dusty grain

[grainy]

Whats everyone's opinions on those sacks of really dusty grain. I'm talking about when your pouring the uncrushed grain form sack to scale bucket and the dust it makes is almost to much to stand. I had this happen to me twice now from different supplier's. One was English pale ale and the other was mairs otter. I'm thinking the grain must be vary dry and or old. Not sure if I want to continue ordering these grains from these supplier's if this dust is an indication of old, over dry grain. What's your opinions.

 

[brisboy]

I've not had this as I don't order in bulk but I would say dry is good isn't it? No mould if things are dry. Dust on the other hand if it's an indicator of age or storage cleanliness might be an issue. How does the beer taste?

 

[grainy]

Time will tell on the one I did last week but the other dusty batch was so long ago I do not recall. What worries me is freshness and conversion. Just can't see getting the best conversion with the possibility of old grain , if that is the case. So just trying to find out what others have experienced.

 

[ManseMasher]

http://beersmith.com/blog/2014/02/08/storing-your-beer-brewing-hops-grains-and-yeast/

Depends on how old, but yer man above reckons, storage dependent, uncrushed grain can be stored for a year or more. It's when it's crushed that time becomes more critical. As long as it was dry (and from the amount of dust you mention I'm guessing it was) then I reckon you'll be fine. What did it look like when you crushed it? Powdery or did it all clog/clump together?

 

[grainy]

When I ran it though the mill it looked normal. I crush fairly fine and always have alot of fine powder. The big thing im wondering is what the dust is. If its just fines from the grain itself then ok but if its not from the grain then I worry its something that's not grain and may ruin my ale. time will

 

[cheapbrew]

Its just flour, its what you get when you mill grains down finer, its still got starch available to convert to sugars. Unmilled grain if stored correctly will last for years, milled grain, even if stored really well, I would recommend using within 2 -3 months max.

 

[Tony1951]

I think grain usually has some dust in it, but you will probably get more of it in wheat straight off the field rather than malted barley because it has just been taken ion in dry weather by a combine (and they often trail dust behind them as they lash the stalks of the cereal) and then it gets threshed and sucked into a hopper along with ambient dust and later fired through a chute into a tractor trailer. I make my own bread most days from wheat that I grind myself and I store about a half a gallon of it in a large glass jar in the kitchen topping up from the sack when I need to. By the time I get to the bottom of the jar there is always dust in it, and sometimes the odd little stone. Natural enough I suppose, it grows in fields.