Buying grains - always under weight

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rocketman768

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Do you guys weigh your grains before throwing them in the pot? I have a triple beam balance good down to 0.1 g, and I measured as accurately as possible all the 1 lb and 1/2 lb bags from Midwest that I was putting into the brew. Guess what...they were ALL under weight. They were only about 95% of their stated mass. Even though this is a small sample of bags (4 bags), I'm starting to think this might be consistent.

One thing I could do is keep measuring all my bags and get the sample mean and standard deviation. If the mean is not 100% and the standard deviation gives a 90 to 95% confidence interval that does not include 100%, then either my balance is wrong (which I doubt), or they are under-filling either by mistake or on purpose. It's perhaps not so bad when you do large batches, but for the small batches I make, it makes a lot of difference, and I don't like tweaking the recipe 20 minutes before I mash in.
 
Do you have a calibration set for your scale? That's where I would start before accusing MidWest. Not saying they're not off, but I'd make sure my stuff was good before making an accusation.
 
I generally tend to buy at least a lb or 2 more than I need and measure everything. If I'm always shorted by a place, I may bring it up with them or stop going there, but that won't help me on brewday. The peace of mind knowing that I have what I need is worth the extra few bucks, and I can always use it if I have a bit extra.
 
Even a balance can be off in a systematic way. If you don't want to buy calibration weights, US coinage is metric and a new nickel is 5.000 grams.
 
That place made me overshoot my OG when I used them for the first time with my last brew :D Highly recommended and will be used for next order again. NB came in at 15-20 more expensive for exact same ingredients. Plus BMW lets you order grain in ounces!!
 
I've had nothing but good experiences with Midwest, but I haven't bought much bulk grain from them.

Buy from Brewmasters Warehouse or Austin Homebrew and you'll be sure to have no problems.
 
If you are sure the problem is on their side then call them.
I've ordered a pound of hops from them before and the alpha acid's on the package I received was not even close to the advertised percentage. I called them and explained the difference and they were apologetic, fixed the website and sent out an additional 3 oz's to make up for it.

Either way, I'm sure they would like to know about the difference.
 
Yeah, I like Midwest too, so I want to know for sure what's happening. I have now weighed a piece of plastic to be 12.9234 g on a recently calibrated digital lab scale. I will go home and measure that on the triple beam balance to make sure my balance is within 1% of that number before emailing them.
 
Alright, my balance is less than 0.5% off. Already, a simple analysis shows that the average grain fill is 97%, and an analysis of the standard deviation shows that the probability that their average fill is 100% or more is less than 1.3%. Time to email...
 
Alright, my balance is less than 0.5% off. Already, a simple analysis shows that the average grain fill is 97%, and an analysis of the standard deviation shows that the probability that their average fill is 100% or more is less than 1.3%. Time to email...

I would guess your an engineer. Us soft science people only know how to lie with statistics.
Best of luck. :tank:
 
I have had nothing but good experiences dealing with Midwest. I think the best way to do something productive is to take this situation up with the vendor- at least, as previous posts suggest, that you check your scale.
 
See this is why you should buy in bulk, measure your own and crush it yourself. Then, only you are to blame.
 
See this is why you should buy in bulk, measure your own and crush it yourself. Then, only you are to blame.

Not all of us make enough beer to buy in bulk. I made a total of 17 gallons of beer last year (mostly in 2-3 gallon batches). If I'd bought 55 pounds of 2-row, I would still have more than half of it left a year later.

I would guess your an engineer. Us soft science people only know how to lie with statistics.

Mathematician. Statistics don't lie. Although, the statistics I'm referring to is the study and application of probability...mean, variance, distributions, ANOVA, etc. You probably mean the poll numbers and other percentages politicians use to confuse people.

I have had nothing but good experiences dealing with Midwest. I think the best way to do something productive is to take this situation up with the vendor- at least, as previous posts suggest, that you check your scale.

I checked the scale against a recently calibrated lab-grade digital scale. That's how I know mine is less than 0.5% off. I also know that I'm not pouring grain onto the floor or otherwise losing mass between the bag and the scale. I also have had good experiences with Midwest, which is why I found this odd. I sent them a polite message detailing the situation. We'll see what happens.
 
I never have under-weight grain from Midwest. That's probably cuz I walk into their grain room and weigh it out myself.......:ban:
 
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