[rungdalek]

Are you brewing with DME or making maltec milkshakes? First example gets boiled, second does not.

Let me give you some of my DME, I'll be sure to cough on it, spit in it, pick my nose it, sneeze on it, you can brew with that and then I'll watch as you drink the beer.  That's cool if you're ok with that.

If you suspect them of that kind of behavior, why are you doing business with them at all?

It's an example countering Hopfenundmalz trust in boiling, would you trust DME with any of those things done to it, that has been boiled?  Be my guest.

Yes, I would, totally.

I'd have to see it to believe it - you drinking a beer made from DME with that treatment...  it'd probably make me sick myself just watching it.

I'll stick to professionally packaged product made at FDA certified production facilities.

[fredthecat]

really now, things you ingest that can "spoil" (uncooked/unprocessed/able to play host to spores/bacteria) are not safe after boiling because toxins created by bacteria/fungi/etc whatever are in the product, and will likely not be broken down by boiling or even heating to temps above 100C (canning, etc).

thats why people used to have concerns about nochilling wort and storing it for more than a day or two. (im unaware of the current concensus on this, so have no comment - just an example)

DME is already processed industrially. as long as it does not interact with excessive moisture and get wet, it can last in a bin with air space for years and years. will it be oxidized? i don't know. but i would not be concerned about the safety of it in the slightest.


have you used years old bags of sugar at your or someone elses house? Yes, of course you have.

[ynotbrusum]

My LHBS sells only pre-packaged DME that is in vacuum packed bags from LD Carlson; occasionally one will not have a vacuum on it and I don't hesitate buying it.  I asked my LHBS owner why he doesn't repackage from bulk and he said that customers have a hang up and don't want to buy it re-packaged.  So the buyers drive the sales of more costly pre-packed bags there.  If he makes a bit more on the sales, then, hey, who am I to suggest a different approach.  He repacks grain in both milled and unmilled, buying Munich, Vienna, Crystals and Roasts in bulk bags and packaging those in 1, 5 and 10 lb bags.  If there isn't a grain re-packed when you need it, he will mill it on the spot (in the back of the shop where the mill is located - he wears a mask for his own safety, but I imagine it keeps his snot out of the product, too.)  I buy my base grains in full sacks and find plenty of extra items in them as I mill it.

I don't blame anyone for wanting to minimize bad stuff in their ingredients.  I have a mouse trap near my mill for that reason.

[BrewBama]

I wonder if Carlson, More Beer or Northern Brewer is FDA certified to repackage bulk material (post #10).


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[fredthecat]

I don't blame anyone for wanting to minimize bad stuff in their ingredients.  I have a mouse trap near my mill for that reason.

the most frustrating thing about north american construction is that almost everything that isnt very old is mostly drywall. it just frustrates me not knowing exactly whats in all the hidden spaces behind my walls and theres no real way i can get to it to find out.

had mouse problems because the house is old and the garage was full of s*** once and left to rot.

theyre there, i just dont know where.

a cat used to kill mice here regularly.

[Village Taphouse]

If I had some questionable DME but I was able to use it, boil it, etc. then I would use it.  I only use DME for starters and it's similar to the above... prepackaged LD Carlson DME.

But this should entertain some of you:  A supplier near me (no longer in business) found that their grains that were stored in plastic buckets had been invaded with grain beetles.  The beetles were everywhere, apparently.  This place was in a big warehouse and the owner held a sale.  Something like 25¢ a pound for whatever grain you wanted.  So I went and looked through some large buckets (with lids, btw) of pilsner.  I looked for beetles and found none.  I bought something like 20-30 pounds of it.  Paid and brought it home and left it in the garage.  A couple days later I brewed and I weighed some out.  No beetles.  I had it in a bucket and looked again.  No beetles.  I went to the garage to mill it and I looked closely at it one more time.  Ah, there they are.  The grain was moving.  Shoot.  I called a buddy who brews and I explained it to him and he said, "what are you worried about?  You're going to mash at 150 and then boil for 60 minutes.  Nothing could possibly survive in that".  So I brewed with it.  The beers I made with that grain were good like any other.  I did keep the bag (a tough, thick bag) in the garage so the beetles wouldn't get into any other grain and I used it quickly.  Beetle beer.  :|

[denny]

Are you brewing with DME or making maltec milkshakes? First example gets boiled, second does not.

Let me give you some of my DME, I'll be sure to cough on it, spit in it, pick my nose it, sneeze on it, you can brew with that and then I'll watch as you drink the beer.  That's cool if you're ok with that.

If you suspect them of that kind of behavior, why are you doing business with them at all?

It's an example countering Hopfenundmalz trust in boiling, would you trust DME with any of those things done to it, that has been boiled?  Be my guest.

Yes, I would, totally.

I'd have to see it to believe it - you drinking a beer made from DME with that treatment...  it'd probably make me sick myself just watching it.

I'll stick to professionally packaged product made at FDA certified production facilities.

Absolutely.  I trust science

[pete b]

All this is putting me in the mood for a glass of chicha.

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[joe_meadmaker]

Are you brewing with DME or making maltec milkshakes? First example gets boiled, second does not.

Let me give you some of my DME, I'll be sure to cough on it, spit in it, pick my nose it, sneeze on it, you can brew with that and then I'll watch as you drink the beer.  That's cool if you're ok with that.

If you suspect them of that kind of behavior, why are you doing business with them at all?

Denny's point here is the one that comes to my mind.  My LHBS sells DME in the factory sealed bags from Muntons.  But all the grain is portioned out in zip lock bags.  I've never had a concern about bad practices on their part, and never would unless I saw evidence of something like that happening.  If I suspected a store employee of coughing, etc. while repackaging DME, they wouldn't get my business, period.  I don't quite understand suspecting a business of mishandling ingredients like that, and still spending money there on anything.

[erockrph]

All this is putting me in the mood for a glass of chicha.

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Just don't put mine in a ziploc bag

https://www.dogfish.com/brewery/beer/chicha

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[rungdalek]

I now know what happened:

Expectation wasn't met: Expected the DME to be in it's OEM packaging like it always was, but it wasn't - it was in zip lock bags with sharpie markings on them.
Perception changed to negative: Perception of the new presentation was that it was cheap and poorly done, what else could be 'wrong' with it, was this being done safely,  was I getting what I was paying for,  was it really the product written on the bag, etc...

Went and spoke to the LHBS guy last night and he admitted that he had several of the same comments/complaints about the DME and was working to improve the situation with vacuum sealed bags and printed labels.  I asked if he would consider getting the OEM packaging back and he explained that he made more money by repackaging but if his efforts to cleanup the custom packaging failed he would go pack to the OEM packaging.

[pete b]

Love a happy ending. They sound very reasonable and responsive.

[fredthecat]

If I had some questionable DME but I was able to use it, boil it, etc. then I would use it.  I only use DME for starters and it's similar to the above... prepackaged LD Carlson DME.

But this should entertain some of you:  A supplier near me (no longer in business) found that their grains that were stored in plastic buckets had been invaded with grain beetles.  The beetles were everywhere, apparently.  This place was in a big warehouse and the owner held a sale.  Something like 25¢ a pound for whatever grain you wanted.  So I went and looked through some large buckets (with lids, btw) of pilsner.  I looked for beetles and found none.  I bought something like 20-30 pounds of it.  Paid and brought it home and left it in the garage.  A couple days later I brewed and I weighed some out.  No beetles.  I had it in a bucket and looked again.  No beetles.  I went to the garage to mill it and I looked closely at it one more time.  Ah, there they are.  The grain was moving.  Shoot.  I called a buddy who brews and I explained it to him and he said, "what are you worried about?  You're going to mash at 150 and then boil for 60 minutes.  Nothing could possibly survive in that".  So I brewed with it.  The beers I made with that grain were good like any other.  I did keep the bag (a tough, thick bag) in the garage so the beetles wouldn't get into any other grain and I used it quickly.  Beetle beer.  :|

we live in the most sterile world ever in history. this would have been really common the farther you go back in time.

in korea, almost all the rice is produced inside the country. it is difficult to find rice even from "cheaper" production countries, because the concept of "rice" as food is even stronger than the idea of "bread" in the west.

i would sometimes get rice from a farmer i was related to, and he gave me good tasting stuff. i even went with him to the rice milling station. you take ~50lb bags of rice with hulls on the outside and dump them in a machine, they go through it up and around and come out as white rice, cant remember if theyre polished in that process or not. i think so. but im saying i could inspect it with my own eyes and hands, watch it get processed, and get the finished product in new bags to take home.

most of the time, even kept in cold temps rice weevils begin to take over the bag after a month or two. you get little white worms that are hard to distinguish from rice and black weevils about the size of a rice grain moving around in it.

people have been eating this stuff for thousands of years anyways.

[ravenwater]

All this is putting me in the mood for a glass of chicha.

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- lol!

[Saccharomyces]

We live in the most sterile world ever in history. this would have been really common the farther you go back in time.

The obsession with cleanliness has been proposed as the reason why allergies are at an all-time high. We are wiping out all kinds of relatively harmless microbes that used to exist in our environment that trained the immune system starting at birth.  Allergies are the result the immune system gone haywire.