Left-over Grain

[Psychonought]

I'm sure this is already a thread, but I scoured the interwebs and found nothing on this. What do people do with their used grains? I usually just compost them, but I feel like there must be something more useful to do with them. Maybe bread-making?
Any ideas?

 

[phoenixs4r]

Everything I've found uses a very small portion of the grain. The dog treat recipe posted on the site used more than most, but my dog didn't eat them. Go figure.

 

[bad67z]

You can compost it, feed it to deer, work a deal with someone selling fresh eggs, chickens love the spent grain.

 

[Psychonought]

@phoenixs4r
haha, sounds like my dogs. Picky eaters considering they roll in deer poo every morning. I'll give it a try though, maybe they'll eat them if I give them a little of the beer first...

Is there any way to make human food though, or are all of the sugars and good tastiness gone by the time I am done brewing the grain?

 

[bad67z]

you can add it to bread recipes all fiber with little or no added sugar.

 

[E-Mursed]

Found this link and it looks promising.

http://cleanplatter.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/spent-grain-bread/

 

[absoluthamm]

I would think it would be a little too fibrous with all of the husks in there as well.

 

[E-Mursed]

You should do a search for pizza crust too.

 

[kbuzz]

I feed it to my hop plants!

 

[mux]

I did the dog treats my chihuahuas love them. When not making it into food I compost it or feed it to the roving animals in my backyard. I Brew 3-4 6 gallon bathes a month so I have a lot of spent grain.

 

[kraypd]

Does anyone know what most commercial breweries do? I can only imagine the tons of spent grain that they generate.

 

[wcrooker]

Does anyone know what most commercial breweries do? I can only imagine the tons of spent grain that they generate.

I know dogfish sends their spent grain to local cattle farms for feed and then they get a discount for beef for their brewpub.

 

[NervousDad]

I feed the deer/compost.

 

[TheWall]

http://brooklynbrewshop.com/themash/category/spentgrainchef/

SWMBO Found this link. I try to use as much of it as I can, albeit most recipes only call for a cup of spent grain at a time.

Also if you give them away, make sure you inform the person if you FWH. I've seen people make dog biscuits from hopped grain, bad news.

 

[beninan]

Didn't read the other post, but I'm sure all this has already been said:

I use it for bread, dog treats, (experimented with) "granola" bars, chicken and pig feed.

 

[borden]

Glad I found this thread. Did 4 AG batches (~10 lb grist for each) in the last month, and even with a record-setting warm Minnesota winter, our compost bin is full and not doing much til spring. Hate to send the grain into the garbage--our trash is burned just a few miles away in a waste-to-energy facility--so I'll be checking out some of the links and ideas here!

 

[skidaddytn]

After seeing the grain piles I have left in the yard... they do not decompose very fast... I wonder if it is dried, can you burn it?

 

[Frodo]

I pour mine on the ground, and the birds pick away. Eventually it just becomes part of the soil when I get around to mixing it in. I don't exactly have a "lawn" though, just a lot of dirt and weeds... so it's easy to blend it in.

 

[Dan]

This only uses a few cups of grain, the rest go into the compost pile.

Home Brewer Spent Grain Focaccia
The base
1 1/3 warm water
3 cups spent grain
3-4 cups bread flour
yeast from a fresh batch of brew or 2 packs of Fleishmann’s Active baking yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon sea salt

The Flavoring Herbs and oil into the bread:
¼ cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon dried Rosemary
1 teaspoonThyme (there’s always time for thyme!)
1 teaspoon Oregano
A little garlic powder

Focaccia Topping
Sea salt, black pepper, chopped garlic, olive oil, parmesan cheese.

Directions
If you have a heavy duty mixer, mix everything together using the wire whisk attachment and slowly add the flour. Once the flour is pretty well absorbed switch to the kneading tool and let the mixer run about 10 minutes on a fairly slow speed or until dough has formed a nice ball. Remove from mixer and knead by hand a minute or so and form into ball. Place in lightly oiled bowl, (I use the same one that I mixed it in), cover with a towel or plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place 1.5 to 2 hours.

If you don’t have a mixer.
In a large bowl combine lukewarm water, spent grain yeast, salt, sugar, herbs and oil. Mix well. Add flour slowly until you can make a ball and then knead for 10-15 minutes. Add flour as necessary, in the end the ball should be elastic and fairly smooth. It won’t be completely smooth because of the spent grain. Should not be real sticky though. Form into a ball, place in in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with something… sometimes I use plastic wrap, sometimes a clean towel. Let rise in warm place until doubled, around 1.5-2 hrs

After the rise
After the rise punch down dough. Knead a few minutes and let it rest 15 minutes. This is flat bread so use a cookie sheet or baking sheet or whatever you have to spread dough out until it’s about 1.5 inches thick. Let rise another hour or so, until the bread had pretty much doubled in height. Then poke with your fingers making little dimples all over it and use a fork to poke random holes (this allows some but not all of the steam to escape)

Ready for oven
Bake in a 425 degree oven for around 30 minutes
Remove from oven and drizzle oil, sea salt, pepper, chopped garlic and parmesan cheese
Put back into oven and bake another 5-10 minutes.


Cheers!

 

[dotsun]

I give them to a friend of mine that has chickens and goats.

 

[CrookedTail]

I make bread with it. Two cups of grain, two cups of bread flour, some olive oil, salt, a cup of water and yeast. It's rustic and very tasty.

I'd give pizza a shot with that same dough, but I think it might make a crust that's too sweet.

 

[funkapottomous]

Does anyone know what most commercial breweries do? I can only imagine the tons of spent grain that they generate.

I know southern star sells/gives theirs to a guy who raises rodeo bulls.

 

[magno]

I save a few cups from most batches and make bread and pizza dough with it. I keep it in the freezer until I am ready to bake, then use ~2 cups/loaf or /2 pizzas.

 

[Beer_Eugenics]

I fill in the holes my dogs dig.

 

[WAORGANY]

I feed mine to our chickens but wife wants to use some for bread as well. Many commercial breweries send spent grain to local farmers for cattle/cow feed or pigs.

 

[fletchsj]

free cycle it to goat farmers...

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

Many commercial breweries sell or give it to local farmers for livestock. I think New Belgium uses it in their methane recapture facility but I might be wrong.

I make bread with my spent grains. I always keep the grains on batches with a lot of specialty grains. If I have a lot of spent grains stored in the freezer I toss out the grain from batches where it's all base grain. I have limited room for storage. I have an animal hospital with horses and cows behind me. I guess I should ask them if they would like the grains instead of tossing it out.

 

[absoluthamm]

After looking it up, I think my next batch I will be making some pizza dough with it, looks really interesting.

 

[KuntzBrewing]

I mean there's not much left to the grain, we take all the starch and turn it to sugar and only leave 25% sugar on the grain, I just throw it away, u ever taste the spent grain? Its got no flavor left and isn't really worth the trouble of doing anything other than throwing it away, and it can spoil very fast

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

I mean there's not much left to the grain, we take all the starch and turn it to sugar and only leave 25% sugar on the grain, I just throw it away, u ever taste the spent grain? Its got no flavor left and isn't really worth the trouble of doing anything other than throwing it away, and it can spoil very fast

You have clearly never eaten anything made with spent grain.

 

[kaz4121]

Try this website:

http://brooklynbrewshop.com/themash/category/spentgrainchef/

They do some pretty neat and different things with spent grain