How stable is my uncrushed grain?

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orford

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Greetings all, I stored two fermentation buckets (lids on but the airlock ports were open) worth of grain in my basement for about a week now (was planning on brewing last weekend but ran out of time). It has been pretty humid here and my basement has held around 75-80% humidity. I was thinking I would brew this weekend so I went down to check some things tonight. The grain feels dry but smells a bit off, not musty really but a bit like brick weed, herbal would be a good description. Any thoughts on whether this would be a bad idea to brew with? Unfortunately it is two batches worth of grain, one a Pilsner the other a Vienna Lager, fortunately it is just the grain so really only $20 per batch at most. My concern is that both are lighter beers and thus any imperfections or off favors would be even more perceptible. Thoughts? Would you brew with it or just toss and pick up fresh grain?


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My guess would be your grain is fine....a week in a bucket with a small hole at in the lid at basement humidity doesn't seem that harmful to me....
 
E-mail the maltster and ask him. Malt kept in a controlled environment has a shelf life of 18 months.
 
Tasted some of the grain tonight, still nice and nutty/malty. I think everything is fine.


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Experimental Brewing just did an experiment using milled grain held for 1 month. There was virtually no noticeable difference between that and freshly milled grain.
 
Well, I hope not, because I just brewed a batch with grain that had been stored in 5 gallon buckets (with lid) for over three years uncrushed...

Milled it, brewed with it, and exceeded my efficiency target.... Ferment is slow starting though.... but it's with an all new set up so I don't know what 'normal' is yet.....

But everything smelled great, and I just ate a grain and it was crunchy and sweet...

Soooo....
 
I've got about 300# in poly drums that are air tight that are over a year old without problems - still tastes fresh!
 
I am surprised you didn't have bugs in it, unless you kept cold or previously froze it. I have had newly purchased grain be infested from the shop, with merchant beetles hatching after a couple weeks at room temp inside a sealed bag.
 
About 3 months ago I had the same question about a big bag of un-milled Maris Otter that was ~18 months old. It was stored in an airtight pet food bin. I decided to go ahead and try an Irish Stout with it and it came out great. I've since brewed a Welsh ale with it and I think that will be fine also.
 
E-mail the maltster and ask him. Malt kept in a controlled environment has a shelf life of 18 months.

Indeed!



Experimental Brewing just did an experiment using milled grain held for 1 month. There was virtually no noticeable difference between that and freshly milled grain.

Milled grain has stability of up to 1 year also.
 
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