Use For Spent Grains?

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bobby1212

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Tigard, Oregon
Has anyone ever used their spent grains for garden mulch or some kind of fertilizer? Will they work for that or is there even a good use for them? I live in the city and don't want to just keep putting them in the trash.

Thanks
 
Critters and bugs like the grains because of the sugar. If you live in the city, I wouldnt keep them. Especially hops, they can kill dogs (and Im assuming other animals) if ingested. Find a farm with horses or pigs, animals LOVE the spent grains! But, in the city, dont keep them.
 
When I worked at a Ubrew I used to cart the spent grains out back where a local farmer would pick them up for his cows.

That's a good use for spent grains, but that's also about 18 times as much as your typical imperial five gallon batch will produce.

I suppose if you sanitised those grains in a pressure cooker you could use them to cultivate magic mushrooms. (haven't tried it yet)
 
I take mine out and spread them on hot rocks in front of my house. They are completely gone by the next day.

MoreSpentGrains.jpg
 
Nothing seems to like my spent grains. I throw them out back of my house next to the timber with hopes all the deer and turkeys that live out there will come up and feed. So far, it does nothing but attract wood roaches. The squirrels won't even come near them. My dogs run through them, fall down, and get covered with grain goo.

Oh well.

I need to go have another homebrew. And post some more. I've been falling behind on my posts.
 
Here in LA we got no chickens or pigs (except for the Farmer John slaughter house). I thought I'd try the mulch trick around a rose and the next day I was nearly over run by a swarm of knats!! Its the tightly sealed trash can from now on
 
I am currently using mine to fill in a huge trench that some idiot made in the field right behind my house. 7 batches in it and it is starting to look pretty good. *grin*
 
I put mine out in the yard thinking they'd be good fertilizer and the dogs wouldn't be interested in them. Ha! The dogs ate them all and made lots of grain-poop for a day or so.
 
I throw mine into a compost pile and use it around the yard. Recently I have started to try to make the pile smaller since I has been getting pretty big this spring from brewing, so I started spreading them over the yard. A thin enough layer will disappear into the ground after a single rain and add nutrients to your lawn.

Jason
 
I'm going to try feeding them to ducks since I live close to a river. don't know if they will like them or not, but I imagine they will. Those things will eat anything.
 
i dump mine by the woods and the only thing that likes um are the ants every time i dump a batch out there there is a new huge ant tower on the old one i just dump the new batch on top of them im sure hot spent grains makes the ants happy :)
 
I would use them in the compost or in a grain bread. I plan to buy a bread machine in a few weeks. Still shopping around didn't know there were so d#$n many!:D
 
i put mine in my hop garden..it was a big mistake i had thousands of ants..ended up useing pesticide to get rid of them.
 
I tried the bread (treberbrot) - it wasn't very good.

My dog loves dog biscuits made from them.

There's another post or 10 about this someplace, but I'm going to bed, so you'll have to do the searching yourself.
 
I decided that I would put some spent grain in the bottom of a flower bed that I was building near the driveway. I just put it down and put top soil over the top of it. Then, I planted a whole series of sunflower seeds in those beds. Now, when I come home I find little holes dug in my beds with spent grain spread all around the top. I'm thinking a good solution will be a watchful eye....and a pellet gun.
 
The dog biscuit trick is the way to go. My dogs love them, they also eat crap to so take my advice with a grain of salt.
 
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