What do you do with your spent grains?

[Grizwold1]

On reflection, don't do that. They will probably retaliate by trashing your car.

 

[DuncB]

Alternatively leave in a sealed box outside your house ( or neighbours if they are out) with a " sold sign awaiting collection" and that will also be gone in 5 minutes.

 

[Grizwold1]

Alternatively leave in a sealed box outside your house ( or neighbours if they are out) with a " sold sign awaiting collection" and that will also be gone in 5 minutes.

I would vote for the neighbor's house. That way when they come back it's their house that gets trashed.

 

[DuncB]

Mulched!

 

[day_trippr]

y'all are crazy people

 

[Panderson1]

I bury 10 gallon batches. I dig a small hole and mix it with the dirt. It never smells. I assume some of it will turn into decent soil. It rains everyday in the summer in South Florida. Lucky I have a decent size back yard with a small area I section off for the digging. It's along a hedge section and they seem to grow really well.

If you don't mix it with dirt it smells like puke. Literally like puke back in elementary school when a kid would throw up.

 

[Brooothru]

Better hope some nosey neighbor doesn't rat you out to Five-O. They might be inclined to go digging for bones

 

[oskee]

Spread it out on garden bed and rake it in with the soil. As previous poster indicated that if it's mixed with the soil, smell is not a problem.

Folks buy rice hulls to use as a soil amendment (maybe they used it before brewers did) so if someone could figure out how to dry it out economically, I'm sure there are gardeners that would buy it by the pound to use in same manner peat moss is used. Animals also seem to hate the taste or maybe faint smell. My dogs which will eat most things won't get near the garden after I've spread it out.

 

[DuncB]

Our dog will eat it if given a chance. It's the lactic fermentation that makes it smell like vomit.

 

[day_trippr]

fwiw, the neighbor's chickens and ducks are still holed up in their shelter, but the local deer plundered the last two ~25 pound spent mashes which each had a half pound of rice hulls. That's three batches in a row so I reckon at least while there's heavy snow still on the ground they can be counted on to clean up after me until the fowl get back to foraging

Cheers!

 

[mashpaddled]

Our dog will eat it if given a chance. It's the lactic fermentation that makes it smell like vomit.

It is bacterial but not a lactic fermentation that makes it smell like butyric acid (vomit).

Rodents seem to have no problem consuming the grains no matter how bad the smell. Squirrels are extremely eager to eat it out of the compost even after it smells horrific.

 

[DuncB]

No squirrels down here

 

[Gusso]

Our dog will eat it if given a chance. It's the lactic fermentation that makes it smell like vomit.

When I lived in upstate NY, I initially dumped my grains in the backyard. One day, we were out for a few hours and when we got home, I thought a Shetland pony had broken into our place! There were mounds of grain manure in 3 rooms of our house. The crazy dog must have consumed many, many pounds of the spent grain. After that, I dumped them in the river across the street

 

[DuncB]

Sounds as bad as when our dog ate more than half of a multicoloured sponge cake that was iced for our sons' 18th birthday.
It was about 4 inches thick and 16 inch by 16 inch. Each sponge layer was one colour of the rainbow. Dog swelled up the more water it drank and lay in the garden looking like a snake that had swallowed a rabbit and pretty miserable.
Needless to say the vomit and manure was all the colours of the rainbow.

But on the plus side no grains in it and easy to spot on the lawn.

 

[Jako]

my neighbors own horses and chickens... but she said she wants to control what the animals eat -.- i understand that but i want to share.

 

[DuncB]

Jako Not sure that a diet of hay, grass and grains would be that good for you. But it might give you a nice shiny coat!

 

[Toxxyc]

When I lived in upstate NY, I initially dumped my grains in the backyard. One day, we were out for a few hours and when we got home, I thought a Shetland pony had broken into our place! There were mounds of grain manure in 3 rooms of our house. The crazy dog must have consumed many, many pounds of the spent grain. After that, I dumped them in the river across the street

Don't you mean a Shitland pony?

 

[DuncB]

The crazy dog must have consumed many, many pounds of the spent grain. After that, I dumped them in the river across the street
[/QUOTE]

That's no way to treat your dog! Anyway we want to know what you did with the grain

 

[BrewZer]

Do you live in a city? Put them in a plastic bag, then into a box. Wrap with gift wrap and a ribbon and leave in in the back seat of your car while you are grocery shopping. Likely gone when you return. (Apologies--this was probably suggested already somewhere in the past 4 pages.)

No, because I was going to suggest putting them in an Amazon box, taping it up, and leaving it on the front porch...

 

[radwizard]

I compost them. I bought a 15 page paper shredder on Craigslist and I shred cardboard boxes that mix with the grains. It makes great compost and I dispose all of my grain and cardboard this way. If you mix daily it can be usable compost very quickly. It takes a lot of cardboard scrap to make it work for me.

 

[odie]

I dump mine in the chicken run...they are scattered immediately and are gone.

 

[pigroaster]

Just put an ad in facebook marketplace. I trade my spent grain for eggs! I have two containers so the chicken hobby man just leaves a clean tote when he picks up next batch. I did 51 kegs last year from April to November so there was lots of spent grain. His ducks do not like it!

 

[Wrathchild]

I trash mine and I know on a hot summer day, it dont take long for them to go south real quick. Flies and maggots I mean. All bugs seem to love the hell out of them and they stink to high heaven after a week in the trash can

 

[Garage12brewing]

Feed the wild turkey and deers.

 

[day_trippr]

Last week I brewed two 10 gallon batches, both using very similar grain bills totally 25 pounds each, one on Tuesday and the other Thursday.

I brought Tuesday's spent grains over to the dozen chickens and ducks next door on Wednesday (I let it cool down overnight in the garage), and by Friday when I brought over Thursday's spent grains there was nothing left from the first batch but the half pound of rice hulls! The owner was very happy, because usually the chickens and ducks war over their daily rations, so the supplemental feed at the opposite end of their run from their usual feeding station brought a few days of peace

Cheers!

 

[DuncB]

THat is a lot of grain for the 12 chickens and ducks, wonder if the rats are helping out?

 

[day_trippr]

I've never seen anything one would call a "rat" out here in the boonies. Voles, moles and field mice, sure - but small stuff like that are also owl, hawk, fox, fisher cat and coyote food as well. And I can say the area has lots and lots of all those mid-level predators - much to the consternation of my neighbor with the fowl - they lost a duck last week to a fisher that dug under a vulnerable section of fence line.

Anyway, I keep an eye on the birds to see how they react to my offerings and did notice there was always at least a couple of the dozen pecking and scraping away at the grain dump, so I'm pretty sure they're getting most of it. The neighbor wife has often mentioned they get more eggs a few days after I bring grains over

Cheers!

 

[jcav]

Whenever I give my chickens my spent grains they devour it in record time. It always amazes me how fast they eat all that grain. They leave the rice hulls behind too!

John

 

[DuncB]

@daytrippr
Never heard of a Fisher before but google has seen me right, they can get quite big from the description but I hope that measurement of about 3 foot includes the tail.
Might fight dirty if cornered, smaller than a raccoon ?
Similar to a pine marten

 

[day_trippr]

3 feet with tail is about right. And they are nasty looking when they're prowling around. All teeth and claws.

Generally, I make it a rule not to get between wildlife and their prey, regardless of size. That philosophy has stood me well through encounters with bear in particular and all manner of the larger four footed horned beasts in general (elk, caribou and even moose I've encountered on my flyfishing travels), as well as random ankle biters

We also have mink - I've seen them on the banks of our pond - and river otters come by a couple of times each year. It's a friggin' menagerie

Cheers!

 

[DuncB]

They have a plague of these here

The possum is a marsupial and basically herbivore in Australia ( and a national treasure )but in NZ very much an omnivore and public enemy number one. Trying to eliminate them in the country as destroying birds and trees.
Some kept as pets but they are quite clawey.

 

[day_trippr]

We do have opossums (different but similar animal) locally - a fact evident mostly via roadkill corpses, because they are highly nocturnal.
I've seen more skunks on the move by at least an order of magnitude more often than opossums...

Cheers!

 

[chessking]

So, it appears that the top four are:

A. Compost,
B. Chickens
C. Dog treats, or other snacks, and
D. Dumping it in the woods or some other ground that is not yours
(With an honorable mention to tossing it in the bin.)

While not having access to chickens, dogs, or farm land, and no need to compost, and not wanting to have a sour bin, I do a little of each. I spread it out on a 6' x 6' patch in the backyard. In a week or so it is dry, and I scoop it up and put in leaf bags. By this time it is dry, odor free, and more importantly, lightweight. I can fill a lawn and leaf bag brimming full, and it is no heaver than if it had leaves. I have no qualms about it going into the landfill, Its just dry vegetation. If the weather turns wet, or snow is on the ground, just keep dumping on top, the dry times will return.

 

[DuncB]

Added to my porridge after drying it in the sunshine and the rest gets dumped in the compost

 

[pfmeyer]

Has anyone ever used spent grains as a substrate to grow oyster mushrooms? Thinking of trying, maybe add to straw.

 

[DuncB]

I've seen it done with spent coffee grounds, so maybe you could use that method.

 

[Toxxyc]

It should work perfectly - just I guess the same applies as with all substrates - sterilize it properly before use.

 

[RugenBrau]

The Deer and turkey love them

 

[Beermeister32]

I freeze them, about 4-5 cups in gallon ziplock bags. You get about 7-10 bags per batch.

My office manager gal bakes them wIth peanut butter, flour and eggs into doggie biscuits. Dogs love them!