Botched grain shipment-what should I do?

Hey HBTers. I have a bit of a quandary. I ordered 10 lbs of vienna malt and 5 lbs of 10 deg crystal from a website here in Canada with plans to make some Edwort's Haus pale ale.

My shipment arrived looking like this. All the bags of grain (ziploc, with no tape or ANY packing material) had opened in shipment. The box was in good shape.

Should I just mix it thoroughly together and go ahead and brew with 2.5 lbs of the resulting mix? I know the ratios are off, how badly will it affect the result?

I am keeping the name of the website I ordered from a secret until I hear back from their customer service contact.

Assuming you're still trying to make that recipe, I would only just pick a random 2.5 pounds from there and brew it as a last resort.

If I were just making a random beer I'd mix it up as thoroughly as possible (although it already looks pretty mixed) and plan to use it so that I'd be able to reasonably reproduce that recipe in the future.

Call them and see if the will resend a new order. That is unacceptable.

Email them a link to this thread... and bold the part about keeping their business name quiet... good luck...

yea, i would not accept that. whatever you brew might be ok, might not. but it will not be that recipe, and you will not be able to repeat it even if you wanted.

The vendor should see that picture so they can improve their packaging methods.

I would request a new shipment.

chumprock said:

The vendor should see that picture so they can improve their packaging methods.

I would request a new shipment.

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Same, I'd try to get it replaced. Nothing you brew with it is going to be repeatable.



At the same time, I'd still brew EdWort's Haus with it. Some may come out a little darker, some a little lighter, but it should all be good beer.

my local LHBS tapes the tops of the ziploc bags so they can't unzip, and that's just for local carryout.

seems like this internet joint needs to learn how to pack, and I'd make them re-ship.

Hey all,

Thanks for the input. I received an email today from the website, quoted below...

"I am so sorry! We haven't had this happen before - even with loosely packed bags of grain. We will definitely use packing material for loose boxes in the future and I am sorry that your order has been delayed by this mistake. The only thing I can think of is that I believe the bags of grain were packed to capacity within their bags. We recently started putting 5 pounds of grain in one of those large bags and maybe that coupled with the loose packing caused the problem.

I'll send out a new shipment of the grain that you ordered tomorrow. Unfortunately it won't be there until next week and your brew day will be pushed out.

Once again, sorry. I have learned from this so it hopefully won't happen to anyone else."

I am pleased with this response. I'll be able to brew on recipe, plus I'll have some random mixed specialty grains to play around with. I'm glad to see that they value their customers and I'll probably order from them again. (although none of you will know who they are!)

Sorry for you misfortune, but I'm pleased with your outcome.

You also earned a LOT of respect from me for not vendor bashing before you heard back from the company/customer service. 1st class all the way.

Hope the beer turns out awesome for you.

Looks like they care about your business and did the right thing. Had a beer from Zac he called "Wal-Mart Beer", something about brewing with whatever he had laying around, it was great!

If it is the online company I think it is based on the picture, (I am from montreal and probably ordered from them) then I also had a problem with them but they were again nice on the second go around. They sent me all the grains, hops, etc. but no YEAST! I also emailed and they were quite friendly and sent me two packs S04 and nottingham (score!)

I think that's a good response. Crap happens but at least they are sorry about it and will learn for the next time.

Great ending to that story, glad to see the vendor stood up and took responsibility here. You never know, the grains could have been what they use instead of packing peanuts.

I've had a few internet order mistakes, each time the vendor has solved the problem to my satisfaction with a simple phone call.

Update: I spent Canadian thanksgiving weekend drinking the brew that resulted from this botched shipment. I did edwort's haus but subbed 3.0 lbs of the mix instead of the normal specialty grain bill. It's a bit stronger than the normal recipe due to the extra 0.5 lbs of grain. On the upside... it tastes great! Every bottle I had tasted better than the last (ain't that always the truth?)

AnOldUR said:

Try mixing it up really well and add some into future recipes figuring that for every three pounds you use, you’ll get one pound of crystal and two pounds of vienna.

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My thought also, should be a consistent ratio.