FDA to regulate spent grains

[moonmandave]

The FDA is update the Food Safety Modernization Act. Under the new regulations, it will require brewers to regulate their spent grains to the FDA's standards.

If brewers chose not to spend on repackaging, testing, and record keeping, they will be left with no option but to dispose of them as waste.

This poses a problem to local agriculture and members inside the communities near the breweries. Brewers will no longer be able to give their brewers to local agriculture as livestock feed, or to community members for baking or compost.

While this most likely won't affect us homebrewers, there's still a message here.

To show that something as minimal as spent grains can play a vital role in the community, my wife and I will be baking dog treats from the grains and donating them to the local animal shelter. Also, since we live in an area whose economy relies heavily on agriculture, we will be writing up a press release to raise awareness in the community.

If you are able to do the same, please make every effort to spread this message. A jar of peanutbutter, a few scoops of flour, and a couple eggs can go a long way.

Let's support our breweries, our communities, and our environment!


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[moonmandave]

I apologize for my grammar errors above. I typed this up pretty quick on the fly at work.


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[broadbill]

The FDA is update the Food Safety Modernization Act. Under the new regulations, it will require brewers to regulate their spent grains to the FDA's standards.

If brewers chose not to spend on repackaging, testing, and record keeping, they will be left with no option but to dispose of them as waste.

This poses a problem to local agriculture and members inside the communities near the breweries. Brewers will no longer be able to give their brewers to local agriculture as livestock feed, or to community members for baking or compost.

While this most likely won't affect us homebrewers, there's still a message here.

To show that something as minimal as spent grains can play a vital role in the community, my wife and I will be baking dog treats from the grains and donating them to the local animal shelter. Also, since we live in an area whose economy relies heavily on agriculture, we will be writing up a press release to raise awareness in the community.

If you are able to do the same, please make every effort to spread this message. A jar of peanutbutter, a few scoops of flour, and a couple eggs can go a long way.

Let's support our breweries, our communities, and our environment!


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

Not sure what the first half of the post has to do the second half....

You have to wonder who is behind this legislation, seeing that if farmers cannot utilize cheap by-product feedstuff to feed their animals, they will have to purchase more non-by-product feedstuffs like corn and soybeans. Hmmmmm...

 

[moonmandave]

The point is that we can show that if the FDA makes it difficult and pricey to share spent grains with the community, it can have a negative impact.

And yes, I agree with you, it's funny that they can approve of the use of hormones and chemicals in our food. Now the pricey stuff we call "organic food" is what our parents and grandparents just called "food."

But hey that's capitalism. They see that there's a reusable by-product from brewing, and they want to put a price on it. It's a shame.

 

[moonmandave]

Ultimately, if brewers do choose to make the moral decision to comply with the new regulations, it may drive up the price of beer.
They will have to compensate to cover the costs of drying, repackaging, and regulating their spent grains.
Also, if the community's agriculture is required to spend more money on feeding their livestock, prices on meat and milk could even see an increase.

 

[soccerdad]

somewhere in the past four centuries a cow had a loose stool that may have been a result of a barley meal ... THIS MUST BE STOPPED

 

[Wingnutt73]

Ultimately, if brewers do choose to make the moral decision to comply with the new regulations, it may drive up the price of beer.
They will have to compensate to cover the costs of drying, repackaging, and regulating their spent grains.
Also, if the community's agriculture is required to spend more money on feeding their livestock, prices on meat and milk could even see an increase.

That is it in a nut shell. the Price of good beer, meat, milk and just about everything else will go up even more. What a dang shame. I worked at a mom and pop fresh groceries store in NH when I was in High school. All the Bread, fruits and veggies that went bad we had a separate dumpster to put the waste in. Once a week a Pig farmer would come by and load it off.
this is basically the same thing. I guess looking back maybe what we were doing was against some FDA reg but Why?!?!?!
It hurts no one and the food gets used to feed the animals and they in turn feed us so whats the problem?
I wish I could build a wall and mote around my property and be self sustained and not have to worry about "The Man" telling us how and what we can do with our "Trash".

End Rant.... :rockin:

 

[moonmandave]

Exactly. I would just like to show that not only is it not harming anyone, but good can actually come from this.

 

[Oginme]

That is it in a nut shell. the Price of good beer, meat, milk and just about everything else will go up even more. What a dang shame. I worked at a mom and pop fresh groceries store in NH when I was in High school. All the Bread, fruits and veggies that went bad we had a separate dumpster to put the waste in. Once a week a Pig farmer would come by and load it off.
this is basically the same thing. I guess looking back maybe what we were doing was against some FDA reg but Why?!?!?!

The point is that you were not doing something that was against FDA regulations. They are now deciding that they want to draft regulations to stop the practice that you were doing.

The spent grains to farmers issue comes out of a couple of studies that were done several years ago. In one study, cattle fed DRIED spent grain from a distillery in combination diet with silage had higher levels of a certain e-coli strain than cattle on an all silage diet. The problem is that there are plenty of proteins and cellulosics in the spent grain which help to increase the population of the e-coli strain which is found in the silage. The FDA's preferred response in the proposed regulations is to have breweries and distilleries DRY their grains before selling/giving them away to farmers. On what planet does this make sense?

The real driving factor here is large grain companies are losing out to farmers who are getting cheaper grains from small operations. Large brewing/distilling companies get money from the large grain companies to use their spent grains in processed livestock feed. When you connect the dots, use a string of dollar signs, it helps to figure out the motive.

If they wanted to assure less chance of e-coli bacteria from being present in cattle feces, then make the recommendation that farmers who feed their cattle silage should avoid the spent grains and farmers who feed spent grains should avoid using silage. This may be too easy for them to figure out though.

Side note: I operate a small dairy goat farm, which is why I stay on top of these issues. I do not feed my goats spent grains other than those that I produce myself, mostly because I live too dang far from any small brewery.

 

[unionrdr]

I'd think the real issue would be how long they sit before being fed to the animals? Spent grains do go sour rather quickly. so drying them would be better in that light.

 

[kcmobrewer]

What a load of bull****. God forbid a brewery try to go green and give feed to farmers for damn near free, and reduce waste. Good ole government trying to get their damn finger into everything. Can't let something that damn simple go. Gotta regulate it...

I feed the deer in my back yard all my spent grain that I don't use. Haven't seen any of them drop dead next to the pile.

 

[MindenMan]

What a giant crock of shi*t, really? Some big producer of cow products, doesn't want the competition from free food stuffs to "their" dairies. I have heard of breweries using the spent grain to use as fuel for their boilers, maybe it isn't a complete loss.

 

[passedpawn]

The FDA is update the Food Safety Modernization Act. Under the new regulations, it will require brewers to regulate their spent grains to the FDA's standards.

If brewers chose not to spend on repackaging, testing, and record keeping, they will be left with no option but to dispose of them as waste.

This poses a problem to local agriculture and members inside the communities near the breweries. Brewers will no longer be able to give their brewers to local agriculture as livestock feed, or to community members for baking or compost.

While this most likely won't affect us homebrewers, there's still a message here.

To show that something as minimal as spent grains can play a vital role in the community, my wife and I will be baking dog treats from the grains and donating them to the local animal shelter. Also, since we live in an area whose economy relies heavily on agriculture, we will be writing up a press release to raise awareness in the community.

If you are able to do the same, please make every effort to spread this message. A jar of peanutbutter, a few scoops of flour, and a couple eggs can go a long way.

Let's support our breweries, our communities, and our environment!


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

My daughter does the same thing with our spent grain. We've given them to the local doggie rescue.

 

[unionrdr]

That's really cool,man! Did she thing that packaging up?

 

[Yooper]

In the last two days, it was announced that the FDA is amending the language and this part of the act: http://www.coloradoan.com/story/new...ewers-await-grains-fate-new-fda-rule/7994941/

In any case, I know I'm an old hippie but I don't believe in ever "wasting" items that are useful and wholesome, so I've been feeding my dog some spent grains (not too much, as I don't think dogs should have a ton of grains) and composting some, and giving some to friends who have chickens. I would hate to see things that decompose well ever go into someone's trash in a plastic bag, so I would encourage everyone to think about that when finishing up a brewday!

 

[passedpawn]

That's really cool,man! Did she thing that packaging up?

No, but she was the manual labor. I bought the bags (about a million of them for $5) from www.uline.com, and the tags were printed on card stock, then cut out with scissors, folded, and stapled over the top of the bags. I think I could still make about a million of them with my original $10 investment (and free labor).

 

[Zuljin]

This industry obviously needs regulation! Here we have a brazen admission that it utilizes child slave labor! Won't someone think of the children?

 

[Zuljin]

I dump mine straight into planting beds. I've seen birds eat them and the worms don't seem to mind.

 

[BadBeagleBrew]

I dump mine in my favorite worm digging spot behind the house, the grains feed the worms, and the worms lure the trout. If breweries could find ways to utilize waste energy into drying the grains there may be an affordable way to maintain the law. I don't agree with this legislation though, it's amazing how much common sense and ethical living can be changed by money. They could also find land, use all the grains and other products from town to make compost piles, than sell that nutrient rich soil to vegetable farmers for their fields. Again I don't agree with it but being sour about something doesn't mean it will ever change, it's all about finding the loop holes, and abusing the crap out of them.

 

[Oginme]

The worry about the grains souring is overblown as well. Most likely the bacteria 'souring' the grains would most likely be a strain of lactobacillus. The one of the many types of bacteria that resides in the rumens of cows, sheep and goats. They are ruminants, and have a healthy supply of bacteria in their rumens to break down complex carbohydrates and cellulosics into simple dextrins that they can then utilize for their own use. The concern they have expressed is with e-coli and most ruminants have some population of e-coli in them as well. If maintained healthy, their bodies will keep the 'bad' bacteria under control and optimize the population of 'good' bacteria.

The greater concern would be molds, and no studies and arguments were put forth by the FDA on the grains containing molds.

 

[plath]

Just posting to follow this thread. Stuff like this is really starting to get under my skin. Sure, lets make more regulations to increase the trash in this country. Ridiculous.


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[Zuljin]

There's an idea. Worm farms. It's just worms. There shouldn't be as many regs on that.

 

[fizgig]

This is kind of old info. Here's a newer article:
http://tcbmag.com/News/Recent-News/2014/April/FDA-Responds-To-Craft-Brewer-Backlash-Over-Propose

 

[moonmandave]

This is kind of old info. Here's a newer article:
http://tcbmag.com/News/Recent-News/2014/April/FDA-Responds-To-Craft-Brewer-Backlash-Over-Propose

Well that's some good news. Let's keep our fingers crossed that it's that simple. I hate the thought of wasting something valuable.

 

[Decoy]

I have not thoroughly researched the science behind the decision to increase efforts to prevent food borne illness relative to spent grains, but this seems like a typical case of too much government. Without everyone rolling up their eyes to another conservative take on this, there are no cited problems these regulations are targeted to address. Go figure ... no science behind government legislation; pure ignorance (I'll retract that if any can find their science, I can't). Near as I can tell these FDA hacks sit around dreaming up ways to justify their jobs, close the nth sigma, and spend our money on nothing. I was at my local brewery yesterday, CB in Honeoye Falls buying a keg of Caged Alpha Monkey IPA (awsome btw), and they would definitely be affected. At least for once Sen. Schmuck Schumer is on the right side of something and is trying to get that accounted for/removed in the FDA regulations. NY has many programs in place to stimulate the craft brewing industry and this would be a bad thing on every level.

 

[broadbill]

well, to be fair this isn't exactly going to cripple either the craft brew or farm industries. Craft brewers will have to pay to haul away the grain as trash instead of getting a farmer to pay to have it hauled to their farm (although the brewery may pay the hauling cost because it saves them in disposal cost), and Farmers will have to find an alternative foodstuff to replace it.

If I recall, you can only feed a certain percentage of this stuff as part of a cows total ration (10-20%?); its not like they can eat just recycled brewers grains 100% of the time.

 

[rlmiller10]

I'd think the real issue would be how long they sit before being fed to the animals? Spent grains do go sour rather quickly. so drying them would be better in that light.

Sour has not effect on cattle. In fact they like it. If you have ever torn into a silage pile January it is very sour. But the cattle love it.

Back to the topic. There is some debate on whether the proposed regs would require drying of the grain. But they definitely require monitoring, different handling and record keeping that would all add cost. Very much a solution looking for a problem. In other words, what the nanny government does best.

 

[rlmiller10]

I'd think the real issue would be how long they sit before being fed to the animals? Spent grains do go sour rather quickly. so drying them would be better in that light.

Sour has no effect on cattle. In fact they like it. If you have ever torn into a silage pile January it is very sour. But the cattle love it.

Back to the topic. There is some debate on whether the proposed regs would require drying of the grain. But they definitely require monitoring, different handling and record keeping that would all add cost. Very much a solution looking for a problem. In other words, what the nanny government does best.

 

[unionrdr]

In that case,it does indeed seem like they're trying to create a problem where none exists to make them look like they're doing their jobs & get re-elected.

 

[moonmandave]

Not sure if it's been talked about here or not, but Florida is proposing that all microbrews or brewpubs sell any beer they wish to pour on premises to a distributor, only to have to buy it back from said distributor, in order to sell in-house. Sounds like macrobrew law in effect!

 

[unionrdr]

That's just retarded. Bad deal all around,save for the distributor making a buck off it. sounds to me like they're behind that one.