Brewed our host’s 3-gal Irish Red AG kit Saturday, and made dog treats with the spent grain at the same time.
We did:
16c grain.[/*]
4c peanut butter.[/*]
8c flour.[/*]
8 eggs.[/*]
This was spread on cookie sheets, scored into squares with a pizza cutter, and baked at 350 for 45 minutes. After 45 minutes we separated the squares and put them back in the oven at 250 to remove the remaining moisture without further browning. (like 3 hours.)
This yielded a ton of almost-free treats, which the dog seems to love. But the process needs refining. We were doing all this as we were sanitizing fermenters, and chilling the wort. The uncooked “dough” is a sticky mess that wants to get everywhere.
Anyone have a better process or recipe?
Seems like the grain will spoil pretty fast so I’m guessing there’s a timeline. I guess I could freeze the spent grain?
I’ve not tried it yet, but I’ve heard of people using the spent grains to bake bread at home. You can always compost it, about any livestock will eat 'em right up, if you know anyone who raises animals, and I’m sure there are MANY uses I’m missing at this point…
I’ve tried to make bread with it, but you only need like a cup of spend grain per loaf of bread, which is only a tiny percent of what comes out of the mash tun. And even with that, the bread is on the edge of being too fibery to enjoy.
The dog biscuits worked better, and the dogs love them, but my process was pretty much exactly like yours. Except the PB costs a fortune over here, so it’s actually cheaper to buy boxes of biscuits.
My buddy tried to feed some of his spend grain to his chickens, but they are obviously spoiled by being fed unspent grains, and barely touched it.
Last fall, I tried to feed spent grains while still warm to my wife’s horses. I thought a nice warm grain mash on a cold day would be appreciated. They turned their noses to hit. I think the problem lies in the fact that most of the starch and sugars have been extracted, so what’s the appeal? Genesee Brewing is only an hour away from us here. Most of the spent grains or “wet brewers” as they are called are trucked to dairy farms and mixed in the feed. It is an excellent protein and fiber source, but it does spoil quickly, so it’s not usually fed in the summer heat. They can be also be dried but expensive to do so. I usually just throw them on my compost pile too.
I made treats once about the same recipe as it’s the one you find all over the internet. My dog loved them. I didn’t get enough moisture out so they went bad fast and molded. I made a batch of what I was going to call power bars with bananas, yogurt, and peanut butter. They came out ok but because the grain isn’t fine and little sugar they really didn’t do it for me, again Bella loves them.
I did find these two sites of interest in my searches
