My LHBS Is Starting To Bother Me

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Brewsmith

Home brewing moogerfooger
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So I went in the shop today to pick up grain forr two different brews, my Scottish and Rye that I'm going to get started on tomorrow. I walk in and there's only one person working and a couple people in the store. I tell the guy that I need some grain and he tells me to go to where the grain and mill is at and to fill out the little sheets they use for the grain bill. Apparently the other worker in the store is out at the moment. No problem, I've filled out the sheets before and even weighed out my own grain. I fill out the amounts and right then walks in the other employee, who I've seen before a few times, a woman, about 40, with pink dyed hair.

She looks at the two grain bills, and starts at the first. 7.5 lbs Maris Otter. She can't find it and it's in a big rubbermaid tub on the floor. She finally finds it and gets to the last item on the first brew, Roasted Barley. I had wrritten out "0.125 lbs" and also "2 oz" in the column because I know they sometimes use a different scale for tiny amounts and the regular scale has a accuracy of only 0.05 lbs. I wasn't paying close attention but I think she might have confused 2 oz with 0.25 lbs and the scale was also changed to the kilogram setting. She may have put about a half pound of roasted barley in there.

She gets to the next grain bill and starts scooping out base malt. I see that the scale is still on kilos and she's getting close to 7. I stop her and she switches over to lbs, which was now about 14 lbs. She scoops out the excess and gets me to the 7 that's on the list. She gets to the biscuit malt, which was supposed to be 0.25 lbs. She puts somewhere around a half pound into the bucket on the scale with the other grain before she realizes her mistake and starts to fish out the extra biscuit and put it back into the tub of malt. I hope she saw the difference between the biscuit and the base malt because if not, there is now some Northwestern 2-Row in the store's tub of biscuit.

It's not like she's new there. She's worked there for several months, and every time she's helped me she has seemed a little ditzy. It makes me want to buy in bulk and mill at home.
 
Just tell them you want each grain packed separately...that way, if anything looks fishy you can check it when you get home. Sounds like most of their errors are in your favor, so you'll just end up with extra grain ;)
 
Yeah, but out of the two brews, there would ahve been about 12 different bags. The extra grain seems to be roasted barley. It would be one thing if it was base malt, but all I wanted is 2 ounces. I'm making that brew tomorrow. If it ends up black and roasted, it will end up being a big yeast starter for a remake next weekend. Not that I'll throw it out...
 
So dealing with 12 different bags of grain is worse than remaking a whole batch?

No way I'd let my LHBS mix my grains, if they showed the level of competence you're talking about...
 
I was in a little bit of a hurry and didn't want to be a hassle. Plus, nothing has happened this bad before.
 
Im in the same boat. It sucks, having to order grains when their is two stores within 5 miles of my house. Its just not worth the hassle of dealing with them.
 
The sad thing is, I think they're doing better in the competency department than they used to be. They were terrible about 6 months ago. I watch those people like a hawk now, esp. the lady. I know she's trying, and she's always cheerful, but they need to ask us to weigh and crush our own grain. They're just not very detail oriented.

Monk
 
Half pound of roasted barley? Not excessive if you were planning a stout, but it doesn't sound like you were. I'd re-think the hopping.

The LHBS around here, you weight & crush the grain yourself. One place actually has two crushers, one for base malts & one for specialty grains, so the base malt crusher stays "pure".
 
be glab you have a LHBS. I have a 20 mile drive to the nearest cruise n booze that even sells HB stuff (just the basics....no bulk grain or extract) I would love to be able to run out some evening and pick up grains and malts and brew the same day.
 
I bought a Crankandstein Mill and love it. I do think it was an "excess buy" for the brewery and think another would have been acceptable and cheaper. I am actually thinking of making my own large diameter crushing wheel mill when I get the time. I love the fact that I can store my bulk base malt in a Brute Trash can and crush right before I mash.
 
Not that you want to be one of those people...but you might say something to the owner/manager. If it happened to you, it will probably happen to someone else if it hasn't already. Not that you want to get the employee fired but it might need to brought to her attention that the difference between .125lbs of roasted barley and .5 lbs is a lot.
 
I never get help with my grains, but my LHBS might be different than yours in setup. I ALWAYS measure all of my own grains, to the T, crush them there (they have a mill I can use) and then give them the recipe I have printed out and they bill me off that list. They trust me and I know I get what I asked for.
 
Evan! said:
I have a solution for your troubles, young man:

Yeah.
Hell Yeah.

Take these and call me in the morning. :rockin:
It's in the master plan, just not in the budget yet. All I need to buy is the mill. I have access to a stand alone motor to power it and can build the rest.

As for crushing the grain myself, I would have been glad to. I've done it there before, and I would have gotten it done faster. It's not that the store doesn't have what I need, it's just that a couple employees aren't very helpful at it.

To top it off, one of my recipes is going to include light chocolate malt. I know they don't carry it, but I asked if they had any anyways. She said she didn't even know what it was.
 
So I brewed up the "Scottish" Ale that had the suspected too much roasted barley. It was about what I expected. The color came out dark brown to black, with a strong roast flavor. This thing is closer to a stout than anything. My guess is that there was about a half pound in there. It's going to be on the sweet and full-bodied side, but it will still be beer.
 
We're fortunate here in that there are 2 LHBS's in the general area. One, Things Beer, is located within Michigan Brewing Company. The staff are all avid homebrewers, and occasionally the owner or brewmaster is hanging around. It's great to have access to knowledgeable people, and they carry as complete a line of grains and equipment as I've ever seen.

http://www.michiganbrewing.com/mbc.htm

Plus, it's always a good excuse to stop in the pub for a pint when you're picking up the grain bill for the next batch. :mug:
 
Closest LHBS here is 2 hours away...and it is cheaper to have it shipped in from half way across the country!
 
My lhbs is good as long as the owners or one particular employee helps w/ my order, they're knowledgeable, helpful, and polite. They have a couple employees, on the other hand, that I'd like to whack on the skull with a tack hammer... I was in there a couple months ago, asked one the bad employees for 1lb each of 3 different grains. The idiot gave me a condescending look and said, "Three small bags is hardly worth my time to weigh them out" I told him that he gets paid by the hour so whatever I ask for is worth his time...
 
Hell, I'm lucky to have the LHBS I have. Great guys. Started preheating my mash tun yesterday, and realized I had grabbed a Munich Larger yeast instead of a Kolsch, so I called em up and asked em to smack a pack for me. I got there about an hour later, and there is my smack pack on the counter! It was great. But that is also why I bring em a 6'er every time I'm in there.
 
cnbudz said:
My lhbs is good as long as the owners or one particular employee helps w/ my order, they're knowledgeable, helpful, and polite. They have a couple employees, on the other hand, that I'd like to whack on the skull with a tack hammer... I was in there a couple months ago, asked one the bad employees for 1lb each of 3 different grains. The idiot gave me a condescending look and said, "Three small bags is hardly worth my time to weigh them out" I told him that he gets paid by the hour so whatever I ask for is worth his time...

If you're friendly with the owner, I'd mention this to him. He could well be losing business because of it. I can go to one of two HBSs, both a little more than an hour away from me. If I drive to NY, I'm greeted by the owner, who's always in the mood to chat, doesn't mind grinding as much grain (or as little) as I ask for, gives my daughter a cookie, helps me bring stuff out to my car. If I drive to Northampton, MA, I've greeted by a couple guys who are pretty condescending, who tell me that I really should have called my grain order in ahead of time, I'm lucky no one else was in the store or they wouldn't be able to help me... blah blah blah. Guess which store I go to?
 
I like my LHBS. I sometimes get mixed feelings between the LHBS, teh internets, and random people. Cool thing is, I get to try out a lot of what people like to do and see what I like best. Our LHBS workers are brothers, owners, and operators. Both very nice, and if you are the only one in the store, and you wanna chit-chat, they will chit chat until the street lights come on.

I think I'm spoiled. I also tend to think their prices are about 5-10% more for everything, but I see it as supporting an in-town business, and I get the instant gratification of stuff. Plus I can call in a jam and see if they have stuff, or even ask a quick question.
 
hmmmmmm. i know who you're talkin about. cool chick to yap with, but i wasn't paying attention when she crushed my grains awhile back for my now drinking brown. it came out lot darker than i expected, taste didn't come out as expected either. chocolately. still a really nice beer, but i suspect there may have been too much choc malt in there.
 
LBbrew said:
hmmmmmm. i know who you're talkin about. cool chick to yap with, but i wasn't paying attention when she crushed my grains awhile back for my now drinking brown. it came out lot darker than i expected, taste didn't come out as expected either. chocolately. still a really nice beer, but i suspect there may have been too much choc malt in there.
I'm guessing you're in Long Beach?
 
yeah. they've been buggin me too. prices and my overall experience in there has changed. For that same batch i was talkin about they were out of english ale yeast and cali yeast:confused: , and i was lookin to make a starter and drove all the way to oshea's for the yeast. do you know of any other shops locally? oshea's is a bit too far. i've been doing mail order lately.
 
LBbrew said:
yeah. they've been buggin me too. prices and my overall experience in there has changed.
Yeah, they guys that used to work there must be gone. They were great to chat with and knew their stuff. It's their service that has really sucked recently.
 
When I started out, I let my LHBS weigh & mill my grain. Since I've gotten a grain mill, I don't let anyone weigh or mill anything.

I buy from Northern Brewer (I'm in Louisiana - only a 3 day UPS ship and the staff is great).

Just put on order: Do NOT crush grains - bag separately.

This way I can also weigh everything and know it's right. If I mess up, it's on me.
 
So today I went to the morebeer.com store in Riverside, CA, partially to get the pale chocolate malt that my LHBS doesn't carry and also to get the correct grain bill for a replacement brew of the Scottish Ale mentioned earlier in this thread. The store was smaller than I thought it would be, but they still had everything in there. I weighed out my own grain, making sure to only have 2 oz. of roasted barley in there. The guys in the store were nice and helpful and seemed to know their stuff. If it wasn't so far I'd definately shop there more often.
 
drayman86 said:
We're fortunate here in that there are 2 LHBS's in the general area. One, Things Beer, is located within Michigan Brewing Company. The staff are all avid homebrewers, and occasionally the owner or brewmaster is hanging around. It's great to have access to knowledgeable people, and they carry as complete a line of grains and equipment as I've ever seen.

http://www.michiganbrewing.com/mbc.htm

Plus, it's always a good excuse to stop in the pub for a pint when you're picking up the grain bill for the next batch. :mug:

Yup that place is cool a bit over priced but the cool factor make's up for that.Ever check out the red salamander? Karl is pretty cool plus I live 5 mile's away.
 
So I'm resurrecting this thread. The beer that resulted in this thread has been in the keg for a few weeks and I have been drinking it pretty much daily. It is listed as LHBS Screw Up Stout in my sig, but it is actually something crossed between and brown and a porter. I mashed high so there is plenty of body and the Scottish Ale yeast leaves some sweetness to it. The half pound or so (I still don't know exactly how much) of roasted barley gives a little roastedness to it, while the sweetness makes it seem almost like bittersweet chocolate. This beer is actually really good! :p It's still not what I initially intended, but it's a pleasant mistake. It's very drinkable, not too carbonated and due to the lower gravity it is easy to drink several pints. Now if I could just get the keg empty so I can put the real intended beer in it...
 

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