I'm experimenting with my own homebrew. That's one of the goals I set for my 2015...make good beer. Only started brewing a couple of days ago. No explosions...no insane amount of stank from hops...so far so good. I've got at least a month before I can enjoy the fruits of my labor, Brooklyn Brew Shop's Everyday IPA. But in the meantime, I'm left with all this used grain=spent grain. When making beer, you heat some grain blend (barley, wheat) in water. Once you sift out the grain, you're left with a sugary brown liquid called wort and a whole lot of wet grain.
I don't like waste, specifically food waste, so I was determined to transform it into something. Union Craft, in Baltimore, works with local farmers who pick up the used grain, so it can be added to their animal's feed. I won't generate enough to justify a trip, so of course, I'm thinking of repurposing. The wet grain wasn't too bad on its own, but I wanted to do something a little less boring than eat wet grain for 2 weeks. Luckily, Brooklyn Brew Shop had a great tip for making spent grain flour. Everything is going to plan so far. I put my grain on a baking sheet...well, 2 baking sheets...now, I'm letting them dry out in a 200 degree oven. It's been about 6 hours. Once I let it cool, I'll probably only ground down 1 sheet of the dried grain into flour in a food processor. I think it'll be fun to play around with 2 different textures.
The dried grain smells delicious already. I think I might me a little too hype about crisped up grain! Good thing though. If making beer continues to be this fun, I'm going to have a lot of spent grain.
AEC