Last weekend I started home brewing again. Being that I brewed an all-grain batch, I had a concern early on about what to do with the spent grain. When you brew all-grain beer, all that grain you used in the process ends up being a waste product after all the starches are washed out. So what can you do with that grain once its spent? You could throw it on a compost heap to add some nutrients to the dirt, or you could make some seriously kick ass bread!
I looked around online and found a recipe for it.
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 tsp baker’s yeast
- 2 tsp salt
- 3 cups spent grain (ground up)
- 1 egg (beaten)
- 1 cup milk
- 1/4 cup butter or olive oil
Mix the dry ingredients, add the wet ingredients, knead, put in an oiled bowl and let it rise for ~90 minutes, punch down and put in an oiled bread pan, let rise until doubled, bake for 40 minutes at 350F, let cool for 30 minutes.
This recipe makes 3 loaves, which is WAY more than we here at DM Labs will eat in a week and if you do the math, 3 cups of spent grain isn’t nearly all the spent grain you will have after a batch of brew. Thankfully, bread dough freezes well for later baking. I used up all the flour I had in my house and almost used up all of my spent grain making dough for 12 loaves of bread (all frozen now), and I froze the remaining cup or so of spent grain I have for when I restock my ingredients.
I was expecting this bread to be run of the mill, home-baked bread, but it turned out far greater than I imagined. This is seriously some of the best bread, commercial or homemade, that I’ve ever had. We devoured the first loaf in just under 24 hours.