Spent Grains
I'm a big fan of making the most of ingredients. So biffing 5kg (probably 10kg wet) of spent grains after brew day has always annoyed me. When I had a compost bin I used to compost them, and I've heard of some breweries using them as animal feed (for example Bruny Island Cheese and Beer in Tassie feed their cows with the spent grains).
It turns out that spent grain is actually fairly nutritious. It's full of protein (about 15-25g protein per 100g) and fibre, has some antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, and perhaps even some anti-cancer properties 1. So I thought I'd play around with some.
I'd seen on some homebrew forums people making bread mker bread, but having difficulty getting it to rise well. I thought the answer to this would be a good sourdourgh yeast (what better way to make use of beer making leftovers than to ferment them!?). I chucked two cups of white flour, one and half cup of spent grains (drained but still fairly wet), some salt and about 10g of sourdough starter (active and about 12 hours from last feed) into a bread maker on "whole wheat" setting. I normally don't make bread in the breadmaker, but this was just a test, and turned out fairly well.
To have with the bread, I thought I'd try some spent grain burger patties (an attempt at the meat free meat craze). I just put about a cup and a half of patties with an egg, some salt and pepper and cumin seeds, mushed it all together and fried it into two patties (shown here with some 'matoes, sourkraut, spent grain bread and an egg).
Overall both bits tasted good, but the problem is the chewy husks. Kind of like getting popcorn bits stuck in your teeth, but to a whole 'nother level. The husks of the grain are probably what has all the fibre, but it's a bit like eating chipboard.
I had one final experiment, this one was a cup of grain and a banana into the Nutribullet, and then add some blueberry and raisins and mix it all together. Shape it into a rectangle, bake it at about 180 degrees (Celsius) for about an hour and make some muesli bars. My 3 year old son liked it for the first half and then told me it was gross. I had a similar opinion. The banana, blueberry and raisins taste nice, but overall it's a bit like eating chipboard again. Could manage to eat it, but without really knowing the nutritional value definitively, I think I'd rather stick to something that tastes a bit better.
I put quite a lot of grain down the waste disposal, but I still have a kilo or so sitting in the fridge, waiting for other ideas to come. Wife and kids not into the spent grain idea at all.
1. Ikram et al (2017) Composition and Nutrient Value Proposition of Brewers Spent Grain. Journal of Food Science. https://doi.org/10.1 111/1750-3841.13794
It turns out that spent grain is actually fairly nutritious. It's full of protein (about 15-25g protein per 100g) and fibre, has some antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, and perhaps even some anti-cancer properties 1. So I thought I'd play around with some.
I'd seen on some homebrew forums people making bread mker bread, but having difficulty getting it to rise well. I thought the answer to this would be a good sourdourgh yeast (what better way to make use of beer making leftovers than to ferment them!?). I chucked two cups of white flour, one and half cup of spent grains (drained but still fairly wet), some salt and about 10g of sourdough starter (active and about 12 hours from last feed) into a bread maker on "whole wheat" setting. I normally don't make bread in the breadmaker, but this was just a test, and turned out fairly well.
To have with the bread, I thought I'd try some spent grain burger patties (an attempt at the meat free meat craze). I just put about a cup and a half of patties with an egg, some salt and pepper and cumin seeds, mushed it all together and fried it into two patties (shown here with some 'matoes, sourkraut, spent grain bread and an egg).
Overall both bits tasted good, but the problem is the chewy husks. Kind of like getting popcorn bits stuck in your teeth, but to a whole 'nother level. The husks of the grain are probably what has all the fibre, but it's a bit like eating chipboard.
I had one final experiment, this one was a cup of grain and a banana into the Nutribullet, and then add some blueberry and raisins and mix it all together. Shape it into a rectangle, bake it at about 180 degrees (Celsius) for about an hour and make some muesli bars. My 3 year old son liked it for the first half and then told me it was gross. I had a similar opinion. The banana, blueberry and raisins taste nice, but overall it's a bit like eating chipboard again. Could manage to eat it, but without really knowing the nutritional value definitively, I think I'd rather stick to something that tastes a bit better.
I put quite a lot of grain down the waste disposal, but I still have a kilo or so sitting in the fridge, waiting for other ideas to come. Wife and kids not into the spent grain idea at all.
1. Ikram et al (2017) Composition and Nutrient Value Proposition of Brewers Spent Grain. Journal of Food Science. https://doi.org/10.1 111/1750-3841.13794
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