[denny]

I prefer to let the dealer store bulk ingredients. I simply buy from a high volume dealer about a week out to ensure fresh quality grains are delivered just in time to brew.  This allows me spontaneity and variety without consuming space for storage.


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There's wisdom here.  When I start to accumulate little jars with odds and ends of specialty grains I may never use up, I am inspired to reboot, discard said grains and return to simplified recipes.  I hate to feel compelled to complicate a recipe or brew a certain style to use a grain just because it's there on the shelf.

Except that you end up paying 2-4 times as much that way

[Robert]

I prefer to let the dealer store bulk ingredients. I simply buy from a high volume dealer about a week out to ensure fresh quality grains are delivered just in time to brew.  This allows me spontaneity and variety without consuming space for storage.


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There's wisdom here.  When I start to accumulate little jars with odds and ends of specialty grains I may never use up, I am inspired to reboot, discard said grains and return to simplified recipes.  I hate to feel compelled to complicate a recipe or brew a certain style to use a grain just because it's there on the shelf.

Except that you end up paying 2-4 times as much that way

That's why I do buy base malts and hops in bulk.  I'm never going to buy specialty malts in bulk, so that's where I'll buy a couple pounds, use part of it, and accumulate the leftovers.   Spontaneity  is why I have leftovers,  I've moved on to another style.

[BrewBama]

I prefer to let the dealer store bulk ingredients. I simply buy from a high volume dealer about a week out to ensure fresh quality grains are delivered just in time to brew.  This allows me spontaneity and variety without consuming space for storage.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

There's wisdom here.  When I start to accumulate little jars with odds and ends of specialty grains I may never use up, I am inspired to reboot, discard said grains and return to simplified recipes.  I hate to feel compelled to complicate a recipe or brew a certain style to use a grain just because it's there on the shelf.

Except that you end up paying 2-4 times as much that way

True ...but for me, only brewing once a month and not having to store (more of a concern) and use up to five month old grain (less of a concern) is worth it.  I just don’t brew enough to deal with bulk storage.

Edit: I might brew with 2 row, Pilsner, Maris Otter, Golden Promise, etc from various maltsters. If I bought one 50 lb bag that would be ~5 brews using one base malt from one maltster. If I bought the variety I prefer, I’d have 20 plus brews worth of base malt which would be enough for ~1.5 years.  I simply don’t want to do that.

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[ynotbrusum]

The sizes that I buy in are: Pils, pale 2 row (both German typically), and MO in 50/55 pound sacks;  Sauermalz, Vienna, and Munich in 10 pound sacks (2 or more if I am brewing a Vienna or Dunkel);  carafoam, Carahell, and the like in either 5 or 1 pound bags, depending on what I have in the works for planned brews.  Specialty malts of another sort - as needed.  I brew 10 gallon batches, typically and a lot of Light German Lagers, so I can use up a sack in a month or two with regular weekly brewing.  For hops, I buy German Magnum by the pound and Hallertauer, Mittelfrüh, Tettnanger, and East Kent Goulding’s by the half pound. 

About once or twice a year when I brew at someone else’s house as a social get together with friends who homebrew, I may go to a kit (gasp!) to try out something new.

Edited to correct spelling.