Morebeer is awful

[Dgallo]

Morebeer suckered me in again by their free shipping on $35 or more because my LHBS Didn’t have any imperial A24 in stock so with the free shipping I made a deal with the devil. This time I’ve fully learned my lesson. Below are the pictures of “milled” grains. Less then 50% of the grains are milled in the base malt and less then 20% on the carapils.

 

[ChaosB]

Maybe this is a ploy to get you to buy a grain mill as well.

 

[mongoose33]

Wide gap.

One more instance that shows why, when people do all-grain, they should have their own mill. I know it's not that easy to budget for some, depending on where they are in their life cycle (my kids are grown, e.g.), but it's one of the things that can result in a major leap forward in brewing (others being things like fermentation temp control, water composition, etc.).

That is, when you have your own mill, YOU control the crush, not MoreBeer, no the LHBS....you.

*****

I think the Cereal Killer mill is a great price point--very good performance, capacity, and the price ($99 delivered) makes for a great price/quality/performance mill. I know someone will come on here and advocate for a Corona, but a 2-roller mill, IMO, is far superior, if you value your time and convenience.

Further, if you can buy malt in bulk, you can pay the thing off in relatively short time, meaning from then on you save money. A lot of LHBS will sell you malt by the sack; you can also get it online, and there are group buys and such. I'm fortunate in that I can get 55# sacks of Maris Otter for about $1/pound from Ritebrew; they have 2-row for 74 cents/pound in 50# sacks.

I have a friend who goes past Ritebrew on an occasional basis; he brings stuff back for me, so no shipping costs. I'm lucky that way, but there are ways to cut your grain costs down significantly.

So....do the math, see you can afford one through the savings from buying in bulk. I know that you not only have the cost of the malt up front as well as the mill.....but if you can, do it. It'll save you money in the long run, and the control you can exert over the process is considerable.

You can get fancy in how you store it or you can use garbage bags. Most malt sits in sacks in some warehouse for months on end, so provided you use it up in a relatively timely fashion....not the most crucial element of storing grain.

*****

I haven't done a lot of business with MoreBeer lately, though I bought a lot from them when I started brewing. I see these things occasionally about their performance and it seems it's slipped. Every once in a while I'll get the email about $25 off of a $150 order, which isn't a bad deal with the free shipping. Sadly, they don't include the Torpedo kegs in the eligible products.

Have they been bought out by someone in the BMC crowd?

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

MoreBeer didn't mill the grain. Blame BrewMaster, or perhaps BrewMaster just bagged the milled grain. It is possible to purchase 50lb (55lb, etc) bags of milled grain directly from the malster. Perhaps the malster is at fault.

 

[brewingmeister]

Just because you see a whole husk does not mean the grain inside is not milled.

 

[Dgallo]

Just because you see a whole husk does not mean the grain inside is not milled.

Lol are you taking me for an idiot?Think I’d go out of my way to post if I didn’t know for sure it was a bad crush. Get out of here with that sh!t.

 

[Soulshine2]

Morebeer suckered me in again by their free shipping on $35 or more because my LHBS Didn’t have any imperial A24 in stock so with the free shipping I made a deal with the devil. This time I’ve fully learned my lesson. Below are the pictures of “milled” grains. Less then 50% of the grains are milled in the base malt and less then 20% on the carapils. View attachment 627375View attachment 627376View attachment 627377View attachment 627378

simple fix, buy a mill.

 

[Dgallo]

MoreBeer didn't mill the grain. Blame BrewMaster, or perhaps BrewMaster just bagged the milled grain. It is possible to purchase 50lb (55lb, etc) bags of milled grain directly from the malster. Perhaps the malster is at fault.

If you’re in the retail market, selling to the consumer, you are the one at fault. Coming from the nursery industry where we retail as well, if I bought plants from a whole saler, and they ******* out, I wouldnt sell them or if I did, I’d take the blame because they bought it from me

 

[Dgallo]

Lots of captain obviousness today with the buy a mill lol. Convincing the wife I need another piece of equipment is other topic all in itself. Point of my post was to inform people who do not have a mill that they should look elsewhere when buying grains.

 

[mongoose33]

Lots of captain obviousness today with the buy a mill lol. Convincing the wife I need another piece of equipment is other topic all in itself. Point of my post was to inform people who do not have a mill that they should look elsewhere when buying grains.

Maybe obvious to you....but then, why don't you have a mill? Further, the argument might be useful for someone else even if the argument is lost on you. Sorry I soiled your thread.

As far as convincing your wife you need another piece of equipment....I don't do marriage counseling. I do know, however, that there is always something you could sell, or things you could give up paying for to do yourself, or stop with the daily latte for which you pay $5, or SOMETHING that could raise enough money to do this. Sell stuff on Craigslist, e.g.

That you know that you should have a mill, but don't despite clear ability to afford one (EVERYBODY can afford one), means you just want to complain.

Not that useful. Try a different tack.

 

[Dgallo]

Maybe obvious to you....but then, why don't you have a mill? Further, the argument might be useful for someone else even if the argument is lost on you. Sorry I soiled your thread.

As far as convincing your wife you need another piece of equipment....I don't do marriage counseling. I do know, however, that there is always something you could sell, or things you could give up paying for to do yourself, or stop with the daily latte for which you pay $5, or SOMETHING that could raise enough money to do this. Sell stuff on Craigslist, e.g.

That you know that you should have a mill, but don't despite clear ability to afford one (EVERYBODY can afford one), means you just want to complain.

Not that useful. Try a different tack.

And this is the point where a post digresses. You know what they say about assumptions right..

 

[Pappers_]

Hi @Dgallo That crush does look bad - yikes. That truly stinks. Do you have a friend with a mill that you could use to make this malt usable? Or maybe take it to your LHBS, confess your sins, buy a ton of something, and ask if you can run these through their mill?

In any case, I know you're not necessarily looking for solutions, just reporting on a bad experience. There is a place for that on HBT - the Company Reviews section. A separate thread for each company, so you can add your review and if someone is thinking about purchasing from a homebrew business, they can check out other HBT members' experiences in one place. This thread will eventually go dormant and drop out of sight, and won't serve the purpose of sharing your experiences, while members will always be able to find the company they're looking for and all the reviews in that section.

So, here's the MoreBeer.com thread in the Company Review section. You could just cut-and-paste your original post here over there. And thanks for sharing your experience - its one of the ways we help each other here at HBT!

 

[brownni5]

I like Morebeer - my second favorite online place to buy stuff!

 

[lowtones84]

I've never had a bad experience with morebeer. I also don't buy milled grain from them, but perhaps a more accurate thread title would be "milled grain from Morebeer is awful" instead of the whole company. There are plenty of mills that have very little footprint. I even went with the Victoria corn mill for a while and it did the job just fine.

 

[beernutz]

Morebeer is not awful. I've been using them since the 90s with dozens of purchases and never had a problem they didn't make right. How did they respond when you contacted them about the issue?

 

[ChaosB]

or stop with the daily latte for which you pay $5,

Ouch. Burn.

 

[Dgallo]

Ouch. Burn.

Yeah.. he got me good..

 

[matt_m]

Did I miss the part where you contacted them and they refused to do anything?

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

If you’re in the retail market, selling to the consumer, you are the one at fault. Coming from the nursery industry where we retail as well, if I bought plants from a whole saler, and they poopyted out, I wouldnt sell them or if I did, I’d take the blame because they bought it from me

So let MoreBeer know their supplier isn't milling as desired. How is MoreBeer to know unless we tell them? Based on my experience with MoreBeer they will make things right.

 

[Dgallo]

@matt_m They said that’s how their grain is crushed. I then asked if my email could be sent to someone in quality control and they did forward it up. Just got a confirmation it was received. We will see what happens

 

[grampamark]

Morebeer offers bulk grain milled or unmilled. There is no choice for choosing a particular grind. Coarsely ground grain can be milled again; once it's flour it's flour forever. They have to err on the conservative side.

The OP got what he ordered. That he didn't like what he received isn't our problem. He might have gotten a more supportive response from the peanut gallery here assembled if he had waited until he had worked his way through the customer support system before posting here.

 

[Pappers_]

The OP got what he ordered. That he didn't like what he received isn't our problem.

I don't think so. What he got was unusable - I presume he didn't order semi-crushed, unusable malt. And he's not suggesting its our problem, he's just sharing his experience, we can make our own determination on whether to do business with them or not.

I really don't get the responses to this thread. I understand that people have had good experiences with this company - I have no experiences, never purchased from them and have no axe to grind. But to come down on a member here for sharing his negative experience is a little weird. We all benefit when people share their reviews of their experiences with companies, good or bad.

Those of you who have had good experiences with MoreBeer.com, I urge you to follow the link in my post above and post your good review. I hope the OP will post his negative review.

I'm closing this thread. Take your reviews to the Company Reviews forum, please.