Bugs in grain from Austin Homebrew. Will they effect the beer?
 

I went to make a batch of beer this past weekend with ingredients from AHB. When I opened the sealed plastic bags of rice, maris, and vienna malts, and dumped them on my cheese cloth to tie up and steep, I spotted a bunch of these crawling on the counter.

This was a clean counter, and the bags of malt were sealed. I cut them open, dumped on an open cheesecloth and about 15 of these were running around. I killed the ones I saw, and just steeped the rest with the grains.

what kind of critters are they? Anyone else have problems with bugs from AHB? In the pic it looks big, but in reality it was about the size of a grain, maybe the size of a large ant (not a sugar ant).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/52206782@N05/4813326884/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/52206782@N05/4813326884/

I've never had a problem with any bugs from them. DEFINATELY call them on it. I'm sure they'll treat you right, plus you could be saving others from the same issue.

Otherwise, I think you might be okay brewing because of the boil, but it depends on alot of factors like how long they were in there, what type of bugs they are, etc...

Oh my. I hope you contacted them so they can pull any before others purchase. yikes.

I dont know what it is, hopefully others can help.

Looks like a grain weevil. Pretty typical actually.

Call them, they will make good. But no, they won;t otherwise hurt the beer lest they managed to eat enough of the grain to leave you with a bag of husk. And weevil poo, of course. What goes in....

Anyway, the eggs are always there no matter where you get your grain. Lots of people store their grain in the freezer to disuade any possible hatcheries.

The only question you need to ask yourself is how many IBUs do weevils contribute.

IBU's? I was thinking gravity points.

Depends on the ratio of male/female weevils.

The female weevils are always more bitter.

Grain weevil bodies might be a good substitute for rice hulls. Cheaper too, because they are already there.

Hmm... The OG of my last batch was a little high. :(

Darn weevils. We had some (5?) years back. Could not figure out where they were coming from - they got into everything. At first we did not know what they were until we did some descriptive googling Finally, we found a long forgotten box of pasta in the back of some dark cabinet that was completely infested. We had to get rid of every grain-based food we had to get rid of them.. pasta, rice, cereal. Never had a problem since.