Don't be me: bulk grain storage screwup

Two days ago I moved 4 25kg bags of grain (2@MO, 1@wheat, 1@2row) onto a pallet in the garage while I collect suitable water- and rodent- storage containers.

Dear Wife calls out from the garage this morning that "we have a problem". Yes, the water heater has come apart, and yes, the water heater is in a closet about 5' over the stacked bags of grain. Yes, the grains are wet. Threw the bags out of the way and got water turned off to the heater.

We are spreading the grains out on dropcloths in front of a fan and raking them until they dry. I feel like a maltster. Hopefully being damp then getting airdried will not hurt them too much.

At least the Dear Wife has a sense of humor about having 100 kilos of grain evenly distributed on the living room floor. Will post pics after we get things situated.

Dang! I hope this ends up being more Awesome than Tragic on the Awesome-Tragic Scale!

man, i hope the grain turns out ok. Last time I had a whot water tank go, my wife came home to 6" of water in the basement. She called me, and I rushed home. I had an office in the basement with 5 desktop tower computers all sitting on the floor. Needless to say, they were all shot. I ran around and unplugged everything, and salvaged the hard drives. The only thing that hurt was unplugging the UPS's. That was a pretty good jolt. Hindsight would tell me to throw the main breaker at the panel prior to unplugging wet electronics.

Wow! Your luck sucks as bad as mine..... Welcome to the club.

hrmm should have put out the call for a mass brewing event. ;-) hope it turns out ok.

this thread is worthless without pics!!

Cookie sheets in the oven on a low setting to dry the grain?

Unless the wet grain can be immediately and thoroughly dried, even sitting wet a short while can lead to the development of molds and toxins. Look up ergot, aflatoxin and other deadly illnesses that can develop from the spores of molds in wet grain. Even slightly wet grain left to dry over a few days could be a real problem. Simple air drying of the outside would still leave some moisture that has been absorbed. Molds can begin to grow that you could not see as could chemical changes in the inside...both of which CAN be deadly to humans or animals. Unless you could heat dry it and it did not sit wet for long ...as in a few hours...chuck it.

We have an industrial strength fan and used that to blow air across the spread/raked grains. The 2row and the wheat were most affected; the MO was drier because it is double bagged, apparently. Didn't know that.

We put the dry portions of MO in 5gal buckets from walmart. The 2row and the damp portions of MO are on the dropcloth drying now.

I took pics but can't find the digicam now; been a little hectic.

My valve under the kitchen sink and dripped down to the basement on a 4lb bag of caramel malt. I picked up the bag to move it and the bottom let go......4 lbs of grain all over my basement and laundry. Not a good way to start your Sunday morning....I feel the pain....just not so much pain. At least mine doesn't involve the living room and fans......

Fratermus, Not trying to be a preacher of doom, just wanted to let you know to be SURE the grain is totally dry...inside and out. Normally that would require some considerable heat if the water hit already malted grain that was a perfect vehicle to draw the moisture into the inside of the grains. Even a tiny bit of internal, residual moisture would be sufficient of the inside, even if the outside seemed perfectly dry.

I ended up tossing the parts that got damp (ie outside the inner liner) , and air-dried the grains that already appeared to be dry.

I crushed samples of the dried grains and they seemed normal.