I found that thinking in terms of recipes resulted in a lot of widowed and, ultimately, wasted leftovers. Why do I have 12oz of honey malt? How long has this been here and how do I possibly get rid of 12oz of honey malt?!
Instead, I prefer to think like a brewery. That is, I think about what my portfolio of beers is--in my case, it's UK-heavy with some lagers in the cooler months, then the reverse in warmer months. There's a low velocity, but steady undertow of US styles throughout the year and a seasonal wheat that I brew each Spring. With that knowledge, I can stock the malts, hops, (and ranch/stock the yeast) necessary to brew that portfolio.
I stock three core base malts that I buy by the sack and store in Vittles Vaults--quality pils, Otter, and US 2-row. I break up my specialty/character malts into high and low velocity malts. For high velocity stuff I keep 5-10lb of light and dark Munich, Vienna, corn, rice, wheat, and brown malt available. I use Vienna, Corn, and light Munich throughout the year, so those are ten-pounders. Dark Munich and Brown are high velocity, but seasonal, so they're 5lbers. Rice gets used at a 1:2 ratio to corn, so it's also a 5lber.
I buy the low velocity stuff by the pound, low velocity stuff being: light, medium, and dark UK C-malt, chocolate malt, Victory/Amber, Melanoiden, roast barley, carahell, carapils, and rice hulls. The C and cara malts are generally purchased by the pound, the roasted stuff is typically purchased in 2lb increments in late summer to get ready for dark beer season.
I also have a
limited number of malts that I'm experimenting with, one, maybe two each year. Some stick around, like Midnight Wheat, others get used up and forgotten--looking at you roasted oats. Others get used once and thrown in the trash--Special B. I buy these by the pound. That's plenty to give you a feel for the malt.
All of my character malts are stored in gasketed, air-tight bins as you can see in the attached photo. Those bins can take just shy of 5lbs each. Stuff that I use in very small quantities, like Midnight Wheat, get vacuum sealed--it's in the big bin to the right of the Victory/Amber bin (also vacuum sealed). Don't skimp on quality storage vessels! A disgusting outbreak of weevils early in my brewing career convinced me of the importance of quality, gasketed vessels.
Behold! The entirety of my specialty malt holdings, I can brew 90% of every (good) recipe I've ever written with this and the base malts in my three Vittles Vaults.
Finally, I've found that it's really helpful to sharpie the month and year onto everything that I bring into my brewery. In anticipation of a brewing season, or perhaps to hit a free shipping threshold, I may have 2-3 sacks of, let's say, Vienna on hand. Having the date sharpied onto each sack allows me to know which to use first and it also affords me the opportunity to audit my burn rate--do I really need multiple sacks of Vienna? This one is three years old, maybe it's something I should buy in 1lb increments? etc.
Anyway, that's what I've learned so far. I hope it's useful to you and it spares you some of the money that I wasted learning this the hard way.
And the weevils,
especially the weevils.
