Help handling large volumes of liquid malt extract

Okay so I was about to start doing some extract brewing, went a bit nuts on the website and bought 25 kg of liquid malt extract. I know it sounds a lot but at the price I got it at, I have halved my brew costs for a fair while.

Can anyone give me any advice on handling liquid malt extract in such a large volume. Also what is the best way to store it for long periods.

Thanks for your help

Damn... best thing I can suggest is something with a spigot... like a 5 gallon better bottle. Either that or I'd put it into sanitized/sterilized 22oz bomber bottles and cap it so that nothing can get inside. If bacteria or yeast gets into that stuff it won't be pretty!

I agree with jaytizzle. My first thought was a sanitized 5 gal cooler.

jaytizzle said:

Damn... best thing I can suggest is something with a spigot... like a 5 gallon better bottle. Either that or I'd put it into sanitized/sterilized 22oz bomber bottles and cap it so that nothing can get inside. If bacteria or yeast gets into that stuff it won't be pretty!

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Oh crap,

If I sterilise the container and cover the liquid malt extract with vodka between brews, would that help?

I'd really try to break it into usable portions. That's your best bet. That's why I suggested the 22oz bombers. I'd guess that you can fit 1kg or so in one of those. So 25-30 bombers shouldn't be a terrible cost plus you can use them to bottle brew later!

I can't really say much about covering the lme with vodka. I've never tried this technique but I'd guess it is similar to how almond butter is covered with a layer of oil.

How quickly do you think you will use 25kg of lme?

Not that quickly!

How about splitting it kilo chunks and freezing it in a chest freezer?

Mongzilla said:

Oh crap,

If I sterilise the container and cover the liquid malt extract with vodka between brews, would that help?

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The best thing is to buy more cheap fermentors and get brewing.
The stuff if a pain to store and deal with in bulk.

My LHBS store sells 6lb LME in white food safe containers that have a screw top lid. They look like the ones found here. I'm at work so not sure what size they are but if I had to get maybe 6in diameter and 10-12in tall.
They look a little like these.
http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=26151&catid=574

You could divide them up and then freeze them

Scuba_Stan said:

My LHBS store sells 6lb LME in white food safe containers that have a screw top lid.

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CCHBS, no doubt...

Half gallon milk containers. Washed and sanitized. There's 6lbs in each container. Get to drinking!

What's wrong with the container it came in.

Okay so far I have a couple of ideas.

I found a place I can buy 1 L HDPE Containers, sterilise them and store the malt syrup in that way.

I have also found a website which sells foodgrade handpumps for high viscosity liquids. My idea is to attach the pump and use only what I need for a brew, leaving the pump in during storage.

As long as I can keep the pump sterile and clean would this be okay, I'm going to e-mail the company and see if I can dismantle the pump without removing the piping system and screw, from the container.

Either way I'm going to get into bulk buying of liquid malty extract, as I'm going to need to get the equipment to store this batch, and it's over half the price of buying smaller quantities.

Again thanks for your help.

I thought I would post an update to this thread, to help people who are thinking about buying malt extract in bulk.

To store my malt extract I purchased six 2.5 L, foodgrade plastic containers. This brought the cost of my malt extract up to around the same value as if I had bought it in 1.5 kg tins, but now I can buy malt extract in 25 Kg containers and get my money back that way.

Filling the containers is not as difficult as I thought. I poured the malt extract and a friend of mine held containers and used a knife to cut the DMS when the container is full. It took about an hour to fill all the containers and the job wasn't particularly messy. Each container holds about enough DMS to produce two extract brews, which is a good trade-off between storage space needed and the malt extract needed for brewing.

I then put the new DMS containers in a chest freezer to store, which also helps handling the malt extract. When I've browed earlier this week I forgot to take malt extract out of the freezer to soften it up, so I put put it in a sink of hot water which soften the edges. When came to weighing out the extra the soften edges allow me to pull the semi-frozen cora out and cut it cleanly with a pair of scissors and very little mess.

The other major advantage is the large container the malt extract came in is foodgrade and can have its cap drilled, a rubber washer fitted, and either a blowoff tubing or airlock attached, so you end up with a free fermenter.

I hope you find this information helpful, and if you have any more questions please send me a message.

Why couldn't you have used DME? I know you have done it now but kilo sip lock bags of DME in the freezer just seem so much easier.

Gab1788 said:

Why couldn't you have used DME? I know you have done it now but kilo sip lock bags of DME in the freezer just seem so much easier.

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Bah, too hard. When brew day comes, you have to convert kilos to pounds.