New AG'er making a grain order..need help

I'm going to order some grains in bulk and I was wondering what percentage of comman malts you all usually keep on hand.

I was thinking of stocking pale, munich and chrystal 60 for a start.

I know the brewpub will sell me less than the 25 kilo bags if it's a grain he usually keeps in stock himself, but certain specialty malts he'll have to order for me. He just charges for the cost and shipping. He charges a small fee for grinding for his time. Pretty cool deal.

That is exactly what I would start with.

Denny's Brew said:

I was thinking of stocking pale, munich and chrystal 60 for a start.

I know the brewpub will sell me less than the 25 kilo bags if it's a grain he usually keeps in stock himself, but certain specialty malts he'll have to order for me.

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Those are good grains to have. Based on the fact that he will sell you smaller quantities of grains he has, I assume he doesn't carry those? Otherwise you can assume you can buy those directly from him in the quantities you need, and you could consider another grain to buy in bulk. OTOH, the grains you listed are amongst the very few I would be comfortable buying in a 25kg bag. Not sure what I would do with 25kg of roasted barley, for instance.

sounds like a plan to me.

Sounds good. You can make a good range of styles with just those grains alown, and order up an of the specialty stuff as you need it.

That is a sweet deal you have there. Treat him well! Those look to be a good selection.

Well, if you were going to buy 25kilos of pale, then how much of the other two would you purchase. He has munich 10 and carmael (crystal 60) in stock, so I can get smaller amounts of those. I thot getting 25k bage of pale would keep me busy for a little while.

Sounds good to me.

Denny's Brew said:

Well, if you were going to buy 25kilos of pale, then how much of the other two would you purchase. He has munich 10 and carmael (crystal 60) in stock, so I can get smaller amounts of those. I thot getting 25k bage of pale would keep me busy for a little while.

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That's probably a personal preference type of thing, depending on your uses. I know some brewers who use 1-2 pounds of munich in every beer they do. That can add up if you brew with it a lot, but it would probably be wise to get at least twice as much pale as the others, IMHO.

What does using all munich for the base malt taste like comapared to pale? Is there a beer style that does this?


I was thinking of 25k pale, 10k munich 10, and 10k crystal 60


Also, what is the best way to store crushed grains? Can they be frozen?

man i wish i could get that deal at brew pubs in british columbia canada

Have you tried asking any Brewpubs where you live? Where abouts are you located?

I would be a bit leary of trying to store that much crushed grain, at least here in NC where the humidity gets so high in the summer. Technically, I would think that as long as you can get it in a dry, oxygen-deprived environment it should last some months.

Personally, I would invest in a mill if I were keeping that amount of grains on hand and consider it a protection of my investment.

Humidity here is around 35%, think phoenix.

I was thinking of trying osme way of vacum sealing it if I can figure out and economical method. I do plan on building a mill though. MAybe I'll get him to only mill half the order for now.

Anyone here use honey malt? I'm wondering how the taste would effect a pils type lauger or light ale?