What are some uses for spent grains - either a few pounds from a partial mash or the 10+ from an all-grain batch - that don't include just throwing the grains away?
If your answer is to include some sort of baked good, please describe how you dry, how much you dry, etc.
[Edit] One issue with recipe ideas is that they take very little grain. I'd also love some ideas for the pounds and pounds of spent grain.
Bread.
By far the most common product of homebrewer's spent grains (don't fact-check me ;)).
With just 3 cups of (wet) grains, you can make a couple loaves of excellent bread.
Our recent recipe:
- 3 cups of wet grains
- (in this case they were 2 parts Crystal 120 and 1 part Special B)
- 3-4 cups of flour (depending on grain's water content)
- "a bit" of oil
- 1 cup warm water
- 1/3 cup of sugar
- a package of dry bakers yeast
Start yeast in warm water. Mix/kneed flour into grains. Enough flour so that the dough isn't sticky. Let the dough rise until it's doubled in size. Split into two. Bake at 375º for 30-40 min.
It turned out real tasty: sweet, dense but fluffy (if that's possible).
Your mileage may vary, as this was at high altitude (5,280 feet or so).
Dog biscuits, I'll try and find the recipe I used.
1/12/10 EDIT
Here is the recipe I use. I've modified it a bit from a common one that I found on line a couple years back.
4cups spent grain 4cups flour 2 Egg whites 1.5 cups Peanut Butter.
Mix it all up roll it out the best you can and then make shapes, rectangles whatever. I actually have a dogbone shaped cutter I use. Bake at 350 for 20-30minutes, until firmed up. They are ready to go. I store them frozen. But I have read of people then putting the treats in a 200F oven for several hours to really dry them out for storage. Its a bit of an art to find the right ingredient ratios. Alot depends on the residual moisture in the grain. SO jsut work with it, don't be afraid to add water or more flour depending on the feel of the "dough".
Note: Just make sure not to get any hops in the grains (this typically shouldn't happen) because they are harmful to dogs.
Last summer my roommate was maintaining a compost heap. The grains would all go into that. The better I rinsed the grains, the less stinky this would become after a few days. Sort of a natural efficiency check.
I have a friend with chickens. They love the spent grain.
Sometimes, when there isn't too much, I throw it right on my lawn and rake it around.
If you want to make bread with grain just use any whole-grain recipe. I do not dry out the grains because it can mess up the wet to dry ratio of the recipe. Usually I take it out of the bag and make bread with it that day.
Surprised this hasn't been covered yet.
Make more beer with it Many historical breweries suffered from similar low mash efficiencies as home brewers. They would do partygyle mash or at least a second rinse making a lower gravity beer. A lot of the Belgian abbys still do this, saving the lower gravity beer for themselves.
It's pretty easy to get 6 gallons of 1.025 second wort from a 12 gallon batch. Add a little DME or Sugar to bring it up or leave it low gravifty, there are a lot of traditional styles that have 1.030-1.040 OGs.
Then the grain is "spent"
If your grain is wet and sticky when you're done, your methods can be improved to get more beer.
I compost them, they seem to break down fairly quickly. I don't know if they stink or not, there's a reason the compost pile is far from my house though.
If you are going to make the dog biscuits, you do need to dry them out. If you don't they get moldy in a few days. I put mine in the convection oven at 220 for 8 hours, you have to break a biscuit every few hours to make sure there is no more moisture.
I've made bread, used them in compost, brought them down to my mother's place to give to the donkeys and horses.
I let the grains cool then dump them on top of my hop hills since I grow my own hops. Whatever is left goes in the main bed of the garden. Don't let them cool too long, you mash tun will end up smelling like vomit.
I compost them. We have clay soil here, so I've found they really help loosen it up. The key is to make sure to put a few shovel loads of dirt on top of them -- just like you do for kitchen scraps, etc -- so that critters don't get to them. Ants also like the leftover sugar. But if you get your compost right, the grains really help it out.
I dump grains out (way out) in the back yard. They are usually mostly gone the next morning. Don't know who (or more likely, what) takes them, but that's the point.
1 cup of spent grain 60% wheat 40% barley...2 cups of bread flour..1 1/2 tbs dry yeast...1 cup warm water..1/2 tbs sugar..2 tbs olive oil...1/2 tbs salt..mix water,yeast,sugar and 3-4 tbs of flour..let sit for 10 mins..add remaining flour,grains and salt. Once yeast is active mix with dry ingredients..knead and let proof...punch down dough and form a loaf..bake 350 for 35-45 mins..enjoy!!!
You can also make flour.
Put the grains in a shallow pan, place in the oven at minimum heat until dry. Mix the grain every hour or so, to help it dry faster. Once dry, use a coffee grinder or food processor to crush the grain into flour. You can mix it with regular floor and make pancakes or whatever you like.
I have used spent grains for making white bread into brown bread (I add a couple of tablespoons of the grain to a white bread mix).
I have also tried feeding it to a friend's horses, but they are too posh and just stuck their noses up at it :p
Currently, I give my grains (about 40kgs per brewday) to a local sheep farmer. He mixes it with a bit of salt and they absolutely love it :)
Cheers!