Bulk Grain Buy!!!

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TwoHeadsBrewing

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Ok, so I'm going to full on geek out here about grain. It's my first time buying bulk grain...and let me say it's a beautiful thing. What's going to be more beautiful is when my Barley Crusher shows up on Monday!!! Anyways, snapped a few pics of the bulk grain buy and figured I'd share the pr0n. Many thanks to Jaybird for the hospitality, fantastic beer, and hooking us up on the grain!

8 bags of 2-row, 1 bag of Pale Ale malt, 1 bag of Crystal 60L:
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Sorry fellas, you'll have to come with us...
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Getting it home and in some homer buckets (4 bucks with lid at HD!):
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Bagged and zip tied, then lids snapped on...think this is good enough for storage?
sth70663.jpg
 
Say, that looks familiar!
yaygrain.jpg


Tomorrow's brew will be the last with store crush. woohoo!
Thanks jay for helping us out, and for the delicious brew. I'm still drooling over your brewstand - awesome setup

brewstand.jpg
 
Nice! Were gonna do that out here soon too... tell me about these buckets? Home Depot? 4$? how big are they? Im intrigued
 
they're the "homer" general use buckets that home depot sells. Each 5 gallon bucket is just about perfect for half a sack of grain. I definitely need to get some for myself, seeing as right now they're taking up pretty much the last of the available floorspace in my office. can't even get to the computer to browse hbt!
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Nice! Were gonna do that out here soon too... tell me about these buckets? Home Depot? 4$? how big are they? Im intrigued

Yep, those are 5 gallon buckets...and they have an HDPE #2 stamp on them which means they are food safe. Just to be sure I lined them with a trash bag. They each hold 25# of grain, so work perfectly for a 50# sack. I bought 5 for a grand total of $20 + tax - total deal. Not sure if the lids are air tight, but they sure do snap down tightly. I suppose you could run a bead of silicone caulking on the inside on the lid to make them air tight...I might do just that for some peace of mind. Cheers!
 
I was so glad to be able to put it together for you guys. Next time we need to make a brewday out of it, and maybe split up a sack of white wheat?
Looking good guys.
I am mashed in and brewing like a MO-FO! Its gonna be a looooong day here at California Brewing Company.
Caspio glad to finely meet you. Next time you come up I want to try your brown or the amber.
THB the IIPA “Fan Freeken Tastic bro!!! Major brewing success!
Cheers
JJ
 
haha yep, I'm brewing as well. Brewing isn't as fun when you don't have a garage and it's raining, but I'll persevere. I just tried step mashing with steam for the first time. great success! did a protein rest and then when it finished raised the mash up to 150 with steam, worked like a charm. Time for mash out at 1:00
 
Killer bro thats bad A$$ I want to play around w/ steam at some point. What are you brewing?
So THB is playing w/ the inlaws today hah.......That suckerrrrr!!!!LOL

Cheers
JJ
 
Killer bro thats bad A$$ I want to play around w/ steam at some point. What are you brewing?
So THB is playing w/ the inlaws today hah.......That suckerrrrr!!!!LOL

Cheers
JJ

hehe, not really...just doing some last minute xmas shopping and preparing the house for madness. But later this evening I'll be having dinner with my sisters, BILs, parents, and all their kids. Let the christmas festivities begin! I'm jealous of you guys...ah well, maybe next weekend I can give you guys a hard time when I'm brewing! We seriously need to organize a group brew day...maybe the latter half of January?
 
Damn that is sexy. I can't wait until tax time to stock up on a few bags of 2 row and some specialty grain. It would totally kick a$$ to be able to brew without making a trip to the LHBS every time.
 
Damn that is sexy. I can't wait until tax time to stock up on a few bags of 2 row and some specialty grain. It would totally kick a$$ to be able to brew without making a trip to the LHBS every time.

That's what I'm trying for, altough I still need to stock up on some hops and dry yeast. Once I get that stuff I'll be all set for whenever the urge to brew hits me!
 
I brewed a light wheat beer. 5 gallons for me, and 5 for my sister who turns 21 next month. I have to say, i'm really happy with how the steam infusion worked in mashing. made it really easy to control temps. worked waaay better than my herms setup.

Unfortunately, I don't think the way i currently have the steam generator set up is going to work. Basically my idea was to wind a bunch of 1/4" copper underneath the skirt of my HLT keg, the idea being that it would be sort of integrated for supplying steam or hot water. This worked great for while I was running water through it, but later I stopped running steam and was just heating water in the hlt. The portion of copper tube that was directly in the flame from the burner literally burned away :eek:

Here's the copper coil wound under the skirt of the keg. When the keg is resting on a burner it sits flat.
coppercoil.jpg


Here's the valve where cold water enters. The plastic adapter is something that came with my activated charcoal water filter, lets me just plug the blue plastic hose from the filter in with no leaks.
steamvalve.jpg


And finally, here's a closeup of the failed copper. As long as i was running water through it (or had the burner off) it worked like a champ. as soon as i killed the water and kept the burner on for awhile, it died.
copperfail.jpg
 
Holy crap man! Is that all soot from the burner, or burned up copper? I didn't know those burners put out enough heat to actually melt copper. Dang, wish I'd been there to see the steam infusion system. It cracks me up though, that you had both a HERMS and steam infusion setup at the same time!
 
most of the soot on the kettle is from a poorly adjusted burner. they get water in them and you just can't set it right. the black cracked stuff on the tubing itself is (I think) copper that was basically burned away.

I actually was doing a sort of combo herms/steam, i had the pump going recirculating wort just out the bottom of the mash tun and back in the top to help even out temps.
 
Yep, those are 5 gallon buckets...and they have an HDPE #2 stamp on them which means they are food safe. Just to be sure I lined them with a trash bag. They each hold 25# of grain, so work perfectly for a 50# sack. I bought 5 for a grand total of $20 + tax - total deal. Not sure if the lids are air tight, but they sure do snap down tightly. I suppose you could run a bead of silicone caulking on the inside on the lid to make them air tight...I might do just that for some peace of mind. Cheers!

The lids I bought at HD have an o ring on them. They look different than the one's you have. They were in the paint section and look just like the lids on 5 gallon paint pails.
 
Just a word of warning. You might be lining the food-safe HDPE bucket with non-food-safe trash bags. I think it was when I was doing research on brining turkeys that I read trash bags are not food safe. You might want to do a little research of your own and make a decision.
 
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