How to dispose of spent grains?

Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum

Help Support Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Are they Roe deer? (they look remarkably tasty ;)
Probably the best sort of recycling.
I'm not sure about the English name for these animals, Google translate do say Roe Deer, not too far from the Swedish word "Rådjur". And yes, they are tasty, too bad I lack the shooting rights :)
 
that is fiber for: cows horses dogs chickens, anything that eats with teeth basically.
so there's that.
a lid on your bin should be fine or you can try and cover it with grass clipping or something.
know any farmers locally?

Please be aware that spent grains with hop residue in it (if you add any hops in with the mash itself) can kill dogs, in particular greyhounds, though apparently it's somewhat toxic to all dogs. Greyhounds have a small liver compared to their body size, so they don't detoxify some things very well.

http://www.petpoisonhelpline.com/poison/hops/

Not many of us use hops in the mash itself (I don't), but it's still good to be aware of where you throw your hop residue. When we had a Greyhound, I was careful of where I put my spent hops, and they only went in the garbage. The grains went on a compost pile.
 
Last edited:
is there a way to get it to not stink if i want to save it few a few weeks to give to livestock?
 
I doubt it without freezing them, I have noticed they start to decompose almost immediately in the compost, within a couple of days it has reached a fairly high temperature.
 
I'm no expert, but because the grain is still damp wild yeast would start a fermentation process in your bin if you have no lid. Probably counts for the smell.
 
Every little microbe will have a go at breaking down the cellulose, but being as tough as it is everything else will get consumed and only time will break down the outer casing, thats why it is good in the compost, the sugars left in and the casing will give good aeration and moisture retention in the garden.
 
is there a way to get it to not stink if i want to save it few a few weeks to give to livestock?
Yes. I have done it a few times. You need an old screen door or similar fine meshed tray large enough to spread the grains out in a thin layer less than an inch. Prop that up off the ground high enough that good airflow gets underneath. Put in a sunny place (hopefully breezy, but not too breezy) and turn the spent grains occasionally to dry. I must admit though that my chook only pecks at it a bit and most gets spread around or ignored, as I think most of the goodness is extracted away by us. It probably tastes about as appetising to the livestock as gruel is to us. Maybe once dry, mix it with something the livestock want to eat to bulk it out a bit.

Doesn't work too well in winter though (or wet season I suppose).
 
If you look at how to make a cake has oil sugar and flour and a raising agent could try using spent cooking oil or fat with molasses as the sugar carrot or pumpkin and the spent grain and feed that to the livestock the other option is to do a no chill and boil up and put in a cube to store.
 
Watched a doco about Dog Fish Head Brewery spent grains are used to help power the brewery through their own Bio-gas plant, they also recycle the water used in the plant.
 
Watched a doco about Dog Fish Head Brewery spent grains are used to help power the brewery through their own Bio-gas plant, they also recycle the water used in the plant.
Gardening Australia showed a Bio-gas plant in South Australia and they where putting cans of coopers beer in it seems that the alcohol can be converted to Bio-gas
 
I made a simple bio-gas plant when I was 14 or 15, with a couple of drums the chicken ***** from the run, straw and water, and just let the microbes turn it to gas, a bit like fermenting really.
 
I made a simple bio-gas plant when I was 14 or 15, with a couple of drums the chicken ***** from the run, straw and water, and just let the microbes turn it to gas, a bit like fermenting really.
There are a few of these systems coming onto the market for homes would be a good why of getting rid of sewerage have seen where a farmer in India using his cow **** to power the house stove could be cheaper then buying gas to brew.
 
There are a few of these systems coming onto the market for homes would be a good why of getting rid of sewerage have seen where a farmer in India using his cow **** to power the house stove could be cheaper then buying gas to brew.
They also use human **** and rice hulls to heat up the boilers to power the the turbines in India.
 
I visited the BeerFarm near Margret River recently and spoke with the onsite brewer , I think his name was Josh. Their spent grains get fed to the Farm cows and the cows get fed to the customers....

Great place to visit, onsite brewer Josh happy was happy to run through a detailed tour. Also brilliant beer and food. Highly recommended place to visit if you are down that way.
 
Oooooooooooooooooo a pile of pumpernickel style bread with chutney, curry, sauces and lamb chops - and a gallon of GOOD beer... Oooooooooooooo Yum.
 
I'm not sure about the English name for these animals, Google translate do say Roe Deer, not too far from the Swedish word "Rådjur". And yes, they are tasty, too bad I lack the shooting rights :)

The English name is indeed roe deer. Americans call them elk. What the Brits call elk are moose to Americans. Dunno about Canadians, who have a lot of all the above.

One person's taste: I don't like venison much, but do like roe deer by any name and elk/moose too, but the prince of all meats is reindeer or caribou.
 
I actually had a work friend give me a large amount of frozen ground elk (American elk) and some Virginia whitetail deer meat. I've been given deer for the last few years so I haven't had the need to go hunting, but the Virginia whitetail are plentiful where I live. You just sit still in a wooded area, sometimes a few days, near where deer travel through the area and you'll be within shooting range within a few days. I now use a muzzleloader since I only need one shot, and a muzzleloader rifle is more accurate than the typical shotgun used here. I have a shotgun, too, and you're permitted to have 3 shells in the tube, but I am accurate with the muzzleloader. (You might refer to them as muskets, but they are the type of rifle that you put in your black powder, then your bullet or sabot and bullet, and use a priming cap behind the powder charge. I use the almost smokeless powder and it works well. A low power large diameter optics scope rounds out the rifle.I'm not a trophy hunter, so I'll take the first thing that comes along. Once I had mercy on a wounded deer and put it out of its misery. It had a lot of meat to it. I'm not looking for great stories to tell, so all I am really interested in is the meat, though one year even my wife said I should get the head mounted, so we did. It sits in our foyer with a fedora on it with its head turned to the front door. Pretty cool, I think. We even got the glass eyes that have the slotted pupils like real deer have. Lots of meat from that monster!
 
e75a7930-d808-4a59-af0c-731994ec6594.png
Sorry it's in seppo
 

Latest posts

Back
Top