Which grains for bulk purchasing?

[sumbrewindude]

SWMBO hinted that a grainmill may be coming in the future, and has shown approval of the new "hobby". :rockin:

In an effort to keep from buying only the grains for the recipie at hand as well as provide me with the ability to brew when I want to, I'm looking to start getting some bulk grains in order.

Don't have a ton of space, so I'll probably be stuck with a few (3-4) 5gal buckets for grain storage. Largest batch I'm making is 2.5gal right now. I know I can't have everything, but it'd be nice to have a few staples that I could play with and then pick up specialty malts as required.

Thinking:
20# 2R
20# MO/Vienna/more malted base
Couple pounds of DME for starters/boosters
Couple pounds each Carapils/20/60/120?
mixed amount of medium/adjuncts like Munich/Victory/flaked oats/wheat/etc?
Maybe a few small amounts of roasted malts like SpecB, Chocolate, etc?

What say those with a grain cavern? Halp!

 

[chickypad]

It all comes down to what you brew. It's nice if you can buy grains by the 50 lb bag because that's usually where the savings come in - if you'll use it within a year I'd say it's worth it. If you brew Belgians or lagers much you might want to include some pilsner in your plan.

 

[freisste]

Personally, I don't brew the same thing often enough to have a lot of different specialties on hand.

For me, I would get a 50-55lb bag of two row or MO (whichever I used more) and a 50-55lb bag of wheat (I do like wheat beers, but I like variation).

How are you saving money by buying small amounts? Shipping? I personally have a really good LHBS, so I never ship anything and can grab anything I need. I understand my situation is less common than a lot of other people, I just don't know how you're getting a price break. I know my only savings are true bulk amounts (5 x 50lb bags would save me a ton, but 50 x 5lb bags would save me nothing and I'd have stale grain on hand.

If I were you, I would plan out my next 5 brews as order what I need for all of them. When I exhaust my ingredients, I'd buy more.

 

[Cider123]

I just made the plunge recently. Here's what I bought:

50 lbs 2 row
55 lbs MO
10 lbs munich
5 lbs vienna
5 lbs victory
5 crystal 40
5 crystal 80
5 Brown
5 white wheat
5 chocolate
5 pale chocolate
5 CaraPils
2 caramunich III
2 crystal 150
1 Special B

Of course, my very next brew was a Munich Helles, so out I went because I didn't have any pilsner malt. In hindsight I would have bought a sack of pilsner instead of the 2 row, and probably didn't need all that chocolate malt.

 

[jmcquesten]

It all comes down to what you brew. It's nice if you can buy grains by the 50 lb bag because that's usually where the savings come in - if you'll use it within a year I'd say it's worth it. If you brew Belgians or lagers much you might want to include some pilsner in your plan.

Yes, I definitely recommend buying 50 lb. bags if possible. I think 2 row and pilsner are safe choices along with maybe some marris otter or munich. Be careful though, with that much grain hanging around, you'll feel the need to brew more.


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[sumbrewindude]

Thanks everyone for the info -

Freisste - I'm not saving anything right now. It's just convienent in that I can build the recipie on a small scale and make it. The only thing I have is convienence, and even that's shadowed by the fact that I am restricted in 1oz measurements (which is a pain for a 1.5gal batch on some recipies!). By purchasing grain uncrushed at 10+#'s I can start to see some savings. More if you factor in the drive and time.

With two good LHBS's, I'd like to get a good base to cover most of the grain requirements for the recipies I find online and make. I figure then I could hit up the convienent store for the oddball ingredients as necessary until I've got an established grain library ready to go.

I'd like to focus down, but with small batches I'm all over the place - ales, ESBs, browns, all kinds of different beers in the works. I'm thinking definately a pilsner/MO as a big grain purchase then a few pounds of caramels/adjuncts. That'll let me make ales while I'm figuring out what I want to do next...

 

[bajaedition]

20 pounds of 2 row is just a few beers, no need to store a lot of specialty malt if you are going have to run out after base malt

specialty malts are about 15% or less of a grain bill, so if you order say a 50 pound assortment of a lot of malts the it would take around 325 pounds or more of 2 row to use up all those specialty grains. That is a lot of beer or that is a lot of specialty malt going stale.

I can tell you what grains I use the most, I have grains I prefer to use and probably could buy 3 pounds of 3 different specialty malts and cover half the beers I make. So I would order those and some 2 row, and if I wanted any others just do an order when the time comes. After all I can have them within a week.

DME for starters, oh yea get a few pounds
get a hundred pounds of 2 row
get 3 pounds of the most 3 or 4 malts you use

those are just a few thoughts I come up with, I figure the 2 row is going to go fast, the others go according to recipe, and how often re you going use say Chocolate malt a year?

good luck and post a pick of you in the middle of all those bags of grain