Homebrew store offering only crushed

I am trying to settle a bet - My buddy claims that a homebrew store only offering crushed grain is just fine but I argue that you would HAVE to offer both crushed and uncrushed grain. Whatchya think?

 

I would never buy pre-crushed grain. I always want to be sure the crush is fresh so I do it myself within 24 hours of starting the brew session, usually as I heat the mash.

 

You would need to offer both. 1 for the guy with his own mill and the other for the guy who doesn't own a mill obviously. I've done both at the LHBS depending on how much time i've got or how lazy i'm feeling. If only pre-crushed was offered i think you'd miss out on a lot of guys wanting to buy bulk grain.

 

They really need to offer both. Those that have a mill would want to crush their own just before they brew. I do not have a mill because my LHBS has a good mill that produces a very nice crush. I just go in the evening before I am going to brew, get my grains and crush them there. Works fine for me. Of course it is super easy because the store is about a mile from my house.

 

"Crushed" is a very relative term and it can mean a lot in terms of efficiency and freshness of ingredients. I wouldn't go back to buying anything pre-crushed because I'm sure of when and how it was processed if I do it myself.

 

I can't think of a good reason why a store would only offer crushed grain. It's less work for them to sell unmilled grain, and there is obviously a demand for it. I usually buy more grains than what I need so that I have some in reserve if I decide to do a brew unexpectedly. I wouldn't want to store milled grains for any length of time. Even if I did buy the exact amount I needed for a recipe, I'd put the milled grain into my grain mill anyhow so that I could have the same crush I'm used to, since I base my recipes off of my efficiency that I'm used to, and the crush is a large part of that.

In short, I think it's a ridiculous notion for a HBS to only offer milled grain.

 

My concern with a store that only offers crushed grain is the disconnection between their mind and reality. I would wonder what other things make sense to them, like selling Play-Doh for use in your mash or Dawn dish soap for cleaning your fermenter.

 

Wait.... so I shouldn't use Dawn for cleaning my fermenters? that might explain the soapy taste in all my beers

The play-doh in the mash however, is awesome. Haven't had a stuck mash since I started using play-doh. Have to use Yellow though, it's the only one that works.


/sarcasm

 

They shouldn't crush all their grains. I crush my own in store, usually the night or two nights before I brew.

 

So let me get this straight... I walk into the LHBS and tell them I'm there to pick up a sack of MO and they tell me "just give us a minute while we crush it for you." I'm sitting there like WTF?!?! No, I want a sack of MO. This is going to be my base grain for my next 2-3 10G batches. If they insisted on crushing it there I'm out the door. Out the door.

 

Ditto all.

 

Sometimes I think the things that are most in the way to the advancement of the hobby are the local home brew shops. Don't get me wrong, I am glad they exist, but I have seen so much bad info come from them it is amazing.

I don't have any good lhbs here in my town, but if I went into one that told me i could only get crushed I would walk right out the door.

 

Our LHBS has all pre-crushed. However, if you want bulk, no problem with getting it unmilled. Everything in the showroom however is already done.

 

How long are these milled grains sitting in the showroom before being purchased? Do they include the date of crush on the bags of grain?

 

Are the crushed grains just sitting out in the air? Sealed somehow?

 

Oh my goodness. Why would they reduce the self-life of their inventory like that?

 

I know some small breweries purchase their grain pre-crushed. It might be that this hypothetical HBS is buying their bulk grains the same way. So they aren't crushing it themselves (which, as said many times above, would be ridiculous).

 

I didn't get past the part where you said you can pick up a sack of MO from your LHBS haha...

 

Let me ask this, would you want to purchase a product from any company that required you first allowed them to alter the product to their own standards before selling it to you? Besides, if they are crushing them they are likely charging a premium for the service, so why would I want to pay them to do a crush that I am going to redo when I get home?

 

I'd be concerned that they crush everything when they get it, or at least open the bag. I'd be concerned about how long it's been since the grain was crushed.