What to do with the grains after brewing?

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dockens

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I was wondering what people did with thier grains after boiling? I have heard of making cereal or granola, but don't have any recipies or know how Iwould go about it. It seems like such a waste to throw them out!
 
Compost I guess. The cat that hangs out here used to try to eat them, but not anymore. Might even make a good mulch if you let it dry out.
 
I toss the grains, trub and hops upslope and the wild critters eat them. If you want to try cooking, look into any recipe calling for bran (in large quantities).
 
There is NO food left in it. Unless ypu want to add it to bread to make plain flour into "Whole Grain", throw it out/ compost/ dry and burn it. Or put it in a pillow case, tie a knot, run it through the clothes dryer, then use it for 'organic' packing? hmmm, I buy Rice hulls to use in Rye beer, mabey I'll make my own?..lessee, I use 1 1/2 pounds, at .59, I'd save .90 each batch.....
 
I have three different options for my spent grains. A very good friend of mine has horses and I bribe them with the grain so they'll leave my beer alone. Also I make:

Spent Grain Bread

When you make all grain beer save the grain. Use sandwich size zip lock bags. Fill up 3 or 4 bags. Then freeze them until you bake bread.

2 cup Spent Grain (Use a coffee grinder or food processor and grind them up)
4 cup Bread Flour
1 cup Wheat Flour
1½ tsp. Salt
¼ cup Sugar
½ Stick Butter
1 ea. Egg (Beaten)
2 cup Warm Water
1 tbsp. Olive Oil
½ cup warm water with 2¼ tsp. Bread yeast

Mix together and knead with 1 more cup of flour.
Let rise and flatten down divide into 2 or 4 pc. Depends on how big you want your bread loafs or roll little balls to make rolls. Freeze the rest and take out when you want more bread. Let it rise again and bake. Bake at 350°F for 35 min. for loafs or 10-12 min. for rolls. Use corn meal on cookie sheet so loaf does not stick to pan. 1 tsp. Olive Oil to brush the top of the bread when it comes out of the oven.


Or for the dogs I make:

Pizza-n-Beer dog bones


2 cup Wet Spent Grain
½ cup Pizza/Pasta Sauce
4 ea. Cloves of Garlic, crushed
1 ea. Egg
2 cup Any combination of whole wheat, corn, barley, soy, or regular flour


Mix into a firm dough (I had to add a bit more flour to get it firm). Roll out on a greased cookie sheet to about ¼ -
⅛" thick. Cut into wedges, or strips, or (if you're really creative) bones. Bake at 350°F for 30 minutes. Turn off heat, and leave in the oven over night to get hard.
I just hate wasting all the good stuff.

Wild
 
I currently dump mine in the drainage ditch that runs behind the house. When the first rain comes along, bye bye spend grains. I'll bet the neighbors down stream think someone is seeding their lawn with wheat or something...
 
You don't need to dry the grains before the horses eat it, just break it up. Golden Valley Brewery's owners have a "natural" beef farm and the beefs eat the grain, trub and hops. The menu claims the grain is high in protein, but it's really the yeast.

Good stuff, if you have more than one stomach.
 
david_42 said:
Good stuff, if you have more than one stomach.

I'm glad you were talking about the spent grains, not MY beer....

Yup, the trub should be excellent for the critters. I'll bet the micros flush it down the drain, but if a guy fattening up a pig could pick it up for slop....course, the pig might get lots of gas...
 
Denny's Brew said:
I have a friend with horses. Does the grain have to be dried first? Right now it's in 6 gallon buckets freezing outside.
I don't really dry the grain per se'. I just spread it out on some newspaper on the driveway while I'm finishing my brew session. When I'm done, I just roll it up and dump it into a bag. This is just to reduce mold until the horses finish it all off.

Wild
 
wild said:
Spent Grain Bread

It's called Treberbrot in Germany. Here are some pictures http://www.pier32.de/p32/bier/treberbrot.htm

The translation of the recipe:

250g spent grain
500g wheat flour
40g fresh bakers yeast (though the author says no dry-yeast, you should
be able to use instant dry yeast)
40g slivered almonds
2 tsp salt

I haven't tried it myself but heard a lot about it. I just wonder if the husks will be soft enough. But I definitely will have to try it one day.
 
Kai said:
It's called Treberbrot in Germany. Here are some pictures http://www.pier32.de/p32/bier/treberbrot.htm

The translation of the recipe:

250g spent grain
500g wheat flour
40g fresh bakers yeast (though the author says no dry-yeast, you should
be able to use instant dry yeast)
40g slivered almonds
2 tsp salt

I haven't tried it myself but heard a lot about it. I just wonder if the husks will be soft enough. But I definitely will have to try it one day.

cool! thanks for the research and recipe. gonna try this one for sure....
 
I toss it out back for the squirrels. They go crazy for it. Spend all day chattering up in the pines behind the garage. Then they make perfect targets. The little brewery down the road in Fox gives it all to a pig farmer. Helps fatten them up. I tries a bit of it for chewing on once. Won't do that again.
 
I was always wondering, if it is actually possible to make a beer bread using beer yeast.

The only problem is that beer yeast is slower than bakers yeast and it does not feed on starches. The latter would have to be addressed by making a mash with some ground 2 row (I would even go as far as removing the husks) and some wheat flour. This doesn't have to be a complete mashing since it only needs to provide enough sugars for the yeast to leaven the dough. As for yeast, just take some of the slurry from the primary.

With my limited brewing and baking knowledge I think it souled work :)

Just noticed, that with the use of spent grains, you don't even have to do the mashing I mentioned above. The spent grains should have enough sugars for the yeast to leaven the dough.
 
Buy a miniature cow and keep it in the back yard. Name it BBQ, Burger or Ribs, so the kids don't think it's a pet.

img21.jpg
 
Well, I did it. Last weekend was brew day (Hofbraeuhaus Berchtesgadener Hell clone) and I baked a Treberbrot (spent grain bread) from the grains I steeped for the recipe:

Treberbrot.JPG


It came out better than expected. The husks, which I though would bother me, are barely noticeable at all. The whole bread has a very rustic taste to it. I enjoyed it with some Winter Bock home brew.

Here is the recipe:

125g spent grains
250g bread flour
155ml (=g) warm water
1/2 tsp active dry yeast
1/4 tsp salt

mix the ingredients together and kneed well for about 10min. I had it in the KitchenAid mixer for 10min at level 2.
Let rest (proof) for about an hour or until doubled in size.
Preheat the oven to 400F
Place on floured work space and flatten using our knuckles. This will even out the bubbles and remove the overly large ones. Fold over onto itself 4 times and let sit covered for 10 min.
Shape a loaf and let proof for another 30 min.
With a sharp knife, or a razor blade, cut shallow slits into the top of the loaf.
Now place in the oven. This works best on a pizza stone. While in the oven spray the sides of the oven with water every 5 min for the first 25min. This will develop steam which helps the crust formation. Bake until golden brown.

You may also want to watch the "Mr Strangeloaf" episode of Good Eats to get an introduction to the techniques used in bread baking.

This kind of bread is best enjoyed as open faced sandwiches spread with butter and topped with cold cuts (ham, cheese, hard salami, liverwust) and a brew of your choice.
 
Had some small mouse get into my brewing supplies. It was into a bag of whole Cascades hops and a bag of 2 row barley. Both 1 pound bags. Be killing it with set traps next time it visits. Next thing it wouldbe drinking my brew to wash it down.
 
That's why I keep my makings in the keggerator's freezer. You would NOT believe the number of critters in my yard, garage, barn, etc. I have to store all of my gear upside-down, as well. Nothing worse than going out to the brewery for a pint and stepping on a lizard in your bare feet. Except having a weasel run over your foot while enjoying an evenings brew on the porch, tiny little needle-like claws and all.
 
If the traps fail, I'll put my three ferrets to work hunting them down. Could be worse though. I do get bears and raccoons and they can really do damage, even in refrigerators etc.
 
Be careful with using the spent grain as mulch... my friend does that at his apartment complex and has successfully killed all the shrubbery...
 
Kai said:
Well, I did it. Last weekend was brew day (Hofbraeuhaus Berchtesgadener Hell clone) and I baked a Treberbrot (spent grain bread) from the grains I steeped for the recipe:

Treberbrot.JPG


It came out better than expected. The husks, which I though would bother me, are barely noticeable at all. The whole bread has a very rustic taste to it. I enjoyed it with some Winter Bock home brew.

Here is the recipe:

125g spent grains
250g bread flour
155ml (=g) warm water
1/2 tsp active dry yeast
1/4 tsp salt

mix the ingredients together and kneed well for about 10min. I had it in the KitchenAid mixer for 10min at level 2.
Let rest (proof) for about an hour or until doubled in size.
Preheat the oven to 400F
Place on floured work space and flatten using our knuckles. This will even out the bubbles and remove the overly large ones. Fold over onto itself 4 times and let sit covered for 10 min.
Shape a loaf and let proof for another 30 min.
With a sharp knife, or a razor blade, cut shallow slits into the top of the loaf.
Now place in the oven. This works best on a pizza stone. While in the oven spray the sides of the oven with water every 5 min for the first 25min. This will develop steam which helps the crust formation. Bake until golden brown.

You may also want to watch the "Mr Strangeloaf" episode of Good Eats to get an introduction to the techniques used in bread baking.

This kind of bread is best enjoyed as open faced sandwiches spread with butter and topped with cold cuts (ham, cheese, hard salami, liverwust) and a brew of your choice.

Sweet! That looks awesome Kai!!!

I SO want to do that--I'm planning a rye brew very soon--that will probably be the inaugural "spent-grain bread" batch.....

I'm highly impressed....thanks for all the info....:D
 
Beautiful picture. Nice bread, nice beer, nice cutting board, nice background. Looks like it belongs in a recipe book. I'm certainly going to try the beer.

Hey, if I brew a lambic, will I get sourdough?
If I brew a stout and a light rye, then mix them, will the black & tan give me a marble rye?
If I use biscuit malt, can I put sausage gravy on top of the bread?

Okay, I'm done joking around.
 
I failed to trap the mice that raided my brewing supplies. I tried both conventional and glue type mouse traps. Took the bait but didn't get caught. Even set off a couple of the traps. Sent in the ferrets for their first hunt. In less than 15 minutes, the male ferret got the mother. The two female ferrets got the baby mice from the nest. They dined on the mice and I even gave them a little taste of my brew as a reward. Two liked it, one didn't. These three guys can push around my 126 pound lab/pit bull mix. After their first blood they have become true to their natural hunting instincts. I first had a set of hunting ferrets about 16 years ago. They pulled rabbits and ground squirrels from their burrows. My brewing supplies are again safe from varmits.:D
 
I just let them have a little. Not good for their pancreas. And I not going to let them see how the tap operates. If they see how, then I am in trouble. They already know how to escape from the cage except for the locks and keeping the keys out of reach. I may have them patrol the brew room weekly to eliminate any more mice.
 
Genghis77 said:
They dined on the mice and I even gave them a little taste of my brew as a reward.
Unfortunately ferrets can't pass gas in any direction and will explode if they get too much. So only let them learn how to operate your beer engine.

They are the best mousers in the world. Haven't seen a mouse in over 30 years now because of my babies.

Wild
 
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