Sourdough Stories 15: Spent Grain Bread

The Hubs was brewing a Red Ale this past week; since the homebrew beer bread turned out so well, I wanted to see how some of the spent grains would taste.  The grains from homebrewing always make for a lot of waste; sometimes we'll give them to our neighbors for their chickens, but when they don't need any, we have to figure out how to dispose of them.  I've used spent grains in the past to make cookies or granola (and I did make a batch of cookies as well), but after adding the malted wheat to the recipe last week, I figured some spent grains would work equally well.

I found a recipe online from another homebrewer who had done this before; I wanted to start there since I'd be dealing with an inclusion of an unknown hydration. Also, that way if someone had already tried it and it sucked, I wouldn't need to waste my time.  I decided to save an extra 125g of spent grains in the freezer so I could make this again sometime whether The Hubs was brewing or not.

Our Red Ale uses the following grain bill: 68% two row pale malt, 8% Caramel 120L, 5% Carapils, 5% Cara Red, 5% Melanoiden Malt, 5% Aromatic Malt, & 3% Roasted Barley.  He also added rice hulls during the brewing process to create a better filter bed so the water can flow through the mash more easily & extract more starches (we use a Brewzilla all in one system).  If you use Brew-In-A-Bag (BIAB) or another method, the rice hulls might not be necessary, and honestly the spent grains are a bit easier to utilize in recipes without them, but they don't do any harm--they're just kinda pokey and get to get stuck in your teeth like popcorn hulls.

Brewing in process.

The resulting spent grains is a mix of these malt grains + rice hulls, stripped of most of their starches but they retain much of their protein content and fiber.  Both of which would be a nice addition to some fresh bread, amiright?

The original recipe is for 2 loaves, but I divided and just made one. I also used my Kitchenaid dough hook to mix & knead, rather than folding on the countertop.  The original baker notes using a wet countertop for working the dough.  I feel weird about working directly on our granite countertops, and prefer to fold in a bowl to make less mess.  

When it came time to incorporate the spent grains, the original baker recommends rolling out the dough on a wet countertop, then spreading the grains out, and then rolling it up. But y'all...this dough was STICKY. Super Sticky.  I had to scrape the dough off my work surface and just decided to use the Kitchenaid to incorporate that as well.

Looking pretty before I realized it was semi-permanently attached to the cutting board.

Since it was a fairly wet dough, I learned my lesson from last week and decided to bake this in a loaf pan rather than attempt to make a boule.

Pre-bulk rise.

Post- bulk rise & overnight ferment in the fridge.  

Then into the oven she went the next morning, along with a partial pan of water.  And roughly 40 minutes later, we had...

...and oddly pale loaf.  I'm not really sure what happened here.  Texture is fine, and this is one of the few breads I've actually used a thermometer to confirm the inner temperature was good & fully baked.  Just...pale.  My best guess is it has something to do with using a glass loaf pan rather than metal, and that maybe the oven got a bit TOO steamy.  Ah well. Still tasted great, and had a nice light crust.

Homebrewing: Coconut & Pecan Spent Grain Cookies

Note: this post includes a lot of links to The Home Brewery Store, which is our local brew store--like, it's literally a block from our house.  But they also sell online through their website and Amazon.  We don't receive any compensation from them, we just really like all of their products, and think they are great people.  Their kits are all fantastic and will make you a great batch of beer.

The Hubs recently made the switch to all-grain brewing instead of extract brewing. If you're not a brewer, here's the nutshell version:

You need malt to make beer.  Malt is created by pulling the starch out of grains and converting it into fermentable sugar. In extract brewing, someone has already soaked the grains to make malt, and then condensed/dehyrated it into a bag, that you can just add to water with your other ingredients.  

This method is quicker (total brew time of about 2-3 hours with sanitization and cleanup), but more expensive--because you're paying for convenience.  For example, the last extract brew we did was a replica Schlafly Pale Ale, and all the ingredients cost us about $75, for 5 gallons (roughly 50 bottles of beer, or $1.50/each, just in ingredients).  Most home brew stores sell kits that include malt extract, and the kits range from $25-$50 for 5 gallons worth of beer.

In all-grain brewing, you buy grains (cheaper), grind/crack them, and then soak them yourself to make your own malt.  This is less expensive, but your total brew time (with sanitization and cleanup) goes up to about 5-7 hours.  Since switching to all-grain, our average cost per 5 gallon batch is closer to $20, and you have a lot more freedom in customizing how you want your beer to look/taste, vs. using a kit. 

And...it also means you now have about 10-12 pounds of "spent" (used) grains to get rid of, once you've gotten all the sugars you need from them.  And you're left with this:

Note: this is a mix of barley and corn, for a light lager.

Damp, high-fiber grains with most of their natural sugars removed--but most of the protein does NOT leach out of them in the cooking process, so they do still have some nutritional value.

What do you do with it?

Well, if you have chickens, or friends who have chickens, you can put the still-damp grains into gallon freezer bags, freeze them, and thaw as you need to use as chicken feed.  You do have to keep them cold or frozen otherwise they'll go rancid.  I've been giving most of our spent grains to my coworker and she says her chickens went NUTS for it.

Or, you can spread the grains on a cookie sheet and dry them in a low-temp oven (200F) for a few hours, then put them in a blender or food processor to make spent grain flour that can be used in all kinds of recipes.  This sounds like a great idea, but because it involves multiple steps, and I'm lazy, I've not done it.

OR...you can scour the interwebs for recipes that use fresh, still-damp spent grains, no extra processing needed.  And find one.  This one.

FYI, I love these cookies SO much.  They're soft and moist and a little cakey, but with lots of flavor and texture from the coconut and pecans.  And the spent grain makes them high in natural fiber and gives them a little extra protein. (Note: recipe below has been modified slightly from the original.)

INGREDIENTS:
- 5 Tbsp butter, softened
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup molasses or Steen's Cane Syrup
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp allspice
- 1.5 cups damp spent grain
- 1 cup chopped pecans
- 1 cup coconut

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350F.

Cream together the sugars and butter, then add the egg and vanilla.  Then add in the dry ingredients. Fold in the pecans and coconut last using a spatula.

Scoop onto a lined cookie sheet (I like these silicone cooking mats, but parchment paper works just as well) and bake for 20-25 minutes.  Let cool and enjoy!  (These are great warm or room temp).  Store in an airtight container for up to 7 days.