Weevil in grain - Dump or brew?

[passedpawn]

Anyone know what the Diastatic power of a weevil is?

Most insects do have amylase (alpha) in their saliva, and also in their stomach. So yes, there is some "diastatic power" available. The insects need it for the same reason we do, to reduce starch to maltose (which is further reduced to glucose by maltase and other enzymes).

 

[soccerdad]

I was told there would be no science in the bug thread..

 

[Robert64]

Personally I would never use grains with all those insects, I would just throw them away! As for the storage of malt, I keep it in boxes tightly closed and I have never had problems.

 

[MyQuL]

I had weevils in some flaked barley last summer. I only had it in the flaked barley which was stored in zip lock bags with other grains in zip lock bags. As I read they wouldnt effect a brew I just put the bags of FB in the freezer for a few days to kill the weevils and brewed the the FB in a few subsequent brews.

 

[z-bob]

I had weevils in some flaked barley last summer. I only had it in the flaked barley which was stored in zip lock bags with other grains in zip lock bags. As I read they wouldnt effect a brew I just put the bags of FB in the freezer for a few days to kill the weevils and brewed the the FB in a few subsequent brews.

I started to do that with mine, but I decided if I hadn't even opened the flaked barley in a year I probably wasn't going to use it anyway. (I bought it to use in place of Carapils in recipes that call for that, but I don't seem to ever brew those)

If I ever buy flaked grains again I will store them in the freezer.

 

[MyQuL]

I started to do that with mine, but I decided if I hadn't even opened the flaked barley in a year I probably wasn't going to use it anyway. (I bought it to use in place of Carapils in recipes that call for that, but I don't seem to ever brew those)

If I ever buy flaked grains again I will store them in the freezer.

I've never had weevils before but we had a particularly hot summer last year in the UK and I think this prompted the weevil eggs to hatch

 

[darinkleen]

I've dumped spent grains near my house several times - its awful. Each time i do it I say "never again", then what happens after a long brew day - on side of the house it goes. The smell lingers for what seems ages and people start to notice, and then things start to die.

Rats, and such love spent grains; a while back I had a mouse problem because of it. I was actually going to start another thread about asking people what they actually do with spent grains. I know people say things like.."dog biscuits..bread...compost.."...however, in practice i don't think the average brewer has time/want to make bread from spent grains. And from my experience (and the post about the compost gone awry), I don't want spent grain near my house as compost - so what do you do with spent grains?