What do you do with your spent grains?

@stever1000 Last time I made it I decided to freeze my spent grain and I dried it a couple days after the brew. I didn't like doing it that way, though. It felt like a big waste to freeze them after they were already very warm and then thaw and dry them later. I doubt it has any negative impact on the flour it made. I was just trying to give my wife a chance to make supper in the oven while I was using the burner.

Kind of an off-topic thing, and you probably already figured this, but if you are going to refrigerate or freeze the spent grain, try to figure out a way to bring down the temperature of that mass quickly. As you are probably aware, that stuff starts smelling funky and sour really quickly after sparging. I've cleaned out my mash tun and just put the spent grain I wasn't saving in a plastic grocery bag and set it by the guest shower drain and waited to throw them out until after chilling and pitching, and it stunk up the whole bathroom like a mixture of spoiled silage and moldy socks after just a few hours. I'd recommend bagging it in ziploc bags as soon as it cools off enough that spoiling bugs can start growing, and sandwich the bag between some ice packs, or if you really trust that the bag is water-tight, maybe even give it a cold water bath. Throwing it in the fridge or freezer directly isn't supposed to be good for your appliance, either.

Kent88 said:

@stever1000 Last time I made it I decided to freeze my spent grain and I dried it a couple days after the brew. I didn't like doing it that way, though. It felt like a big waste to freeze them after they were already very warm and then thaw and dry them later. I doubt it has any negative impact on the flour it made. I was just trying to give my wife a chance to make supper in the oven while I was using the burner.

Kind of an off-topic thing, and you probably already figured this, but if you are going to refrigerate or freeze the spent grain, try to figure out a way to bring down the temperature of that mass quickly. As you are probably aware, that stuff starts smelling funky and sour really quickly after sparging. I've cleaned out my mash tun and just put the spent grain I wasn't saving in a plastic grocery bag and set it by the guest shower drain and waited to throw them out until after chilling and pitching, and it stunk up the whole bathroom like a mixture of spoiled silage and moldy socks after just a few hours. I'd recommend bagging it in ziploc bags as soon as it cools off enough that spoiling bugs can start growing, and sandwich the bag between some ice packs, or if you really trust that the bag is water-tight, maybe even give it a cold water bath. Throwing it in the fridge or freezer directly isn't supposed to be good for your appliance, either.

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@Kent88 good info - I will have to re-think this idea now to optimize both outcomes

@Stever1000 Good luck. If you live up in the north we aren't far away from the snowy part of winter. The whole of the outside will soon become a useful way to quickly cool a bag of spent grains, if one should feel the need.

For some reason I've just latched onto the idea of re-purposing spent grain in better ways than compost and dog treats. It really is all about using it in moderation and finding the right things to put them in. Things like pizza and waffles are great because you're adding things like sauce and syrup that keep the spent grains from scratching your throat. I also wonder if cinnamon rolls would be a good way to use them. My wife and I just made kolaches and I wonder if a little bit could be used in that dough because of the fruit sauce/syrup/jam/whatever that you put on there when they bake, along with the dough itself including a lot of butter and eggs.

Another vote for the chickens- my brother's in this case. Short walk across the yard, dump the cooler, stop by the hose on the way back, and rinse. Done till next time.

They also got all my grape stems and moldy grapes.

I just brewed another malty lager before thanksgiving and my wife loves spent grain bread made from wet spent grain so I thought I'd share the recipe we use and the tweaks we've made, and even some I'm planning to tinker with.

We started with this recipe. Thing is, this guy seems to love (not like) his dough to be wet. I up'd the bread flour from 11.25oz to 15oz before I even got it out of the mixer and it was still stickier than heck. I think I get what he is going for, I don't want it to end up very dry either, but wow did it need more flour when I started kneading it by hand.

Rather than fiddling around with some water and some milk (which in the recipe was reconstituted from dry for some reason) I just used 1.25Cup whole milk. Instead of using 2.25oz sugar I used equal weight of leftover DME. I figured why not push the beer flavor even more. I bet if a brewer collected spent grain from a no sparge mash that added sugar wouldn't even be necessary.

I'm trying another batch right now where I added an extra egg yolk because I apparently want to die of a heart attack before I'm 60. It has spent grain, which is essentially just fiber, so I suppose I'm canceling out the idea that it is healthy. I'd also be interested in substituting the water in the original recipe for leftover excess yeast starter and reducing the amount of yeast to a teaspoon and just proof it in warm milk.

Interestingly enough, when I weighed out the 1 cup of wet spent grain it was 5oz, the same as 1 cup unsifted flour.