Crushed grain shelf life?

[Scott Miller]

If the weather does'nt cooperate soon, how long can I store my crushed grain? Would refridgerating it help any, or is that a bad idea?

[Chubber]

Storage life for grains, crushed or not, is dependent on three things:
1) Temperature - Dropping 20 degrees can double the storage life of grain. So storage life at 90 degrees is 1/4th that of 50 degrees.
2) Humidity - Humidity of less than 40% is good, of between 15 and 20% is best.
3) Light - Light will bleach your grain.

Guess what? All three of these conditions are optimal inside your dark, cool, low humidity fridge.

I don't know how long is too long, but I wouldn't think twice about keeping grains a month in the fridge. Most hops in good oxy-bags would last that long in the freezer too. Yeast may need to be run up in a starter if you wait too long though.

[woodring]

What sort of grains are you talking about? Specialty grains like Crystal and black patent, or grains for mashing?

I recently restarted brewing after about 4 years (don't know what I was thinking). I had some crystal malt and some black and chocolate malt in a sealed jar in a cool basement for that time, and it was fine when I used it a couple of months ago. It lost a little of the flavor and freshness, but the beer was fine.

I did also have some toasted victory malt that I also used. It didn't smell too toasty when I opened the jar, so I re-toasted it and it was good. I used this for flavoring an all extract batch.

Now if you are using the grain for mashing, the question is how storage would effect the enzymes and the efficiency of the starch conversions. I don't know the answer to that, but I suspect that if you are only looking at a few weeks or a couple months, I wouldn't worry.

Also, in addition to heat, light and humidity, I would think that oxygen would be a major consideration.

Out of curousity, in what way isn't the weather cooperating? I live in Michigan have brewed during every month. Summer months need more care in sanitizing and keeping the fermentation tanks cool, but that isn't too hard. You couldn't do lagers in the summer without refrigeration. But now is the prime time for brewing as I see it.

Dan Woodring