Help with first bulk grain buy...

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reddskinnfan

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Hello all,

Thanks in advance for your help in getting me prepared for my first bulk grain order.

I am sure this has been answered somewhere else, some other time, however, I haven't been able to find anything when doing searches.

Okay, so here it is.

Me and about 9 fellow HB's are putting together an order and I am having trouble choosing malts. We are ordering from NCM (North Country Malt) and they have Baird, Best Malz, Canada Malting, Thomas Fawcett, Gambrinus, and a few others..

I am interested in 2-Row or Pale Ale malts, and there are three different vendors who have them:

Bairds
CMC (Canada Malting)
Gambrinus

My question is, have any of you had good experiences with any of these vendors?

Is there anything I should be aware of?

If you had to rank these Pale Ale Malts, how would you rank them against say Briess or Rahr?

Also, since I brew a lot of English style beers, would I be better off buying the Pale Ale Malt, or sticking with 2-Row?

Thanks in advance for your help!!!

Mike
 
I can't rank these all for you, but I would say that if you like to brew English styles, Maris Otter Pale Malt from either Bairds or Fawcett would be the obvious choice. And you can certainly brew American styles with it as well.
 
MO is obvious for English style beers. However, I am looking for info on the domestic Pale Ale malts. Anyone have good, or bad, experiences with these brands?

Mike
 
We are on bulk #9 from NCM. I'm not sure off hand what I got last time, but it one of the " off brand" 2 rows and It was just fine to me. Also it is cheap once you order a full pallet from them. 1 pallet= 42 bags=2200 lbs. I am getting bag of 2-row, 6-row, and munich for $93 shipped. FYI, I made english,german, and american beers with it. I will ask the group what the brand is, but i will know for sure tuesday when the newest order comes in. ALso I have a spreadsheet already done and up to date for them if you want a copy. I would have to e-mail it tho.
 
MO is obvious for English style beers. However, I am looking for info on the domestic Pale Ale malts. Anyone have good, or bad, experiences with these brands?

Mike

Okay, I misunderstood your question, because you listed Bairds, which is English, not domestic. Good luck.
 
We are on bulk #9 from NCM. I'm not sure off hand what I got last time, but it one of the " off brand" 2 rows and It was just fine to me. Also it is cheap once you order a full pallet from them. 1 pallet= 42 bags=2200 lbs. I am getting bag of 2-row, 6-row, and munich for $93 shipped. FYI, I made english,german, and american beers with it. I will ask the group what the brand is, but i will know for sure tuesday when the newest order comes in. ALso I have a spreadsheet already done and up to date for them if you want a copy. I would have to e-mail it tho.

I would be interested in seeing that spreadsheet, if you don't mind sending it. PM me for my address.

Thanks, :mug:

Mike
 
We just got our NCM order in. It was Best Malz and Superior that we have been getting, but obviously you can get the name brand stuff for not much more. I'm a cheapskate myself, but I do understand why people stick to the name brand for style's sake. You can mix and match whatever you want with them anyway as long as it is a full pallet.
 
We just got our NCM order in. It was Best Malz and Superior that we have been getting, but obviously you can get the name brand stuff for not much more. I'm a cheapskate myself, but I do understand why people stick to the name brand for style's sake. You can mix and match whatever you want with them anyway as long as it is a full pallet.

Best Malz IS name brand stuff.
 
I tweaked that spreadsheet to correct the shipping on crystal (bags are only 50lbs). I don't believe we have the tweaked one up. PM me if you are interested.

As to the OP... we usually get canadian 2row from CMC. I accidently ordered Superior 2row this time, which is a domestic pilsner malt. Not sure how that will work out. Someone said it needs a 90 minute boil.

I love CMC's 2 row. works great. and it is currently somewhere like $25 a sack on a full pallet (shipping for us ran $5/sack. We always have a bunch of that on there.

Then everyone has their preferences: german wheat, belgium wheat, canadian wheat (I go canada). A lot of preference depending on what people's feelings are and how much they brew some styles.

Oh yeah... that spreadsheet does NOT have current stock numbers for north country. That is how we got the pilsner malt. Apparently they changed some things in the last year.
 
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