Thoughts On The Use Of Feed-lot Grade Grains In Brewing

[MHB]

Andrew
Maybe I should have said 5-6 Hours committed to a brew, I was including all the prep, cleaning, fermentation and packaging, its been a very long week.

Just as a quick exercise I costed making 25 L of Standard Beer (1.050, 25 IBU, 60 minute boil with Topaz and a reasonable yeast S-33) using my in store retail prices comes to $20-, if you could substitute half the malt with FREE adjunct you might save $8.40, I chose Topaz because its the cheapest way to buy Alpha (shame it tastes pretty good to).
So that $10-15 was being generous, on say 22.5L or 45ish glasses of beer $8.40/45 is about 18 cents a glass - Hum malt made to Heineken specs or crap for 18 cents a glass the difference.
I know what I would choose.
Bear in mind that I have assumed you get the same yield from crap adjunct as you do from first class malt; energy and water arent included either so the relative saving on the brew would be even smaller.

Dont think for 1 minute that I dont encourage people to experiment I do, this thread was about substituting the cheapest possible ingredient for quality malt, thats what I dont get!

(Darren @ Nov 9 2009, 09:09 PM)
Hey,

Lets put things into perspective. Anyone can go buy the "freshest" malt, hops, extract or can of the finest from a HB shop.

Do homebrewers think that they are "offered" the highest quality malt by buying through a shop-front?

Do HB shop owners think that they have the buying power to source the finest of the malts?

Chances are that HB shops are selling out of date, sub-standard malts at premium prices (albeit accidently).

Always ensure that a HB shop supplies a certificate of analysis (COA) with malts bought from a HB shop (particularly specialty malts).

cheers

Darren

Darren, you raise some really important points I would like to address, so:-
Yes I hope so, at least more so than ever before, although its been a matter of concern in the past. There are however a growing pool of retailers who really care about/for their malt and hops sadly there are still plenty who need to raise their standards. My rule is - if I wont use it I wont sell it and I know Im not the only retailer who thinks that way. There is a growing band of retailers who are brewers first and I think its lifting the standards across the board.
If youre suggesting that I should print one out every time someone wants 100g of crystal, that would be impractical and would add to the cost of doing business, further inflating the price of the malt. Most people dont care but for those that do, yes theyre available on request.
MHB

 

[Infinitee]

Wow lads. RDWHAHB. :icon_cheers:

Thanks all for your answers, a lot was rather helpful - sry I shan't answer them all tonight, it's been a late one.

I should have mentioned my lack of adversity towards the general process of malting.
I was under the impression that it was not too hard to do
And also that superior quality and or more customised mixers would be available to the home maltster.

Then again, I've only malted grains a few times to brew with, and a few more for malt-sprout cakes and the like.
Feed lot is to save money - I haven't personally seen dirt, wildoat etc contaminated feedlot grains as mentioned earlier (no doubt it exists).
And optimally, you'd want to home-malt with the most quality of grains
Which i daresay would be superior on a well composted home patch - than any commercially grown grains the industry can provide.

I appreciate all the input - thanks all, and maybe I should experiment first and Then ask questions :lol:

One thing I do take exception (not overly though, mateys) to is barnyard bitters/feedlot lager - whatever the remark was.
Pigeon shit in a beer does NOT adversely affect the taste, it really is superior nutritionally,
It is free, sun-irradiated and par-boiled ...
And why can't we all just get it how we like it.
[So what if I'm a connoisseur of the backyard brew - a connoisseur, I remain]

 

[Thirsty Boy]

As I originally posted - I don't personally think its worth the bother - but as a thought exercise its interesting.

Quality - is relative.

Sure, I absolutely agree that malted barley made from feedlot barley would almost certainly produce substandard malt. You might get lucky and get barley that was at malting grade or close to it and was rejected... but without the specifications you would never know.

But - as I said, the need for such high specifications is far less important for adjunct grains - and that includes things like your crystal and roasted malts. Quite often (but certainly not always) in the maltster's, it is nearly out of spec malt, or thins, or damaged lots that have already been accepted into the silos, that gets tagged for specialty malt production. So a compromise on the quality of the grain for those sorts of malts may well not be so important.

And also as people have suggested might be the case, there really isn't a hell of a difference between feed and malting grain when you are talking about wheat or other non-barley grains anyway.

So I think its not so impractical as people have been painting. You might not be able to malt enough barley to meet your base malt needs, you probably don't want to malt these sort of grains for that anyway... But if it was up your alley. I think that the feed grade grains could well be used both as unmalted adjunct and as malted specialty grain - without all of the ruinous impact on beer quality that has been implied. And if you think its worth it to trade your time/effort in order to save a few bucks - it might be worth a try.

I sympathize a little with this point of view - mainly because I choose to brew with a malt that most brewers on this site would consider to be inferior. Malt that I was assured was unsuitable for homebrewing and that would never give me as good a beer as I could make from "higher quality" ingredients. I choose to take this route because the malt is for me - free; and I don't think that serendipity of this magnitude should be spurned. So I choose to use this malt and I have chosen to learn how to brew with it and make good beer with it - and I have. Or at least I am satisfied with the beer and it mostly holds its own when compared to other homebrew.

As long as the OP is aware of the pros and cons, and I think he probably is by now, if he were to choose to use this grain for 100% of his brewing needs, I say more power to him. He would be making beer at home and he would be making the beer he wants to make. I fail to see the bad side of that.

 

[schooey]

Pigeon shit in a beer does NOT adversely affect the taste, it really is superior nutritionally,

Hmm... wonder how many takers you'd get in a case swap...

 

[fergi]

i cant believe the number of posts on this subject, really this was answered in the first couple of posts to be honest. havent you guys got some brews to make or something useful.

fergi

 

[bum]

Yeah, guys. Stop being interested in brewing and trying to learn more about it. Go to your brew-room and stagnate.

 

[Brewer_010]

Jeez, isn't it better using the best quality ingredients you can afford? Is there a reason cattle get that particular grain, as in it's rubbish and not fit for human consumption?

Saving a few bucks is good but you'd want to make sure the grain is up to it. Malted grain for brewing is not that expensive!

And if your hobby is getting too expensive then it may be time to scale consumption back a little, make it go further h34r:

 

[fergi]

Jeez, isn't it better using the best quality ingredients you can afford? Is there a reason cattle get that particular grain, as in it's rubbish and not fit for human consumption?

Saving a few bucks is good but you'd want to make sure the grain is up to it. Malted grain for brewing is not that expensive!

And if your hobby is getting too expensive then it may be time to scale consumption back a little, make it go further h34r:

agree completely here as most common sensible people would, as one of the posts said , we are here to learn about improving our brewing and moving forward well if thats your idea of moving forward and learning then you are a bloody slow learner, next you will be wanting to debate the merits on using bakers yeast to save a few dollars, if its that important to save money at the expensive of a quality beer why dont you just go to coles and go home brand cans of draught goo for$7.50 i am sure that would be cheaper and a better product than debating the merrits of cow food for brewing, we actually grow barley up here and most farmers this year have not come up with the correct % of protein in their grain so it is downgraded , and its downgraded for a reason, its no good for top malting barley.
fergi

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Jeez, isn't it better using the best quality ingredients you can afford?

Depends entirely on your point of view - I don't think that it is at all. I can afford the absolute best of imported or locally grown malt, but I don't want to use it. And I make great beer. When I think that the quality of the malt I am using is the limiting factor in improving my beer, I'll probably change, but I reckon I have about 10 years of experience to get before I reach that point... so I use cheaper malt instead.

It's of a lesser degree - but fundamentally the same sort of thing that the OP is suggesting - learn to brew with the material you have at hand. If you aren't happy with the results, or you want to go further... then the options for better quality material are still there aren't they?

 

[fergi]

Depends entirely on your point of view - I don't think that it is at all. I can afford the absolute best of imported or locally grown malt, but I don't want to use it. And I make great beer. When I think that the quality of the malt I am using is the limiting factor in improving my beer, I'll probably change, but I reckon I have about 10 years of experience to get before I reach that point... so I use cheaper malt instead.

It's of a lesser degree - but fundamentally the same sort of thing that the OP is suggesting - learn to brew with the material you have at hand. If you aren't happy with the results, or you want to go further... then the options for better quality material are still there aren't they?

i think what we are actually getting at here thirsty is the hassle of getting the grain and then going to all the trouble of making it into a malting barley and then still ending up with a product that is not there in quality, short cut would be as i said to go down to coles and get their home brand draught cans for $7.50 i understand what you are using and realise that you do make a good product in the end but getting feed lot grain and having to process it is just not worth the hassle .apart from making better cheaper beer isnt our aim also to make the process as fast and efficient as possible also. but as i said i do take note of a lot of the stuff that you post here so i bow to your greater technique and brewing knowledge.
fergi

 

[MHB]

TB
As Im sure you know, only a fraction of the Barley crop qualifies as malting grade, even the Cheapest malt is still the cream of the crop.
MHB

 

[brettprevans]

just to throw petrol on the flames.... where does cerial grade grain etc come in the rankings of quality. low or high?

actually this is a pointless discussion unless your prepared to malt your own. no matter what grade it is, your still going to want it malted for you. PITA process esp for a novice. no way im going to screw around with trying to malt my own grain. my time is worth way more than what i'll save buying pre-malted grain. and I think thats the bottom line as far as the OP goes.

 

[riverside]

ID BE IN FOR A CASE SWAP ....... NOT ! :icon_drunk:

 

[Infinitee]

Many grains to use besides barley - no harm in diversification.

Malting is not an impossible task. I sprout grains everyday and it's only a short step further to halt the process and be left with a malt-potential grain.

Brewing should also not be purely about 'going forward' via refinement and distinction.

You could open up the possibilities by the odd bit of experimentation ...
And what about going back to the roots of beer drinking with just malt-grain, water and bread...
And what's wrong with wanting to produce it en-masse and in commercial quantities and in an old, energy-efficient style?

Your all talk, no malt.

What are you going to do when the all the HBS close down due to whatever apocalyptic scenario comes our way??

I'll be the guy with the cornfields, chickens and cider - laughing my ass off.

Open your minds, guys. Nothing wrong with someone else thinking something else.
A lot of people still have constructive stuff to add to these bush-brewing topics and most importantly an Interest ...
If that means anything here.

 

[bum]

A lot of people still have constructive stuff to add to these bush-brewing topics and most importantly an Interest ...
If that means anything here.

This thread is 3 pages of people discussing your question.

 

[King Brown]

I wont mention quality of the grain as it already has been many times, but if you were gonna brew with a large amount of feed grain a decoction mash may be a good idea? This type of mashing was originally came up with to handle less than ideal grain or so im led to believe? It would certainly be an interesting experiment. Of course another way to save lots of money on malt, providing you have the space is to just go the whole 9 yards and start growing your own, with a bit of practice you could probably end up winning out on both quality and price!

 

[MHB]

Hey y'all funky, fermentarians.

I know that this topic may well earn me the odd <_< ...

But I don't see why we shouldn't be using cheaper grains when the amount of boiling they go through
Should destroy 99.9-100% of all grain-borne bacteria and spores.

Feed-lot grade grain is ridiculously cheap and can be bought in varying amounts (not just the bulkiest of bulk buys)
(Or even looted from your work, if -oh I dunno, say- you worked in the agricultural dept. of a school)

The grains should still malt fine (provided they aren't too old), you can buy them uncracked or cracked ...
Did I mention they are cheap?

You all might think I'm a scrooge mcduck ...
And you'd be right - but no harm in that, it's a reason that many of us homebrew in the first place.

So any positive thoughts, advice, experience etc ...

Thanks for the space to query you all.
:icon_cheers:

Mate, frankly your last post is totally at odds with your OP.
This is a beer forum, not a doomsday survivalist venue.
Beer making ingredients are selected because they are the best for making BEER your OP was all about being a tight arse (or at least it read that way to me), nothing about bush or survivalist brewing.
There are other threads on Malting, growing Barley and Hops, you will if you familiarise yourself with the search function find a great range of information is available.
But the old You cant make a silk purse........ is as true today as ever, it takes quality ingredients to make quality product my sole interest is in improving my brewing I want to make better beer, not cheaper beer.
MHB
And a bonus <_<
Mark

 

[manticle]

Many grains to use besides barley - no harm in diversification.

Malting is not an impossible task. I sprout grains everyday and it's only a short step further to halt the process and be left with a malt-potential grain.

Brewing should also not be purely about 'going forward' via refinement and distinction.

You could open up the possibilities by the odd bit of experimentation ...
And what about going back to the roots of beer drinking with just malt-grain, water and bread...
And what's wrong with wanting to produce it en-masse and in commercial quantities and in an old, energy-efficient style?

Your all talk, no malt.

What are you going to do when the all the HBS close down due to whatever apocalyptic scenario comes our way??

I'll be the guy with the cornfields, chickens and cider - laughing my ass off.

Open your minds, guys. Nothing wrong with someone else thinking something else.
A lot of people still have constructive stuff to add to these bush-brewing topics and most importantly an Interest ...
If that means anything here.

Variations of opinions are just that. Did you expect everyone to smack their heads and ask "why didn't I think of that"? It's an interesting idea but that doesn't mean everyone's going to be into it and people have simply (in the main) expressed why or why not.

 

[porky]

I'll be the guy with the cornfields, chickens and cider - laughing my ass off.

Speaking of ass.....corn cobs make great toilet paper....just ask my pa.
And a chicken now and then is fine when the daughter isn't available.

Cheers from Kentucky

 

[Infinitee]

I appreciate the bulk of the answers provided here ...

But I just thought there'd be less shit-slinging on a differently-approached idea ...

And some more experience with malting of base grains to brew with.

You people call yourself brewers?!