Is it worth it to buy bulk grains?

[iglehart]

A nice container for grains is the vital vault. Its expensive but a nice container.

 

[milldoggy]

Just an fyi, two 5 gallon buckets will not hold 55 lb sacks, but one 7 g and one 5 g will. I repurposed a bunch of old ferm buckets for grain storage. Also, once you snap on a gamma seal lid, I do not think it comes off.

 

[Puddlethumper]

I have since been storing my grains in freezer bags...in the freezer. A 1 gallon bag will hold 4 lbs. This makes it easy to pull smaller quantities so that the rest stays frozen. Is this a bad idea???

I suppose weevils won't likely develop in specialty grains that are kilned or roasted.

Forgot to address your question about freezing, and yes, storing any grain product in the freezer is a good way to eliminate stored food pests. 10 days at 0F will kill all stages including the eggs. Once they've been through that cold treatment you can move them to a sealed storage container without concern for them hatching out.

All of the malts we use have been through a kiln. It is part of the malting process. So if we get bugs in our grain the infestation had to have started at some point after the malting process.

 

[ChiechiBrouw]

I have no LHBS, so I buy all my base malts in 25 kg sacks. I just stick them in a cabinet right in the sack they came in. Brewing about once a month (20 L) I've never had a problem. Ikea sells really nice sealable containers for the specialty malts, which I buy 1 or 5 kg at a time.

However, a few months ago our house was taken over by cigarette beetles. We couldn't figure out where they were coming from until one day I got the bright idea to look in my brew supply cabinet. I had a 5 kg sack of malted wheat that I hadn't touched in forever and, upon close inspection, there was a tiny hole drilled into almost every grain. About 1/4 of the bag was filled with dead beetles... yuck. They didn't touch any of the barley malts though.

The lesson I learned was to use sealed containers and to keep my inventory lean Even tossing old malts (and hops) occasionally I still come out ahead price-wise than if I bought for one or two batches at a time.

 

[Beernik]

Forgot to address your question about freezing, and yes, storing any grain product in the freezer is a good way to eliminate stored food pests. 10 days at 0F will kill all stages including the eggs. Once they've been through that cold treatment you can move them to a sealed storage container without concern for them hatching out.

This is great info. This has been one of my main concerns with bulk purchase.

 

[Puddlethumper]

This is great info. This has been one of my main concerns with bulk purchase.

LOL, glad to be of some help. And so you'll know I'm not some dude talking out his a**, I own a pest control company. Cheers!

 

[LovesIPA]

That is excellent info. Thanks for posting it.

 

[ObsidianJester]

I buy bulk base grains for about $35 per 50lb bag. Well worth it. I store in Lowes white buckets with Gamma lids. I can get ~25lbs in each pail.

I also buy bulk hops. It's more than worth it. It's close to half the price depending on what hops you buy. I've got 16lbs in my freezer.

I do nearly the very same thing. I may buy a lot of 1 oz packages of hops however but I am doing some bulk packs. I'll see if vacuum sealing the 1oz amounts leads to loss of flavor, bitterness or aroma.

I got some bins very very similar to these : http://www.target.com/p/sterilite-c...le/-/A-13794491#prodSlot=medium_1_20&term=bin

Those are the bins that I store my smaller use grains in, the flavor and color additions. I have about a dozen of them and they store up to about 5 pounds.

 

[Puddlethumper]

I do nearly the very same thing. I may buy a lot of 1 oz packages of hops however but I am doing some bulk packs. I'll see if vacuum sealing the 1oz amounts leads to loss of flavor, bitterness or aroma.

I started buying hops by the pound a year or so ago. I do make it a point to only buy those hops that I use a lot such as EKG, Fuggles, Willamette, Cascade, Mt. Hood etc. It provides a bank of hops to draw from through about the year I intend to keep them. All are stored in Food Saver vacume sealed bags, 6 oz. each in the freezer in the garage. I figure this is at least as good as the storage practices of the hops producers. (After all, they only get one crop each year and have to store them somehow while waiting to ship them to us.).

I have noticed no appreciable loss of viability or flavor in my older hops (last year's). However, I admit to using 1 1/2 oz. Cascade in the Cream Ale I made tonight instead of 1 oz. because the hops were last year's crop.

 

[cockybitz]

I have just one bag of base malt. I got 55lb of maris otter for $47, so it works out for me to just use that.

The last bag lasted me 3 years.

Walmart sells containers that seal tight enough for me. I store them in my dry basement at about 60* year round.

there are really only about 15 malt types. You may find many more, but it is trademark name of what is really the same malts. I keep enough for about 2 batches worth of need from any specialty malts. The container is not exactly air tight, but some zip locks will fix that.

 

[rico567]

Normally I brew Spring and Fall. I brew maybe 7-8 x 5 gallon batches a year, so my grain needs aren't nearly that of people who are brewing 10 or more gallons at a time, and making who knows how much...well, let's not go there.
I usually make an order for a brewing season consisting of a bag of 2-row, and then the other grains I need and relevant supplies. If I forget something common, there's a wall in a big beverage mart locally that has beer & wine making supplies, so I can grab it there. This way I can make only a few online orders per year and minimize costs.

 

[jbaysurfer]

Normally I brew Spring and Fall. I brew maybe 7-8 x 5 gallon batches a year, so my grain needs aren't nearly that of people who are brewing 10 or more gallons at a time, and making who knows how much...well, let's not go there.
I usually make an order for a brewing season consisting of a bag of 2-row, and then the other grains I need and relevant supplies. If I forget something common, there's a wall in a big beverage mart locally that has beer & wine making supplies, so I can grab it there. This way I can make only a few online orders per year and minimize costs.

You kind of went there though didn't ya? There is a LONG ways between the volume you're brewing and what a household with 2 (or more) adults can legally make. I do not exceed any legal limits and yet I go through 5 bags of basemalt easily every year. Compared to paying by the pound retail, that saves me several hundred dollars per year.

Going bulk is an easy decision for LOTS of LEGAL homebrewers.