How long will crushed grain keep?

Noobish move on my part...got my AG equipment together in a rush and completely forgot that I needed to get my keggle cut & cleaned. The LHBS already crushed the grains (nice folk that they are), and they're currently in a heavy-duty paper grain bag that's taped closed.

Seeing as I may not be able to get the keggle thing figured out for another week or so, how long should most grain stay fresh in 65-70, low humidity?

It should be fine for a couple of weeks. If you put it in a plastic bag, and keep it cooler, it'll last longer.

Freeze it, freezer bag + Tupperware.

Before my wife gifted me with a barley crusher for Christmas (bless her!) I kept my crushed grain in the freezer portion of my keggerator.

I kept crushed grain in one of the orange paint buckets with the sealed lids from Home Depot for 2 weeks. It was perfectly fine.

+3 on a few weeks. i order my batches 3 or 4 at a time and some sit for a month. FWIW, country malt recommends using its pre-crushed within 3 months.

I had grain from a PM oatmeal stout in an air-sealed bag, in a Tupperware container, in the freezer that kept fine for 2 months.

how long should most grain stay fresh in 65-70, low humidity?

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few weeks if sealed up

Sorry to re-hash this lads, but I'm in a pickle: I'm typing this with one hand seeing as the other has 2 broken knuckles (got into it with a certain family member yesterday...don't ask).

Long story long, I'm not brewing for at least a month or 2. These grains have been sitting in the freezer for a week now, and I'm just starting to think they're a lost cause if I can't get them into a brew soon. Any thoughts on whether or not to cut my losses or should they keep for that long (again, milled about a week ago).

Put it in a zip lock and remove as much of the air from it as you can. Store the grain in your freezer until you brew day, you should be fine for a month.
You can also pop a few pieces into you mouth and taste if they have gone stale. It's kinda like how you can tell the difference between fresh & stale potato chips.

you are fine brew the beer whenever you get the chance

You are good to go..........However, it's always a good move to persuade the missus that she needs a foodsaver, they are very handy.

Foodsavers are great for saving money on meat, hops, and crushed grain.

I resuse bags for crushed grain all the time.

I kept a crushed brown porter grain bill in a plastic garbage bag sealed with a cable tie in my basement for a month. Everyone said it was the best porter I ever brewed....

Either my other attempts sucked or the grain was no worse for the wear.

Based on my experience, I feel comfortable within 3 months. Just using plastic bags and a cool, dry place, I've used pre-crushed base grains up to 6 months out. I wouldn't recommend it but it turned out ok. There was a certain "meh" to the beer that I blame on how stale the grain was. I once used some pre-crushed chocolate malt I forgot I had a year after the crush. I looked it over well for any sort of mold or critters and didn't find any. That beer turned out great.

hal2814 said:

Based on my experience, I feel comfortable within 3 months. Just using plastic bags and a cool, dry place, I've used pre-crushed base grains up to 6 months out. I wouldn't recommend it but it turned out ok. There was a certain "meh" to the beer that I blame on how stale the grain was. I once used some pre-crushed chocolate malt I forgot I had a year after the crush. I looked it over well for any sort of mold or critters and didn't find any. That beer turned out great.

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Keeping crushed base grain for an extended period is obviously a bad thing.

However, mellowing out a strong taste profile grain like chocolate malt might be considered a process in a particular recipe of your own making. An aged and weaker tasting chocolate grain might make an interesting speciality grain IMO.

What about uncrushed. I was thnking of picking up a 55lb bag of base grain. Wondering how fast I would have to use it.

I used grain at the 9 month range - friend says it's ok - I say it's skanky!

eppo said:

What about uncrushed. I was thnking of picking up a 55lb bag of base grain. Wondering how fast I would have to use it.

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I used crushed grains that were sealed in a bag after 6 weeks and everything was fine. I did the taste and smell test.

i buy all my grain in bulk and crushed. some of it is a couple months old by the time i use it. i keep it in sealed bags and haven't noticed any staling or off flavors

Throw it in the freezer you're set for a while.

I know this is an old thread, but for prosperity, I'll mention that I brewed 4 10gal batches of beer in my new bewery, forgetting that the grain was out of date by 2 years.

The beer had little head, and just tasted totally one dimensional. Like a glass of water sugar with a stale twist. Brews a year ago were also not up to my expectations.

Resurrection because I was seeking verification for what I've been doing for some time now.

Northernbrewer has flat rate shipping so I order crushed grain bills, 4-6 batches at a time. Sometimes I'll brew that in a week, other times over several months.

Just cracked open a vanilla porter I made in August 2011 with grain crushed in December 2010. Bought enough grain to make 3 batches, the August was the last of it. Beer turned out EXCELLENT. It was the first time I've truly made an effort to properly age a heavy brew and it was totally worthwhile. The other two batches at 4 and 6 months aged were nowhere near as great as this.

Properly stored, away from oxidizers (sealed container, controlled environment) I suspect crushed grains will be fine 3 months out. At least in my experience, I have not noticed a discernible difference between grain brewed immediately after crushing and grain that's been stored for a couple months. And like I stated above, 8 months after crushing I brewed what turned out to be the best porter I've ever made.

Also resurrection: I accidentally left that entire bag of grain in my freezer in San Diego when I moved to central CA.

lol. how's the broken knuckles?

scrambledegg81 said:

Also resurrection: I accidentally left that entire bag of grain in my freezer in San Diego when I moved to central CA.

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Go back for it. It's not too late.

Gah...forgot about that. Knucks are fine, but the tarsal joint in my right pinky finger healed weird and I now have a funky looking bump in my palm over that joint.

scrambledegg81 said:

Sorry to re-hash this lads, but I'm in a pickle: I'm typing this with one hand

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I started reading this and was thinking "surely nobody loves brewing THAT much"?!!!

I was about to start a new thread, curious about keeping quality. Our local Home Brew Supply Shop would sell me a 50# bag of 2 row pale malt for $51 which makes it pretty cheap. I was not sure if would have been a good idea to have them crush it first in their professional crusher or rather I use the "grist" mill I have at home. It's one of those hand crank affairs that you put the grain in the top and crank and depending on how right the two metal plates are from each other determines the size of grind.

I could keep it in a sealed 6 gallon twist lid bucket that has a gasket on it and seals air tight, and in the Quonset over the winter. Summer might be a different story.

As an aside, Bell's Brewery, just down the road 40 miles from me, has some newer equipment which allows them to crush 2,000 pounds of malt in 4 minutes, which used to take them an hour to do before.

KhellendrosXS said:

Before my wife gifted me with a barley crusher for Christmas (bless her!) I kept my crushed grain in the freezer portion of my keggerator.

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I like this idea!

I've got a kit that'll be at least 4 more months old with crushed grain. Maybe I'll just add in another pound or two of fresh grain from the LHBS in hopes it masks any stale flavor that might be there. Nothing to lose at this point...

scrambledegg81 said:

Noobish move on my part...got my AG equipment together in a rush and completely forgot that I needed to get my keggle cut & cleaned. The LHBS already crushed the grains (nice folk that they are), and they're currently in a heavy-duty paper grain bag that's taped closed.

Seeing as I may not be able to get the keggle thing figured out for another week or so, how long should most grain stay fresh in 65-70, low humidity?

Click to expand...

Just last Sunday I brewed an American Wheat using some pale malt over two years old and white wheat pushing a year. Kept in a sealed plastic bucket at room temp. These had not been crushed until I used them. I had 80% efficiency on a biab mash.

Hops I used have been in my freezer going on two years. Centennial I had bought a pound of. They have been in a freezer bag with the air sucked out then wrapped in foil. I have made a few small batches with these over two years so they had been opened. Probably half a pound left.

Hops smelled and tasted fine, malt did too. I will keep you posted on the final product.

All the Best,
D. White

I bottled this today and it came out REALLY nice, at this point. Does not taste "stale" in any way. Bitterness is where I expected it to be.

Bottled with "Domino Dots" sugar cubes. Be interesting to see where this is in three weeks.

All the Best,
D. White

surely it is best to use it fresh, but brulosophy did an experiment on this very subject
http://brulosophy.com/2018/10/29/the-impact-of-age-on-crushed-malt-exbeeriment-results/
RDWHAHB

Am I the only one who is not surprised at the fact that Brulosophy's tasting panel was not able to detect any staleness in a beer that was conditioned for one whole week before being tested?
That beer was not even halfway to being ready to be served and not even a fourth of the way to being properly conditioned. I would love to see the same experiment done with a properly fermented and lagered Helles. These Brulosophy experiments are nothing but bad jokes...

If will be fine. People buy old ground coffee all the time and love it. A local coffee store here puts their whole bean coffee on 1/2 off beyond 2 weeks of roasting. Each to our own.

I prefer fresh but would never toss what you have. The starch is what you’re really after and that should be fine for quite some time if it stays dry. Brew and enjoy.

I'll take my first gravity reading today from a NB Ace of Spades all-grain kit I brewed up a couple weeks ago. The grain from the kit was crushed in mid-November. I added another couple of pounds of pale ale malt which was fresh in hopes it might lessen the "staleness" (if any). We'll see how it tastes.

My crushed grain lasts about 30 minutes. It’s nice to have ur own mill...lol

I just made a pale ale and used 1# of crushed crystal 60 from my brother. I didn't even think about it but he hasn't brewed in about a year. It actually smelled kinda raisin-y, more like 120, but my color came out as expected with C60.

We shall see how it turns out. I will bottle in another week.