Stupid Weevils Grain is for Beer...

So tonight I get home from my shift and am excited about tomorrows brew day. In preparation I know I need to get 9 lbs of grain crushed and get the essentials ready and checked. Then I noticed something moving in the grain bag. I took a closer look to find that it was a single weevil. At first I thought no biggie even if there are a couple more theyll get boiled into nothingness and thus I continued. Until I stepped away for a moment to get a phone call. When I returned I noticed the entire grain bill was covered with weevils and I don't mean just one or two of them, its like the entire weevil population of south carolina descended upon my grain for a feast and my hopes for a promising brew day dashed. To make things worse I then noticed that it wasn't only secluded to that one bag but had also gotten to the grain I was going to use to brew on monday with!. Words do not describe the frustration I feel. So now I have to ask the question, never really having this problem in the past, how can I prevent this from happening? I felt fairly confident that everything was as airtight as possible and I keep my house fairly clean. Any suggestions would be a great help!

Cheers

I keep mine in Home Depot buckets. As long as you don't leave them open for any longer than to take grain out I can't see how bugs would get in them. To bad your brew day is ruined. I feel your pain.

more than likely they came with the grain when you bought it. so you may be short on the weight. brew on anyway. Weevils Ale.

Ahhhh. That sucks you paid for the weight of weevils. Smash a few of them with a hammer and show all the remaining weevils what will happen if they don't vacate.

mnm129 said:

I keep mine in Home Depot buckets. As long as you don't leave them open for any longer than to take grain out I can't see how bugs would get in them. To bad your brew day is ruined. I feel your pain.

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Weevils do not "get into" your grain, weevil larvae are already in the grain when you get it. Nearly all grain has it, but its rarely a problem these days. To prevent them from hatching, you can throw your grain in the freezer for 3 days. It's a pain, I know. I bought 600# of grain in a bulk buy in Feb., and had to rotate each sack I got into the freezer for 3 days.
They usually arent a problem except in the summer, if you can keep your grain under 70 degrees or over 90-95 degrees, you'll be ok, in between is the temp that is perfect for them to hatch.

After a nice 150ish F mash tun bath and a 170 F sparge bath you can extract a little weevil juice to go with your runnings.

Don't worry about them when you mill and mash. Those buggers are a part of beer making. I keep my grains in rubbermade bins and off of the floor. In my experience I have found them in my base malts and have no idea in how they've gotten in there. But I've made some very good beers from the malt anyway. Now if you find a few rat turds then you may wanna consider getting some different grains.

Jeez I don't think I have the freezer space or the gumption to freeze my grain to kill larvae. I keep mine at around 68F so hopefully they don't wake up otherwise I might decide to toast my base malt and them. I could always show them a picture of the Rock ^^^^.

Thanks for the great advice! Thankfully (at the moment) I have enough freezer space to rotate a substantial amount of grain so I think this will be the route I take next time. Also, my frustration has somewhat subsided after three pints of my strawberry blonde. God I love this hobby. Thanks again!

Many sites say that CO2 will kill them off. Try treating your containers with a blast of CO2.