Spent Grain

[alwilson]

Howdy All,

Was just thinking as I threw away 5kg of spent grain - other than feeding animals, or composting - is there anything else that can be done with the wet spent grains? Living in London I dont have much access to farms or anyone with chickens or livestock in general. Seems a shame to just throw it.

I read somewhere that the french I think make a very weak beer out of the spent grain - but that must really lack body!

any thoughts?

Alex

[Hoodlum]

a search on here should throw up a recipe or two for "wholemeal" biscuits made from spent grains....

[Andy]

Somebody on here advertised his spent grain on Freecycle and now gets a regular supply of eggs in return for supplying someone with chicken feed

[beer gut]

The only things i have heard or read about spent grains is what you have all ready mentioned, compost, garden multch, animal feed ect.The big warning with using spent grain for a weak beer would be all the tannings and other nasty flavours you can get from re sparging the grains to make a weak beer.Chances are you will get a stuck fermentation when you ferment this weak beer, it proberly wouldn't clear properly either due to all the excess protein you get at the end of sparging so iam saying is be carefull iam like you i hate waste so i give my spent grain to my local farm and to my local alotments.

[Blackjack]

Easiest disposal is to put it a neighbours bin, very late at night

[adm]

It makes great dog biscuits with an egg, a bit of treacle and peanut butter added.....mix up, roll out and use a bone shaped cutter if you have one

30-45 minutes in a medium oven.

Don't feed spent hops to the dog though - apparently it can kill them.

[Normski]

I experimented with making a small beer with spent grain. a complete waste of time. it was so weak and it tasted like pi55. A waste of electricity and time.

[floydmeddler]

Few handfuls go well in a loaf of bread too.

[Tinkerer]

My chickens don't like it at all. Why should they, with all the goodness extracted from it? Any chickens that do go for it must be seriously less pampered than mine! I put it in the composter till somebody said it would attract rats. So now my spent grain goes straight in the bin, I'm afraid.

[flything]

My chickens go mad for it, but it starts to ferment quite quickly so they only get a pound or two, the rest goes in the composter where it breaks down really quickly, there's always room for the next brew.

[awalker]

Few handfuls go well in a loaf of bread too.

Yep made some bread this weekend with left over malt from Xmas Beer Brew.
Also will be trying pizza dough with it in, as the 21st amendment do and it taste yummy.

[Scroogemonster]

Why should they, with all the goodness extracted from it?

The "goodness" extracted only refers to the sugars from the grain, there is a sizeable quantity of protein left in the spent grain after mashing and sparging.

[chris_reboot]

I used to compost it till mr brown rat put a stop to that carry on.
I have a woman in the village collect it in exchange for some occasional 'free' range eggs.

it solves a problem in a less wasteful way, and you may be surprised, even in 'that' london, there may be chicken keepers

[BarnsleyBrewer]

I give mine to a pig farmer.

[mat69]

i hide mine in bin bags,theres no chickens round here..