Your best beers get consumed with great gusto, but then there’s the matter of brews that you don’t quite like. Baking and cooking with those lackluster ciders, bitter beers or overly sweet meads gives us a way to use them up without wasting them. One perk to brewing all-grain beer is that you get to use the spent grains left after brew day! The humble little bag of wet grains can be used in many ways. Try making breads, flours, dog treats, granola or muffins with this high-fiber grain. Don’t feel like baking? If you are on a homestead, use spent grains as a favorite snack for chickens and livestock, or use them to enrich your compost pile.
YIELD VARIES
Spent grains can be dried and milled into flour. Not unlike a rye flour, this has a dark and nutty flavor with a slight residual sweetness. It’s a healthy addition to baking, as it is high in fiber, protein and amino acids. Spent-grain flour can be used in recipes along with all-purpose flour. For example, substitute 1 cup (140 g) of whole wheat flour with ½ cup (70 g) of spent-grain flour and ½ cup (70 g) of all-purpose flour.
Spent grains as available
1. After making the wort on brew day, take a few minutes to pour your wet grains into a strainer in the sink. Let them drip dry while you finish brewing.
2. Arrange the wet grains in a shallow layer on a dehydrator tray or a shallow rimmed baking sheet and put them in the dehydrator or the oven, ideally at a temperature of around 150°F (65°C). Check on them every hour and stir, so that they dry evenly without burning. It should take 2 to 4 hours for the grain to be totally dried. You can tell your grains are done because they will be crisp and warm with no trace of moisture remaining.
3. Remove the grains from the heat source and let them cool. Pulse the dried grains in a food processor or spice grinder. It will take about 30 seconds worth of grinding to get the grains fine enough to store.
4. Store your flour in an airtight container in a dark cabinet. If you don’t bake often, store the flour in the freezer to extend its shelf life.
