Switching to the all grain brewing process presents a new waste stream in our household. A waste stream of sugarless barley, wheat, oats, and other grains. So far we have come up with 2 great ways to help us reuse this waste stream into something else.
The first and easiest way to reuse our spent grains is to compost them! Leah and I have been composting our kitchen scraps for well over a year now. We had purchased 2 60 gallon pickle barrels from Mt. Olive pickle company for $5 each! That's about 10% the cost of buying them brand new! They still had a bit of pickle smell in them, but a good rinsing, and a week out in the sun made them smell good as new.
Before last week, our compost was aerated about once a week by turning the barrel on its side, and rolling it about the yard. This however failed to mix the compost up properly, and also failed to introduce oxygen to the lower half of the barrel. Oxygen is necessary for composting bacteria (kinda like aerating the wort).
Composter Design
A couple weeks back I designed a tumble style composter that rotated about an axis in the middle of the barrel. You can see the design I created in Delcam Powershape (free for personal use) to the right.
The materials included 38 ft of 2x4s, 12 1/2" bolts, and a 1 1/4" conduit pipe.
Scott and I built the whole thing in less than 5 hours.
The finished product looks and works great! The barrel tumbles with little effort, and mixes anything we add to the it in just a few turns!
The brewing grains we have added to the composter so far have broken down in a matter of days. The bacteria in the compost bin LOVE all the residual sugars in the grains. We've also been adding our trub (sediment and yeast left behind after fermentation) to the composter as well. The yeast and sediment are extremely beneficial to the compost process, and help to break everything down even faster!
Completed Composter!
In addition to composting, Leah has taken up baking dog cookies with the spent grains! The grains make a perfect low calorie & high fiber treat for the dogs since most of the carbohydrates from the grains have been removed. When she has perfected her recipe, I'll get her to post it.
Other ideas for recycling grains such as granola, bread, cookies, or tofu burgers can be found from the Seven Bridges Cooperative website. This was the company we purchased our all organic ingrediants from!
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