Spent Grains

What to do with spent grains?
http://***********/stories/issue/article/issues/283-september-2011/2449-grains-to-treats-last-call


BYO has an article about using spent grain to make dog treats. Anyone know if grains are ok for dogs?

My dogs love spent grains. I've made treats for them many times, but they're just as happy to eat straight from the mash tun (this is probably too much fiber, so be ready to walk them).

Grains have been added to pet food since the beginning of pet food.

I've been feeding my dogs, friends dogs, mom's dogs spent grains for close to year. I asked my vet and he didn't see anything bad about it. The only thing I have found is that they do help make the dog "regular".

I add some to bread dough, My neighbor who is a self proclaimed bread geek begs me to save him some from every batch, I also compost some, and even feed some to my chickens...

If you have a hunting lease take it out for the deer to eat. They love it and you fatten them up.

woodenbuick said:

If you have a hunting lease take it out for the deer to eat. They love it and you fatten them up.

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Awesome idea! I wonder if knowing the deer are eating spent grains, do they taste even better?

woodenbuick said:

If you have a hunting lease take it out for the deer to eat. They love it and you fatten them up.

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Who needs to waste spent grains on them? They walk up the driveway and eat what they want.

(photo taken today)

We take spent grains, add some peanut butter and flour and make dog treats. Our dog goes crazy for them! We've regularly give extra treats to friends, and they agree that dogs love them.

Recent studies show that dogs are very susceptible to grain intolerance. They'll never tell you because they love the taste but if fed a high grain diet some dogs can develop things like skin allergies.

If you loom at dog food trends they are going more protein focused which is proper for animals of the canine genus.

Orijen has a wonderful topic on the subject.

Yeah we've been doing and discussing it it on here for years-Spent Grain? Make Your Best Friend Cookies!

More than likely they got the idea from forums like this...

ATM I dry 4 cookie sheets worth from each batch in the oven at the lowest setting. Once dry I put them into a cheap blender I bought specifically for this, and reduce them to a coarse dust/powder.

Then I am able to sub in some of this spent grain flour into all sorts of stuff like: crackers, pizza dough, pretzel dough, bread dough, dog treats, whatever I would use flour in. Almost all of those have recipes for them if you put "spent grain" in front of what you are looking for you should come up with plenty of threads.

Mongrel said:

My dogs love spent grains. I've made treats for them many times, but they're just as happy to eat straight from the mash tun (this is probably too much fiber, so be ready to walk them).

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subervia said:

I've been feeding my dogs, friends dogs, mom's dogs spent grains for close to year. I asked my vet and he didn't see anything bad about it. The only thing I have found is that they do help make the dog "regular".

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"Too much of anything is bad, but too much of good whiskey is barely enough." (or beer)
(Mark Twain)

Thanks for all the input. Ordering about 40lbs for a few batches shortly. I'll be sure to try some of the recipes.... Thanks again all

I'm surprised this hasn't been said yet in this thread, buy it bears repeating every time our canine companions get brought up. NEVER let you dog eat the hops. It WILL kill them. Grains are fine tho. My sisters and a few friends have dogs and I always make them treats with my grains. They all love me for it.

Yeah, I buy pretty good food for my dogs, and even then, barley is in the top 6 or 7 ingredients listed. It's OK for the dogs.

NO hops, though. There's a risk (not even close to 100%, but a risk) that your dog could have a genetic condition where eating hops will knock out their ability to regulate their body temperature. They can overheat and die.

Last batch of beer I made, I baked something like 5 cookie sheets full of dog treats and barely even made a dent in the 10 1/2 pounds of used grains. (Well, more like 20 pounds with the water weight...)