Piss poor crush from Midwest

Ordered all crushed grains. Will have to get the ol' corona mill out for this batch. I wanted to post this as a heads up for no one to order from Midwest if you don't have a mill as a backup. I wouldn't have ordered from them, but they were the only ones with Citra in stock!

 

wow looks like they just jumped up and down on it lol.

 

You could get a better crush with a rolling pin!

 

Have you contacted them directly? My sense, based on previous threads, is that Midwest has good customer service and makes good on errors like this.

 

Seconded. Midwest has always been very helpful when I've had any issues.

 

While they kinda screwed up my recent purchase of the (Living Social Deal) Beginner's 5 gal kit by not including the hydrometer, or bottling tube..then my 'adjunct' order included 2-row, but they sent 6-row...

They have credited me the value of the hyro, and given me 600 points on my account ($15) to make up for it, so we cool

I think their recent living social deal which sold up to 4000 kits put a hurting on them in terms of picking / packing orders.

 

It looks like they forgot to crush them. If you have a mill, why are you ordering your grains crushed?

 

I had the same thing happen a couple weeks ago from Austin Homebrew supply. I ordered 2 grain bills, both crushed. They were the same bills (I am doing an experiement where everything is the same except the yeast). One bag had a good crush and the other was very poor. It was like they came from different places. I just took the bad one to my LHS and they let me run it through their mill.

 

hahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahaha. Man, you opened up a pandora's box with this thread. Ask me how I know.......




http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/midwest-supplies-grain-mill-read-before-ordering-266846/

 

All AG brewers should own their own mill. Don't trust anyone else to crush your grain.

 

The primary reason for this post is to reiterate the issue people have been having with the grain crush at Midwest. It is clearly known to them that this is an issue and they haven't addressed it.

For a store catering to us homebrewers, this is a fatal flaw in the scheme to sell more grains by lowering our efficiencies and having us miss our target gravity.

Sure they may make good on this, but for one of me there are probably 20 people who just have to deal with it.

May those hindering our ability to make the very best brew we can pay the price!

 

Are you sure it's known to them?? I find that strange as they have amazing customer service. I'll go ahead and forward this link to them and see what their response is.

 

Yeah. Brewing supplies is a niche market. I'm fairly certain their reputation is far more important to them than it is to us. If I were running a business I'd certainly appreciate the opportunity to correct my mistakes before being slammed in a public forum. Now, ATT on the other hand.....

 

I actually just got an AG order from midwest supplies this week and the bag was ripped open when packed spilling all over inside the box. An email to their customer service and they quickly responded and are sending a new bag of grains.

I was pretty impressed with their customer service.

 

They responded very quickly to me via Twitter when the hopper to the mill I purchased there was damaged during shipping. A new one was sent out the next day.

 

I lost some good feeling about Midwest when they canceled 2 out of 5 reviews I made. Both were somewhat negative so they only accepted the positive ones.

Makes the reviews there kind of valueless to me. Not like Amazon who post the good and the bad.

 

They have messed up both of my orders so far:

1. Beer kit was shipped without hydrometer or bottling tube
2. 1lb of 2row came in a baggie with 6row written on it.

That said, they have been great at crediting my account, but id much rather smooth transactions and never having to talk to them

 

Hi guys,

Thanks for posting this thread. We always like to hear feedback from our customers. I have made the guys in the mill room, and the floor manager aware of the problem. They assured me that they are going to look into it today. I apologize for any trouble anyone has encountered as a result of a poor crush from our mills.

As noted by one of the previous posts, we have had some issues with our mills in the past, and we took corrective action at that time. You will notice that the last thread was from 2011. Since then we replaced all of our mills, and that seemed to correct the problem. It appears that the mills may need to be serviced again.

Again, I apologize for the trouble. Please feel free to contact us via email, phone, or live chat with any problems like this. We are always more than happy to correct the problem when we are at fault. We are definitely not in the business of intentionally messing up brew days. Our grain room can process several hundred grain orders a day at times, and unfortunately we can miss that the crush is off.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Cheers,

Nick @ Midwest.

 

You obviously have never checked us out!

 

I apologize if you felt that we censored you. What may have happened is that we only approve two reviews, per customer, per day. This is because we are awarding rewards points for customer reviews. What generally happens is the first two posts made on a given day are the ones to be approved, and any subsequent posts are not approved.

If that was not what happened in your case I apologize. We definitely want to give our customers an accurate representation of the products that we carry. We use those ratings ourselves as a way to monitor what products should stay, and which should be discontinued.

Sorry if you lost any loving feeling towards us because of that...

 

Awee, I still heart you, Midwest.

I'd heart you even more if you came up with a flat rate shipping program.

 

At least they credit or make right in their orders.

Went with another vendor (not midwest), with that different vendor I had an issue with damaged hops, and was left out in the cold. So any vendor who makes an honest correction action gets a plus one in my book.

Things go wrong at times low number of complaints, but seems midwest takes the effort to help out unsatisfied customers.

 

They're fine. In other threads, they've had some order fulfillment issues lately with their sales and employees being out with the flu. I had a great recent hops order through them and I had to wait a day or two extra for the shipping update. By then, the box had already arrived so no harm, no foul. It looks to me like your grains went out uncrushed. I'd double check my invoice and then just call them if they screwed something up. They're usually great about fixing problems with orders. At least you do have a grain mill and won't be using the rolling pin on them.

 

The rollers in their grain mills take quite a bit of wear. Perhaps it would be a good idea to just impose a scheduled replacement or calibration every 6 months or so. It would only take a minute or so for an employee to run a feeler gauge down in to check the gap every so often.


What I don't understand is where are all the people who just want to trash a guy for not having a grain mill?

For all you who trashed me on the thread I made a couple years ago-

You can eat my MM3 that I bought at Northern Brewer after that.

 

I will get equipment from Midwest but I excessively buy ingredients from Northern.

 

I just got grain from Brewmaster and the crush looked questionable as well. I hit all my temps perfectly and still only got 65% efficiency. I usually get over 75%. Very disappointed.

 

Thank you for looking into this. I feel as you do have great customer service from what I have read and prompt responses on inquiries.

It seems that this issue comes up every once and a while. I suggest you impose a QA schedule on your mills. I can't imagine how much product you are shipping out, but just a glance at these grains would have shown a major issue in the crush.

 

I have to adjust my mill after 200 lbs (one year). I cannot imagine how much grain goes through theirs.

 

***update***

2 brew days ruined.

While now that they've "corrected" my order - the grains arrived today uncrushed. Original order was for crushed. I do not have a mill - guess I'll be buying one from Northern Brewer. I think Midwest Supplies shipping department should be on Northern Brewers payroll!

Wow.

 

I agree buy your own mill if you full grain brew. For me, as a dedicated partial masher I let my trusty Brew Shop mill mine http://www.ucanbrewtoo.com/

 

Oh Yeah..... Here they come now......

 

Sorry....
Cheesy plug...........

 

LandoLincoln was spot on with his reply +1

 

Why even bother buying grains online? Aren't they cheaper in person?

The only thing substantially cheaper online that I can find (with shipping even) is flaked corn, and I'll only be using a little here or there.

 

Ha! The cheapest grain at my LHBS (2-row) is about $2.50 per pound!

And yes, if you are doing all-grain, buy a mill. That way you know exactly what gap your mill is set to.

 

Yeesh. 2-row costs me $0.77/lb by the whole sack plus tax. All specialty grains at $1.80/lb plus tax.

And that's California prices! Nearest maltier is... what... Washinton (Great Western)? That's further than the OP from Midwest.

Turns out exactly 1# of barley fits in a quart mason jar, so I came home with 24 lbs of specialty grain. A nice assortment. Vacuum sealed in the mason jar, I'm sure the stuff last forever.

 

Nice! Yeah I ended up just going to Northern Brewer in Minneapolis (90 minutes from me) and getting a sack of 2-row. Then I get the special grains from LHBS or when I order something online.

Those prices at my LHBS make me want to open a store up and put them to shame! They focus on wine making, and are the only LHBS in the area. I think the next closest one is Midwest or Northern Brewer actually.

 

There does exist a certain sub-population of the brewing community that doesn't live near a hbs, ya know.

 

No there isn't. Everyone lives 5 minutes from a homebrew shop and they all should have their own grain mill if they are brewing all grain.

 

With shipping included, yeah, it's cheaper to buy from the local store. However...my local store doesn't have the greatest selection of grains.