Spent Grain

[r4dyce]

Hi guys,

Just wondering if any of you repurpose your spent grains. I've seen / eaten some pretzels at a brew pub that used spent grain in the dough. Does anyone have any other suggestions/recipes/ideas?
I realize most people just trash the grain, just seems like kind of a waste. I'm just getting started and doing some 1 gallon batches, so it's not like I have tons of grain after but figured there must be some fun ways to reuse it.

Thanks

 

[Rockn_M]

You can do spent grain bread, or if you have dogs spent grain dog biscuits. I typically just dump mine in my side yard for rabbit food.

 

[GrogNerd]

At least once during your time brewing, you need to leave some spent grains in the hot sun for a few days

Then stick your nose down next to them and take a big ol' whiff

The others will advise against it, but don't listen to them

 

[IslandLizard]

I love spent grain bread. Each of your 1 gallon batches will generate the right amount for 4-6 loaves, depending how much spent grain you want to incorporate. In my book, at least 50% of the bread dough should be from spent grain to call it that. I just add enough flour to make it kneadable, or go for unkneaded dough, just well mixed.

I tend to leave very dark (roasted) grains out of the mash and steep them separately on the side for better flavor. That gives me a better spent grain too for bread.
You can store the spent grains for a day or 2 in the fridge, if you can't bake the same day as you brew, but wouldn't go much beyond that, unless you add a sourdough starter to it.

There's a long thread on spent grain already.

Search in Google like this:

site:homebrewtalk.com spent grain​

Or any other search query, it only searches this site. Much better than the built-in search engine onsite.

 

[enkamania]

Dog biscuits. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=87097

 

[Mackster]

I too have been struggling what to do with my spent grains. I got chickens, thinking they would eat them up, but the 5 can not gobbles up 10 gallon batch worth before they self-ferment. All of the ideas I see suggest making bread, pretzels, dog treats, etc. None of these require much more than a few cups, and I have several gallons. I believe that there is no good use other than large animal feed. Either get some goats, or just keep tossing them.

 

[chickypad]

I second that dog biscuit recipe. I unfortunately lost my 15 yr old good girl this summer but I still have some coworkers whose dogs are hooked on them.

 

[Greytop]

My wife makes muffins and bread from the spent grains. She uses 3 cups for two loaves of bread. I do BIAB and once I finish sparging and draining, the grains go to the kitchen. If she's baking that day, she'll hold some out. Otherwise, she'll fill a half dozen zip lock bags with 3 cups each and put them in the deep freeze for baking at a later date. The rest go to our chickens.

 

[AntonioMartins]

Most of my spent grains go to my backyard as fertilizer.

But from each batch I use to freeze 3 or 4 packs of 500g each.

I use it for bread, Italian meatballs (porpeta) and also for meatloaf.

 

[Oginme]

Find someone in your area who is raising chickens or goats. My goats smack their mouths and drool when I walk into the barn with a bucket of spent grain.

 

[imasickboy]

Occasionally I'll toss some in the freezer for bread or dog biscuits, but the bulk of them go into the compost pile, and I reap the benefits the following growing season.

 

[YellowRiver]

Ive done it all with spent grains. I find it makes really good pitas. My chickens loved the warm porridge when I was done mashing but no way you can use it all. Not even close. My old house I composted them but I cant where I'm at now.

Find yourself a coworker who has a farm, or even a small amount of livestock. Pigs like the sweet grains, my guess is sheep,cows, horses and goats would too. I do a bucket exchange. Bring back my bucket and I'll give you grains the next time too.

 

[Abrayton]

I was just at a local brewery that served spent grain pizzas. Fantastic!

 

[Murphys_Law]

Spent grains = dog treats around my house!

 

[CU_tony]

Dog biscuits are good (presumably, my dog seems to love them at least)
The rest goes to either the compost heap or friend's chickens, depending when I see them.

 

[motosapiens]

we just made dog treats for the first time. didn't take much of the grains, but the dogs dig em. they also liked very much to get a half-bowl of the spent grains raw from the mash tun.

this thread has inspired me to check with my neighbors (a few of them have chickens) to see if they want some. The less I can throw away, the better off we are.

 

[phendog]

Just made my first bread from the grains of a Black IPA I did on New Years Day. It was fantastic, but needed some salt. 3 Cups of spent grain, 5 Cups flour, 1 cup of Homebrew Baltic Porter, some sugar and water. Of course I did a flour/yeast starter the night before. Made two very nice size loaves.

 

[phendog]

I was just at a local brewery that served spent grain pizzas. Fantastic!

Great idea for Pizza Dough!!!

 

[kh54s10]

A very small portion of my spent grain gets used in bread, etc. The rest gets composted..... I create more spent grain in a year than I would use of flour for baking in 5-10 years.. When I use spent grain for bread I use only about 10% to the rest of the ingredients.

 

[mfink519]

You can make soap!

Hi guys,

Just wondering if any of you repurpose your spent grains. I've seen / eaten some pretzels at a brew pub that used spent grain in the dough. Does anyone have any other suggestions/recipes/ideas?
I realize most people just trash the grain, just seems like kind of a waste. I'm just getting started and doing some 1 gallon batches, so it's not like I have tons of grain after but figured there must be some fun ways to reuse it.

Thanks

 

[DaWhip]

I have pigs, chickens, a dairy cow, and a dairy goat...never enough spent grains. The cow drops an extra half gallon of milk for a few days after I after I brew, so the wife encourages it now :rockin:

Word of warning - I picked up about fifteen 55 gallon drums full of spent grain for the pigs once and we free fed it to them because the brewery needed the drums back and I had no other way to store it. Bad idea. A couple of the pigs got really constipated leading to a big vet bill and almost losing our great breeding boar. If you feed it to animals or donate to someone who does, remind them that moderation is key...and don't donate in any equipment you might need back in a hurry.

 

[Kent88]

Check out this thread.

Pizza dough, waffle batter, bread, pizza dough and maybe cinnamon rolls. Be careful with pretzels, if you use dried spent grain "flour" it can turn out like eating sawdust.

 

[Kent88]

@DaWhip I'm no expert, but spent grain seems better suited for ruminants than swine.

 

[DaWhip]

@DaWhip I'm no expert, but spent grain seems better suited for ruminants than swine.

Generally the opposite is true. Pigs can eat whatever people can eat (I don't recommend any of you just eat spent grains for 3 days either). If the ruminants aren't used to the grain it will imbalance the fermentation in the rumen and they will bloat up and die pretty quick if you aren't careful. You can build it up in their diet so they can tolerate high amounts. The mistake with the pigs was offering too much. They gorged themselves and it was really hot out, dehydrated with all that grain in their guts and clogged things up.

Either way, seeing some of these bread ideas has me thinking about saving some of this grain for myself.

 

[Kent88]

Generally the opposite is true. Pigs can eat whatever people can eat (I don't recommend any of you just eat spent grains for 3 days either). If the ruminants aren't used to the grain it will imbalance the fermentation in the rumen and they will bloat up and die pretty quick if you aren't careful. You can build it up in their diet so they can tolerate high amounts. The mistake with the pigs was offering too much. They gorged themselves and it was really hot out, dehydrated with all that grain in their guts and clogged things up.

I was just thinking that the ruminants might not gorge themselves on it to the point where they get ill, but that can vary as dairy cows can be kind of picky and don't always eat all they're given, but steers are usually expected to chow down on what they get. Also the bugs in the rumen and then the remaining digestive system should do a better job breaking down the spent grain than our monogastric systems.

I make these comments under the assumption that the grains will have been sparged to the point where they are mostly just fiber.

Its been a while since I took Animal Science where we covered livestock nutrition, so my knowledge on the topic is pretty shaky.

 

[TonyKZ1]

I've fed it to our chickens and lately my wife has been making bread, cookie bars, adding to oatmeal, etc. with it. Tastes great.

 

[dhoge]

I feed the spent grains to our chickens. When when we had 4 , they would eat them all in a day or so. Now with 7, they are gone that day. Usually 20# of grain, plus or minus.