Grain storage

Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum

Help Support Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

koolkuna

Well-Known Member
Joined
15/3/09
Messages
194
Reaction score
18
Location
Melbourne Victoria
What's the place to store grain ?? Thought about putting it in an old plastic fermenter which is air tight? Also how long will milled grain last in storage as opposed to whole grain. Thought about buying milled grain in bulk to use over 6 months
 
un cracked lasts longer
mines i in steel bins
 
I'll start using my old fermenters for grain storage once I 'decommission' them and update. The food grade pails I'm using piss me off every time I try to get the lids off and take skin off my fingers.
 
Plastic fermenters work well, I have two 60L ones that I store base malts in and a number of smaller pails from Bunnings that I store specialty malts in.

If you're planning to store it and use it over 6 months or whatever, get whole grain and a grain mill. It will stay a lot fresher over that period than milled grain will.
 
Temp and oxygen will play a big role in the shelf life, especially if its pre milled.
I store mine in bulk (un milled) in those big plastic trunks you can buy from bunnings or camping stores, they aren't the cheapest option but they seal and are hard wearing.
 
20 L metal pails that cooking oil comes in.Some take-aways use,just order alot of food from them and they'll give them to you free . Lock down lid and air tight. A sack of grain will fit in 2 .
 
The "handi pails" from the big green shed hold exactly half a bag of malt. The half size pails hold a quarter, I've squeezed 6kg into them.

I use 2 big buckets per bag of base malt and the smaller ones for spec malts. I have my grain on a trolley to wheel out of the garage to mill (although this rarely happens).The 60L fermenters are a bit too cumbersome to move around but they do hold around 32kg of grain.
 
I keep my spec malts in Handi Pail style buckets that I get free from work (usually hold sealed tubes of horse vaccines/drugs)
Base malts go in 60L containers like THESE , which have some spare space in the top usually for the last 5kg or so from the old bag, which is when I usually buy a new one
They're stackable too, I've got them piled 2 high, my back is too farked right now to stack them any higher
 
Willow 60L black bins. $16 a pop. A sack drops in nicely. Apart from a couple of Pommie varieties most of my sacks come plastic lined anyway, have never had problems with malt going slack or with vermin getting in - I recently used the last of a sack of BB wheat that I'd bought from MHB when he was still at Islington.
I keep my bags of speccies inside Aldi zip cool bags and drop them into a Willow in categories (roast / dark, crystals, light)

brewday grain.jpg
 
Anywhere where oxygen exposure & vulnerability to pests/rodents are reduced will be fine.

UV degrades pretty much anything organic so if you can keep light out too, you'll be laughing.
 
Gleam 'o' dawn at Stamford (Brisbane folk) has 44's with lids for twenty something bucks
 

Latest posts

Back
Top