When ordering grains online at the homebrew shop, you usually have the option of whether you want them bagged altogether or separately.  It’s always better separately for a number of reasons:

1. If you’re grinding your own grains, you’ll find some grains need a different roller setting to get a good crush.  If they’re all in the same bag you’ll risk getting some over-crushed, or some under-crushed.
2. When they’re separated you can easily do a spot check to ensure you’ve got all of your grain bill, and if you so chose re-weigh it when you get home.  I’ve gone over my order in the car before only to find a missing bag of something or a bonus bag of something else.  If it was all in one giant bag, I’d never now that I had a shorted or mixed up grain bill.
3. Some grains (caramel malts for example) already have their starches converted, so there’s no need to mash them to extract their potential.  Instead you can just add them at vorlauf time and get their effect without risk of extracting extra harshness.  This method works exceptionally well with black malts.
4. To get a good understanding of your recipe and relation to the finished product, it can be useful to get a crunch on a kernel of grain or two, knowing what it is.  Knowing what a particular malt tastes like may help you distinguish that flavor in the finished beer.  It might be something you love and want to keep around, or it might be something you don’t like and want to exclude from future batches.

So although you might feel high maintenance to get it all bagged separately, there are good reasons to do so.  And if your homebrew shop gives you the option of selecting that while ordering online, it’s as simple as one click.

I was trying out an electric all-in-one brewing system, and appreciating the fact that I could brew indoors, meaning I could brew in the evening.  Not having to fumble around in the driveway in the dark with a flashlight was part of the appeal of going electric.  So my brew day went a bit longer than planned and there I was about 11:30 at night, finished with my brew day, and trying to clean up.

I didn’t want to go outside in the dark and scoop my spent grain into a bag, so I started thinking.  Since I’ve rinsed remnants of spent grain out of my mash tun out in the kitchen sink and ground them up, and the fact that grains are all-natural, I thought, “Why not?”

So I proceeded to scoop out the aftermath of 11 lbs. of spent grain into the sink.  I was a bit alarmed at how much that pile of grain filled up the sink, but I was tired and eager to finish up the brew day.  I turned on the faucet and started running water and scooping grain into the disposal while it was running.  I figured as long as I washed it with a lot of water, and took it slow, I’d be fine.

I soon found that I wasn’t fine and the drain wasn’t clearing.  I brought out the plunger, but it didn’t help.  In the end I had to do what I was trying to avoid in the first place and scooped the grains out into a bag.  But I also had a clogged sink as a bonus.  I had hoped that after sitting overnight it might somehow magically clear but it didn’t.  The next day I had to take the pipes off under the sink to clear them out and snake them a couple times before finally getting it to clear.  Lesson well learned as to the limitations of the kitchen sink garbage disposal.