Uses for Spent Grain, Hope and Other Ingredients?

[Hoppopotamus]

I am interested to hear what innovative ideas members have for reusing / recycling Spent Grain , hope or other ingredients ?
Thus far we have added small amounts of grain to home-made bread or in the base for flapjacks, and used it as fertilizer on the garden.
It seems such a waste to just send it to landfill or in the food recycling bin.

 

[Leon103]

Chicken feed.

 

[jof]

Used to take spent grain to feed the 'school chickens' but the kids have moved on from there. Tried feeding the birds in the garden, but they don't seem to like it & we didn't want to put out so much that we attracted rats.

Now I just put the grain in the food recycling & the hops in the compost bin

 

[prog99]

All goes into the compost bin.

edit - thats my own not the council supplied food bins.

 

[phettebs]

Dog treats. My dogs absolutely LOVE them. It's a mix of spent grain, peanut butter, flour, and eggs made into a thick dough. Then baked low for a long time to remove the moisture.

 

[JFB]

Another vote for chicken feed.
Our girls won't even touch normal chicken feed anymore.
The missis even has to tell me to brew now so they don't run out

 

[LeeH]

We give some to the chickens as a treat but it’s not a balanced diet for them.

 

[Jim Brewster]

I haven't thought of a use for spent grain so they end up in the wheelie bin. We have a rabbit and she ate a few grains of barley malt, but they're not really suitable for her.

I wonder if you could use grain in flapjacks in place of some of the oats?

Dry hops could be reused for bittering. I'm just about to try my stout where I used old dry hops. Getting the quantities is guesswork though, I weighed the wet hops from the hop sock and scaled them against the original dry hop weight to get a rough idea of how much I was using. Hop pellets seem to weigh at least 3x the weight when wet

 

[-Bezza-]

How do you stop the grain going mouldy if you're giving it to the chickens? My neighbour has 5 or 6 chickens but I assume they wouldn't eat 3-5kg of grain quick enough. Do you need to dry it out or something?

 

[Galena]

How do you stop the grain going mouldy if you're giving it to the chickens? My neighbour has 5 or 6 chickens but I assume they wouldn't eat 3-5kg of grain quick enough. Do you need to dry it out or something?

It does go mouldy, I sometimes give mine some for a couple of days, 3 at the most and the rest goes on the compost heap or in the green bin. My chickens aren't that keen on it to be honest.
I made some flapjacks with some blended with oats and even they went mouldy

 

[LeeH]

It does go mouldy, I sometimes give mine some for a couple of days, 3 at the most and the rest goes on the compost heap or in the green bin. My chickens aren't that keen on it to be honest.
I made some flapjacks with some blended with oats and even they went mouldy

Same here, probably because there will be next to no nutrition in it after the mash.

 

[Cwrw666]

Don't put it in your compost bin unless you want rats. This is a better use:

 

[steve123]

Have given to a farmer before for cow feed

 

[Galena]

Don't put it in your compost bin unless you want rats. This is a better use:

View attachment 43333

Very true but I rat proofed it after the first time and I don't have any sheep

 

[CD]

Our sheep ate them under sufferance, my wife wouldn’t let our horses eat them although some stables do use brewer’s grains, but our pigs absolutely loved them. Nowadays we have no farm animals, but are inundated with pheasants as there is a shoot nearby, and they made short order of the last lot.

 

[johnny108]

Dry them out in the oven, and use them as a rough flour in high protein spent grain cookies- there lots of recipes online.
They only taste good if you are using lighter malts, though.

 

[crescent city Mike]

If the mash doesn't contain a lot of roasted grains, I'll dry it and turn it into rough flour for baking. Otherwise, the mash goes into the compost pile. Hops are relegated to the garbage can as they are poisonous to dogs. I don't have a dog but several neighbors do.