonco said:

1. Variety. Those who do this, do you have to keep a lot of grains in inventory in order to brew enough variety? Or, are you just picking your 4 variety beers and brewing in rotation? I like to experiment with styles and recipes. Can I reasonably do this while buying in bulk?

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Yes. Yes you can. As long as you have a relatively reasonably climate controlled (humidity is bad, dry 65 degrees will keep your grain for a very long time) space you can keep your grains for a long time. Buy the base malts in bulk, and the specialty malts buy in 1G ziplocs and stock up.

DRonco said:

2. What frequency do you brew your batches? Is there concern that grains will stale before you can use them up? Is bulk buying more suitable to the 10 gallon brewer?

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I brew 2-3 times a month. Grains WILL stale, but it takes a long time. Key is to keep them DRY and of course, free from mice. I've got cats that take care of the pest control. I usually go through a bag of base malt once every 2-4 months, and I keep it in a corner of the garage that's dry, and stays between 45-80 most of the time. Nothing tricky. I'd prefer it to be 65 and dry in there all the time and the grain would probably last for years, but I go through it fast enough doing 5G batches that it works fine.

DRonco said:

3. Anything you wish someone told you when you considered expanding in this way?

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Only the stuff I just told ya
Edit: BTW, the best practice is to keep them all in 5G homer buckets. You want them to breath so as to avoid condensation in temperature changes, but you want them relatively sealed up to keep the vermin out. I'm just lazy and I get through the grain fast enough and live in a dry enough place, there's really no need for me to bucket the grain up. Just twist tie the inner bag and roll the top. Just twist tie the whole thing if there's no inner bag.

Many local micro brewers will sell homebrewers bags of malt at cost. I pay 40 bucks for a 55# bag at a local place, with no sales tax.

jbaysurfer said:

Many local micro brewers will sell homebrewers bags of malt at cost. I pay 40 bucks for a 55# bag at a local place, with no sales tax.

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I'm going to be in Santa Barbara for a few days next month. Got any recommendations on good local microbrewries?

I just buy sacks of base malts. I brew roughly 5 gallons per 2 weeks, and I don't worry about them going stale too fast. I store in brand-new trash cans, because the lids seal tightly and they're cheap.

I buy in bulk. I have over 800 lbs. of grain(of all kinds), over 17 lbs. of hops and 8 types of yeast. I store my grains in food saver bags. I have read that if you keep grains in air tight containers, they will last for a few years.

Uh, well....I am hoping they are right. :rockin:

What everyone else is saying. Buy base malts in bulk. It all depends on how much and how often you brew. If you are going to go through 50lbs of 2 row or MO or Munich or whatever in under a year buy up a sack. even at $1/lb as 2-row typically goes for at LHBS-es it is savings over the 1,2,5,10LB bags you can get from the same LHBS. Check out the group buy section (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f174/) and see if you can get in on one, prices go way down when you buy in bulk, even more savings when buying in larger quantities.

Maintaining an inventory of base grain AND specialty grain AND a variety of bulk hops is worth more than just the cost savings. There is nothing like the freedom of waking up and thinking 'I'm going to brew tomorrow', and knowing you probably have all the ingredients you need already in inventory. It's great to never have to worry about the logistics/time of buying it by mail, or having to drive to the LHBS all the time for one forgotten thing, etc.

I have a closet full of grain. Bulk grain in gamma sealed containers and dated so I know to use older stuff first.

I have specialty grain in 1lb bags (my LHBS sells by the pound in prepackaged bags), in probably 20 different plastic clear shoeboxes, with labels on the front as to what it is, all on a large wire rack to store it all.

Bulk hops get stored in mason jars, using the foodsaver vacuum seal lid attachment.

All this gives me the freedom to brew anything, anytime, and the freedom to piss my wife off with constant weekend brewing.

I'm so lucky that we have a local brewery that will sell bulk grain to homebrewers. I can pick up a sack of 2 row for $35 and a sack of MO for $45 (and yeast is free). They will also sell us bulk specialty malt which is great for group buys. I've used 12mo old 2 row before that wasn't stored well (kept in a hot and humid area), and the only issue I had with it were the grain weevils. Those can't be avoided in any batch of grain, but they were a bit more abundant with this stuff. My efficiency was still good and it didn't taste stale at all. The only time buying bulk might not be a great idea is if you can't get it locally. Shipping can end up costing more than the grain. If that's the case, find another brewer and go in halfsies.