As a Foodster, this may be the most Foodster thing you could do. I’ve been homebrewing – on my 5th brew – and learned that the spent grain can be more than just something that is simply thrown into your compost pile or fed to livestock. It’s something that can be composted right in your stomach. I’ll give you a little lesson on what exactly spent grain is and then dive into a breakfast recipe that you can make when you’re finished with your homebrew grains.

What Is Spent Grain?

A Perfect Pint has a great description of what your brewing grains essential are:

By far the most common brewing grain is malted barley or barley malt, but a variety of other grains, both malted and unmalted, are also used including wheat, corn, rice, rye, and oats. To put it plainly, malt is cereal grain that has undergone the malting process.

So, when you’re homebrewing you are going to steep the grains which is called the mash – the liquid extracted from heating the grains in hot water . The mash then becomes the wort which is going to turn into your beer – once you add yeast you’re on your way to making beer.

 

 

The product you get after steeping your grains is a wet soggy mash that smells somewhat like sweet maltomeal. You’re probably wondering why would you even consider using the spent grains then if they smell that way?

 

If you’re a Foodster – you go for it. 

 

How To Prepare Spent Grain:

The trick is to turn the spent grain into a flour. This might be the most boring and time consuming task of using spent grains.

How to prepare spent grain:

1. Lay out your damp spent grain on a cookie sheet no thicker than 1/4inch. If it’s on too thick, it’s going to take a longer time.
2. Heat oven to your lowest setting – between 170-180 degrees.
3. Bake for 7 hours.
   1. I set my timer for ever 3 hours so I could check and rotate the grains.

 

 

 

The final result:

cookie sheet trays filled with crunchy, dried grains.

 

Here’s a crazy thing: I started with about 3 pounds of damp grain and look what it ended up drying out to be – 12 oz.

 

 

 

Spent Grain Breakfast Scone Recipe

 

 

Mix all dry ingredients together

 

Don’t forget the flour. 

add sliced, cold, butter

mix all together in food processor until mixture resembles coarse crumbs

In a separate bowl, mix half and half and egg then add to dry ingredients

Form dough into ball using additional flour on a cookie sheet

 

Cut into 8 wedges and bake. 

 

 

Add the homemade glaze.

 

 

and now you can have beer for breakfast! 😉 

If you’re a homebrewer and have experiment cooking with spent grains, let me know what you made in the comment section! 

Cheers!