Re-using The Spent Grain

[tumi2]

Hi all
Thought i would share with you a small test i did last night.
I am from a cooking background and instinctively endeavour to waste as little as possible. I have always thrown
my BIAB grain out into the bin since i brew in my wifes photo studio and the compost is at home.
After my last weekend brew guilt got the better of me and i couldnt bring myself to throw the spent grain in the bin so i bought it home with the intention of composting it.
Before composting i removed about 500 grams and wacked it in the oven on about 80 degress for several hours. In
this time it dried out quite nicely. I toasted it a little further to get a bit more color in it. The grain
bill was pale malt, wheat malt and carapils and vienna husks and all.My wife and I then put a few ingredients together and made up a type of slice with the dried grain. Results was surprisingly good, good enough that i took it to work and shared it around with positive feedback.
Personally i think there is a fair bit of room for improvement in the slice recipe but i have found a good way to reuse some of the spent grain.
Next time i will come up with some other ideas for reusing spent grain...
Now i have a cookie jar full of malted barley slice.
Really im not a tight ass.......!!!

Recipe is as follows (loosely as i dont measure ingredients)

- 2.5 cups of spent malted barley grain, dried and slightly roasted
- 1 cup desiccated coconut
- about 1 cup of mixed dried fruit like apricot or sultanas
- 1 cup of raw sugar
- some golden syrup, about a good pour from the glass
- Here is the good bit, 1 full block of butter lightly melted
- 2 cups of self raising flour

This recipe made 2 medium trays of slice. probably wouldn't do quite as much next time. Mix all together and push into slice tray. i did 2 version, 1 thick and 1 thin. The thin one was rather crunchy almost biscuit like the other was thicker and more slice like.
Next time i will add some choc chips or perhaps melt some chocolate over the cooked slice and wack it in the fridge. Now im being self indulgent......

Give it a go, it is really easy and only takes an hour or so. Dont bother measuring ingredients, just throw them together and aim for a consistency that feels like it will hold and bind.

 

[johnw]

Hi all
Thought i would share with you a small test i did last night.
I am from a cooking background and instinctively endeavour to waste as little as possible. I have always thrown
my BIAB grain out into the bin since i brew in my wifes photo studio and the compost is at home.
After my last weekend brew guilt got the better of me and i couldnt bring myself to throw the spent grain in the bin so i bought it home with the intention of composting it.
Before composting i removed about 500 grams and wacked it in the oven on about 80 degress for several hours. In
this time it dried out quite nicely. I toasted it a little further to get a bit more color in it. The grain
bill was pale malt, wheat malt and carapils and vienna husks and all.My wife and I then put a few ingredients together and made up a type of slice with the dried grain. Results was surprisingly good, good enough that i took it to work and shared it around with positive feedback.
Personally i think there is a fair bit of room for improvement in the slice recipe but i have found a good way to reuse some of the spent grain.
Next time i will come up with some other ideas for reusing spent grain...
Now i have a cookie jar full of malted barley slice.
Really im not a tight ass.......!!!

Recipe is as follows (loosely as i dont measure ingredients)

- 2.5 cups of spent malted barley grain, dried and slightly roasted
- 1 cup desiccated coconut
- about 1 cup of mixed dried fruit like apricot or sultanas
- 1 cup of raw sugar
- some golden syrup, about a good pour from the glass
- Here is the good bit, 1 full block of butter lightly melted
- 2 cups of self raising flour

This recipe made 2 medium trays of slice. probably wouldn't do quite as much next time. Mix all together and push into slice tray. i did 2 version, 1 thick and 1 thin. The thin one was rather crunchy almost biscuit like the other was thicker and more slice like.
Next time i will add some choc chips or perhaps melt some chocolate over the cooked slice and wack it in the fridge. Now im being self indulgent......

Give it a go, it is really easy and only takes an hour or so. Dont bother measuring ingredients, just throw them together and aim for a consistency that feels like it will hold and bind.

Great idea.

I am going to try make my spent grain into dog treats. I have seen a recipe on another forum and looks easy enough.

DrinkBeer

 

[mika]

..... I have seen a recipe on another forum....

Don't do it !
Go no further than this forum. You will be assimilated !

 

[Nick JD]

Sounds interesting and good for the bowel.

I've recently been leaving my grain bag hanging for a day to concentrate the grist sugars in the bottom layer and then roasting it in the oven to make some sort of mutant, pre-cracked crystal grain.

It would be very easy to half-dry (roast) the grain and press it on the bottom of a dish for something like a slice, or a cheesecake base ... the sugar is already in it in large quantities.

CaraCheap I.

CaraCheap III.

 

[chappo1970]

Nick,

Have you done a brew with them yet?

BTW good of you to follow this thread thru. :icon_cheers:

 

[Nick JD]

Nick,

Have you done a brew with them yet?

BTW good of you to follow this thread thru. :icon_cheers:

I'm also seriously considering cooking with some of it after reading this thread.

Empty 15L fermenter at the moment about to be filled with:

12L
2.5kg Ale Malt
250g CaraCheap
10g Simcoe 60
10g Simcoe 0
5g US05

To A-B it against an exactly same SMASH done without the home made crystal.

 

[Zizzle]

I knew home brewers were tight... but jeez...

 

[HoppingMad]

Word of warning - Just be careful you use the grains as soon as possible for cooking - directly after your brew if you can.

I'm no expert on food safety but spent grains have been known to kill cows and pigs if left too long.

On a recent trip to a Victorian Craft Brewery the head brewer there confirmed that he had given some spent grains to a neighbour who had fed his pigs with some and two had died. He summised that that batch of grain had potentially been left a little long in a storage bin prior to feeding the animals. He has been donating the grain for several months without issue, but confirmed that this did occur once. I have also seen DPI info regarding cattle getting illnesses and dying after consuming spent grain, something to do with their multiple stomachs and gas (so the effect on humans could be different). I know Grand Ridge in Gippsland feed their cattle spent grain but they must be pretty careful about how they do it (good storage and not leaving it too long).

Cooking the stuff might help (in terms of sanitising), but do some research first, and don't leave your grain sitting in the pot for days at room temp prior to cooking with it. You could be asking for belly trouble and a trip to the hospital.

Hopper.

 

[brettprevans]

the smell from a pile of spend grain after its left for a while is pretty ferral. i'd say it grows mould and shite fairly fast. lots of bacteria etc. so yeah use it asap after brewing.

Ive made spend grain dog buscuits but that was within a few hours of brewing. they came our great. dogs loved them. i ate a few too.

 

[BjornJ]

I can vouch for how tasty these were!

Especially the thin one that was a bit dryer and had a nice, darkish underside from being half-roasted, if that is the term?

Bjorn

 

[krusty_oz]

I bag my spent grain in 500g lots and freeze it in freezer bags for later use in bread.

When I'm ready to make the bread I just defrost a bag (so the grain is warm, also activate 2 tbl spoons of baking yeast in a cup of warm water and tsp of sugar), add a packet of wholemeal or rye bread mix. Once the yeast has started foaming I add it in with the grain and bread mix and give it a kneed. Let it rise and proof and bake. The grain tends to hold moisture so it keeps for a few days.

 

[seemax]

The local pidgeons take quite a fancy to spent grain. The stuff they leave behind turns into compost.



My youngest - most intrigued by the birdy action and hammer at the ready !!

 

[Fermented]

I've been using spent specialty grain in bread for a while... http://yeastygoodness.blogspot.com/search/...l/spent%20grain

It makes a tastier and healthier loaf for cheap.

Cheers - Fermented.

 

[King Brown]

Before I composted the spent grain from my last partial I tasted it, tasted delicious, like cookies (a mix of pilsner/munich malt and oats) and i thought that it would go well in some cookie dough, next time I may have to try it. I have heard there are risks with feeding animals spent grain but ive also heard many homebrewers claim they do it with no problem, so its hard to comment

 

[cdbrown]

Don't know about feeding animals but my dog loves the stuff, the last batch I put on the garden and covered it over with soil, next morning it was all uncovered thanks to the dog having a dig and feed. Grainy poo though. Wish I'd left an area on the vegie patch which I hadn't sowed as I could have used that area for grain/soil improvement.