Just out of curiosity, what do you all do with your spent grains? It has become quite the challenge to bag and trash them, especially in the warmer months with the rodents and what not.
I heard of some people taking them to a farms, but I am not even sure where to begin on that one.
Another suggestion was to dump them down the storm drain with about 10 gallons of H2O. This seems like a nice out of sight out of mind approach, but may draw a lot of unwanted attention from my neighbors.
Can you compost? They make for awesome compost. If you live in the city, google up urban composting, you can do it in a garbage can with some top soil and enzymes…make sure to do some research though, I tried doing it on my rooftop deck when I lived in the city and it went aseptic on me and was a disgusting mess.
Any clubs in your area that might have a lead on bartering with a farmer for some swine? 100 lbs of spent grain is a lot easier to bargain with than 5!
Compost is best if you don’t have a local farmer to get them to. I usually put one batch worth in my garden each fall and churn it up.
You do have to be carefully though. The grain would contail lots of nytrogen which might not be ideal for some garden plants if there is too much.
One winter I continued to dump out my back window into a small garden patch. By the time I churned the soil in mid spring there were worms the size of small snakes in there. Lots of nutrition for lots of critters.
For every batch I do, we make dog treats with about 1/3 of the used grains and compost the rest
Thanks guys. I do live by a farm, but as another poster mentioned 5lbs may not be worth their wile. I will look to compost.
Thanks
Great thread! I always thought it was a waste to dump my grains. I think Ill start adding them to my lawn and garden. Now if I could only trade them for an actual hog, that would be great :lol:
I brew 20+ gallon batches and still toss mine in a garbage bag after they spend a day on the driveway drying out.
I walk down to the edge of my pond and dump them in.
I used to compost quite a bit but started getting voles in the yard around the compost pile. I quit composting and the voles disappeared. I’m planning on working on an enclosed/barrel compost bin of sorts.
Under cover of darkness I take them to a nearby church dumpster. I use to just throw them into the garbage bin in the garage. Boy was that a mistake.
i have actually been looking into frowing mushrooms with the spent grains, but my wife and i make brewers grain cookies and bread, if you like cookies sub grain for oats add peanut butter and choco chips makes a mean oatmeal peanut butter chocolate chip cookie. i give some to a buddy who composts. I would advice against dumping downn storm drain i hear all that stuff in there goes to rivers all that grain could be bad for the water as far as heat pollution goes
…and you get credit for going to Church that week!
I just walk to the edge of my backyard (woods) and toss them on the ground. Animals eat them.
The brooklyn Brewery has a list of recipes that spent grains can be used to make. There are also instructions on how to dry the grain…
I used to try to use the spent grains for stuff. Then I realized the spent grains are pretty worthless and now I just throw it all away.
It might not be a bad idea to sparge the spent grains, boil the runnings for a little while, and save the resulting wort in the refrigerator or freezer for making yeast starters for future batches. But that would require effort and foresight, so I haven’t done it. But that might be the very best thing you could do with it if not just throwing it away.
Deer love them if you want to atttract them. As mentioned earlier, they can be used to make a good worm bed if you can keep the deer away. Good organic fertilizer for veggis. All the more reason to make more beer.
In Seattle, they pick up compost
I put mine on the compost pile usually. In the winter, I will occasionally take it out into the yard, and throw it all over the snow, using a 2-3 cup plastic bowl, and let the birds pick through it. What they don’t eat falls down between the grass blades once the snow melts and you can’t see it. I’ll pack some over the ground once I’ve cut back my hops too. The other day, I dumped my spent grains in the corner of my tomato garden since we’re done picking them. I’ll dump lots more all over in the next few months, and then till it into the ground just before planting next year. With the grain arriving this afternoon, I’ll have enough to make about 100 gallons over the next few months. That’s a lot of dumped grain, but fortunately, they break down rather easily.
I did use some of them in baking a while back, I think I should have ground them up instead of just putting some in a bread recipe. It tasted fine, but I didn’t like the husks.
I cannot get deer to like them. We have deer all over the place and I dump piles in the woods that go untouched for weeks
That’s a LOT of beer. Need any help drinking it? :cheers:
I cannot get deer to like them. We have deer all over the place and I dump piles in the woods that go untouched for weeks[/quote]Probably because your brew house efficiency is too high. There’s not enough sugar left in the grains for the deer to want it.
