What grains to "stock?"

My next eqipment acquisition will likely be a grain mill. I am hoping that it will help me have pretty much everything "in stock" that I need if I want to brew and the stores are closed (that would be today, by the way. Warm weather in the forecast, but no grain here and it's Sunday. LHBS is closed).

I currently have hops in the freezer and normally I have dry yeast on hand.

I am assuming that once I get a mill it would make a lot of sense to have a big bag of 2 row or even Maris Otter around, but what about specialty malts? What do you buy and how much of it do you buy so as to have it around when you need it?

Great idea but it always seems no matter what I have on hand, the recipe I find that I want to brew has that one oddball grain that I don't have.

I have 50 lbs Marris Otter, 50lbs Pils.
10lbs each Wheat, Munich and Vienna.

3lbs each of Crystals 10, 40, 80, 120; Victory, Carared, Melanoidin.

1lb Chocolate, Roasted barley, Special B.

I'm sure I'm missing something but you can do quite a bit with that stock.

Bobby_M said:

Great idea but it always seems no matter what I have on hand, the recipe I find that I want to brew has that one oddball grain that I don't have.

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I'm sure you're right, but at least then on a nice day like today I could brew something. Today looks to be the first warmish day here in awhile, but I have nothing to brew.

Figure out a few "stock" recipes and what grains are required.

That way you only need to buy new specialty grains when you try something different but always have ingredients on hand to make an IPA or creme ale, etc.

My thoughts are, always have Pils and Pale Malt. Wheat if you brew lots of wheats. Two other great big bags to have would be Munich and Vienna. Specialty malts, you really only proportionally need small amounts in recipes, so unless you brew tons of IPA's or something then you really don't need much of those around.

Normal inventory:

55# Marris Otter
50# Pils
1/2 sack of Vienna
1/2 sack of Munich
10# Rye Malt
10# Wheat Malt
10# Flaked varieties (wheat, barly)

Then I get either 5 or 10# bags of various crystals and darks.



Like Bobby said, innevitably, I want to do a recipe for which I have no inventory and end up grabbing 10# on our next bulk order.

It's not like they're going to go to waste.