Pittsburgh/Western PA Group Buy - Round 2

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I appreciate the offer, but I pretty much have it handled. Two of the pallets are stocked on the shelves. The third is sitting out of the way for the time being. I think I found another shelf that I can consolidate. So I should be able to break the third pallet down to make everything accessible for pick up.
 
DMace,

I am on the other end of the spectrum. I can be there as early as you are willing to be there. If that's 7AM, that's awesome. I'll probably pull up earlier than that but will happily wait to 7.

Thank you guys for a great job!
 
DMace,

I am on the other end of the spectrum. I can be there as early as you are willing to be there. If that's 7AM, that's awesome. I'll probably pull up earlier than that but will happily wait to 7.

Thank you guys for a great job!

Yep, 7 works.
 
bja said:
What did they want?

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I let them know that I was paying for a bulk buy and that everyone was paying their split of the bill. Couldn't get in touch with barb but they notated my account. I let them know that there is a a good possibility that it will happen again in a few months.
 
So if you don't issue an invoice and just tell us what we owe and we send it to you, they would be OK with that? Could an invoice be generated in Excel or Open Office and sent to each purchaser outside of the PayPal system. All they see are transfers of money to you, they have no idea what the money is for and don't see the invoice to make them think we're paying you for services. Just thinking here, not looking for a way to make this system harder to administer, just a way to keep PayPal from giving us a hassle.
 
Didn't they in fact get paid a fee on most of the invoiced amounts? That's why we sent follow up "gifts" to you, right? Anyway, the grains are in and all is right in the world...
 
Well I told them what was going on and they said it wouldn't be an issue. Using the invoices through PayPal was easy because I entered all the different grains and prices once then just added the ID number and qty and it did the rest. I'm sure I could find another way to do it and not be any harder.

All is good.

I don't know exact numbers but a lot of people sent all the money as a gift and it was only 1 transaction from start to finish which was nice. It also saved the 3% that PayPal charges. I'm gonna search for another service but who knows. I could have swore I found one the other day but can't remember the name
 
Hey everyone, adamreef was kind enough to donate a pack of large heafty ziplocks for those who are in on the DME split. 5 lbs fits comfortably into each bag.

You'll still have to bring containers for everything else.
 
Picked up my grain today! WooHoo! Unable to brew till next weekend, but I don't have to get grain to do it. I hope this purchase will keep the pipeline flowing for 3-4 months. Thanks to Dand9066 for taking the lead and making this buy happen, thanks also to Dmace for taking delivery and organizing distribution of the bags. I'll be watching for the next buy!
 
are we allowed to pick up today? that would be better than saturday as i have the rest of the day off.
 
Picked up all my grain this morning. It was nice meeting Dale, Dylan, and the rest of guys that were there! Thanks again for setting this up and organizing!

Now I have to come up with some sort of storage/organization for all this grain!

IMG_20120331_101900.jpg
 
What a great day. I got home from picking up my grain and the rhizomes I ordered were sitting on my front porch. Looks like I have some work to do this weekend.
 
Picked up my grains and supplies! Great to meet you Dylan. Thanks guys for setting this up! Brew night tonight.....
 
Alright... no Private Messages, no voicemails or missed calls. I hope everyone who planned on coming out today (Saturday) made it. Its ten after twelve and I'm about to head home.

Nice meeting everyone. Everything ran fairly smoothly... even the splits. I'm still waiting on few people, most of which had contacted me about a later pick up date.

I need Kansas to win tonight, and then lose to either L'ville or Kentucky in the Championship game and I win my pool.

Thanks again, Dale. Happy brewing everyone.
 
kpr121 said:
Make sure you put those rice hulls to good use!

I think I have enough to spare I'm gonna use it for mulch!! No I left some extra there and gave coyote a few pounds as well.

It was awesome to put a face to some names. Wish I was able to stick around and meet a few more of you but oh well
 
So nice to have a couple sacks of grain on hand! Thanks so much guys for taking the time and effort to set this up! :mug:
 
it was great to meet some of the guys. thanks dale and dylan!! this was a success.
hopefully i'll be able to get together with dale to brew up a batch.
THANKS again for all the hard work, it is much appriciated.
 
Had a great time and appreciate the effort from the organizers.

Other than being short a pound of PBW (price you pay for being the last to show in the split haha), I had a great little road trip with the wife. Had lunch over at Rivertowne Pour House and got some growlers to go as well. For those that did not head over there, you really missed out. The pale ale on cask was awesome.

Now I just have to get some recipes together to use up these 7 bags of grain. Good problem to have.
 
So I got my homemade mill today to find out that the gap I told them to make it at is turning my grain to flour. :( I'm gonna have to have them turn one of the rollers down a little more. Real bummed.

image-948691.jpg
 
Yes! Thanks for putting this together!

How will I (we) know when this happens again? Will you send out an email or ?
 
simonh said:
Yes! Thanks for putting this together!

How will I (we) know when this happens again? Will you send out an email or ?

I could probably send Mass emails. I know there are a few people that missed this one so I may start one in a few weeks. I don't plan on being on top of it every minute like I was this one but I'll organize it. I talked to DMase briefly and it's coming into his busy season so it's unlikely he could accept delivery. I have to talk to my boss but I may be able to accept delivery in Indiana. Definitely far away for the Ohio guys but it's an option.
 
Hey guys, thanks for putting this together. It was good meeting you guys. Can't wait for the next one. Dale, ill get a hold of you for the DME.
Again, thanks alot for the hard work
 
Had a great time and appreciate the effort from the organizers.

Other than being short a pound of PBW (price you pay for being the last to show in the split haha), I had a great little road trip with the wife. Had lunch over at Rivertowne Pour House and got some growlers to go as well. For those that did not head over there, you really missed out. The pale ale on cask was awesome.

Now I just have to get some recipes together to use up these 7 bags of grain. Good problem to have.

I'm sorry to hear about the PBW. I was the first one to get there for the corn split and actually weighted it before I took my split and it was only 42lbs vs the 50 it should have been. I adjusted my split accordingly so maybe that was the case with the PBW as well.
 
I was a little short (maybe a lb) on DME from the leftovers of the first sack, but Dylan honestly admitted that he had spilled some while unpacking it (either that or he really needed to make a starter, JK).

I didn’t weigh what was left in the bag until I got home but it really doesn’t matter to me. I think being a lb or two off is just going to happen on these splits especially with stuff that is harder to weigh out, and it doesn’t bother me one bit. The key is that we are still getting this stuff for a fraction of retail cost.

Next time I will be doing less splitting, and just sacking up. Not because I got shorted a lb, but because it’ll be less hassle weighing it out. I went a little overboard, this being my first group buy. Im pretty sure I would be able to put a full sack of Maris Otter, Munich, and Vienna to a good cause.
 
Sucks about that grain mill Dale, that thing looks pretty sweet. Hopefully you can get it to the right crush. No way for them to make it adjustable?
 
Next time I will be doing less splitting, and just sacking up. Not because I got shorted a lb, but because it’ll be less hassle weighing it out. I went a little overboard, this being my first group buy. Im pretty sure I would be able to put a full sack of Maris Otter, Munich, and Vienna to a good cause.

I have done a few group buys. On the first one, I did a sack of 2-row and a few splits. On the second one, I did a couple sacks and a **** load of splits. By the third one I realized (duh) that it is pretty easy to go through base grains, so I ordered over 8 sacks, mostly full sacks (only a couple splits).

Having splits for various speciality grains (c15, c40, c60, c120, c150, carapils, aromatic, amber, ...) is nice because in a 5 or 10 gallon batch you use at most a pound or so. For these, I take the split and weigh out 1# bags and vacuum seal them.

Think of it this way. If you do 5 gallon batches of a 1.050 OG beer, you are likely to have a grain bill between 9-12 pounds, most of which is the base malt. So, figuring 10#, you will get 5 or so batches from a sack....doesn't take all that long to use it up!
 
Good point, and a good rule of thumb at 2 lbs per gallon of ‘session’ beer. I bought approximately 230 lbs of base malts, which means I can make approximately 115 gallons of session beer. Of course I will be making some bigger beers so I would say that number is closer to 90 or 100 gallons. Which puts me right at 6 months worth of brewing before I hit my wife and I’s annual 200 gallon limit. ;)

Soooo we’ll see everyone again around September??? :D
 
dand9066 said:
I'm sorry to hear about the PBW. I was the first one to get there for the corn split and actually weighted it before I took my split and it was only 42lbs vs the 50 it should have been. I adjusted my split accordingly so maybe that was the case with the PBW as well.

Not worried about it. Still a killer deal on everything as a whole.
 
Everyone pretty much hit the nail on the head. Especially when you're in on a five-way split, there is a thin margin of error for all involved.

For the record, I didn't spill any DME. I just had it all over my sleeves from using that little scoop. No matter how hard you try, that sh*t is messy as f*ck. My hoodie was reading 1.030 after filling my baggies.

Dale, if you're planning on brewing prior to getting your rollers adjusted, give me a heads up and I'll bring my mill into the store.

It was great meeting everyone. The hobby tends to attract a great group of people no matter where you look.

Finally, I wanted to sincerely thank everyone for your generous donations. Everything is greatly appreciated.
 
DMace, thanks fort a good laugh on the DME hoodie story!

Rivertowne pour house was great as usual... We had the 14 beer sampler...
 
So I got my homemade mill today to find out that the gap I told them to make it at is turning my grain to flour. :( I'm gonna have to have them turn one of the rollers down a little more. Real bummed.

I have a 7# Barley Crusher mill (http://www.barleycrusher.com/) that I hook to an electric drill. I tweaked my gap and was getting stuck mashes on the first few all grain brews. Then I stumbled across malt conditioning.

It's just a simple process of adding moisture to your grain before milling. If you are hand cranking it will make cranking a little tougher but now I get a really fine -- but fluffy -- crush out of my mill now and haven't had any problems since.

Check it out -- http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Malt_Conditioning

Just a word of advice though -- don't over do the moisture or you'll jam the mill.
 
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