Cheap specialty grains?

does anyone know a place to get cheap or reasonably prices specialty grains, Black Malt, Special B, Brown Malt, Caramels etc?

I buy my base malts in bulk from LHS and their prices are more than reasonable. The specialty malts on the other hand run 3 to 4 dollars a pound.

Brewmaster's Warehouse has always been good for me. Good prices and shipping. Friendly people too...

I am waiting on sack of grain from a group buy.
I plan on doing the home toasting roasting to create my own specialty grains. That way I am getting them @ base malt prices.
Of course running the oven ain't free either, so I am not sure how much money I will actually "save"
If you search around there is a lot of info.
I found this helpful
http://barleypopmaker.info/2009/12/08/home-roasting-your-malts/
There are also a bunch of threads on here about this

Try Midwest Supplies (www.midwestsupplies.com) or Northern Brewer (http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing) - even with shipping charges the prices are going to be better than you're getting at your LHS if you do your order right.

Farmhousebrewingsupply.com

Depending what I need I shop at different places. If you don't need the full pound of grain and know exactly what you need for the next few batches then Brewmasters Warehouse is great. Sometimes I have 4 batches planned and just need a 1/4 # of this and a 1/3# of that, so buying the full pound just leaves me with leftovers that I don't intend on using. Not to mention I bought the whole pound when I didn't need it.

Having said that, FarmhouseBrewing has great prices on 1# increments. If you want to buy per pound then that's your place. P.S....Farmhouse also has killer hop prices. I won't lie, Farmhouse has leeched a few sales from BMW and Hopsdirect since I discovered him.

Both are great sites.

steelers77 said:

farmhousebrewingsupply.com

Click to expand...

+10

I figured I would buy grains in quantities of 10 lbs. After mocking up an order of 70lbs, tax and shipping. Midwest supplies comes in at 1.90 a lbs across the board.

I'll run through the others and post my order quantities and prices if anyone else is interested.

Try Rebel Brewer. Base grains in 10 lb quantities.

I get most of my grains there, except for a few of the darker ones that seem cheaper at my LHBS.

The shipping limit is somewhere around 65 lbs, at which point it takes a jump, so with 70 lbs you will be on a high shipping rate. Make sure you enter both your zip code and your state, otherwise the shipping calculator defaults to a higher rate for some reason.

10 lbs is a lot for any one type of specialty grain ....... for specialty grains I would plan 3 or 4 brews and order exactly what you need from BMW

Hops by the pound, bulk grain by the 50 lb sack, specialty grains exactly as planned for recipes is my purchasing strategy...... Maybe if it's something common like C60 or C40 then extra wouldn't sit around long but I find if I order extra specialty grain it just ends up old and forgotten.

if there is a local club, try doing a group buy from a local brewery. Ours sells its grains at cost quarterly to home brewers, the only catch being the smallest unit they will deal with is the 55 pound / 25kg bag. I got loads of spec grains this way, many types