using spent grain in brewing again

Rudibrew

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hi all,hope u having great saturday.
waiting on my mash to finish and was browsing the net.
silly question:how can spent grain be reused in the brewing process again?
i understand it can be used for other purposes,compost livestock feed,baking.
but is it really that spent that it cannot be utilised in the brewing process again?
seems like a waste to the homebrewer
 
hi all,hope u having great saturday.
waiting on my mash to finish and was browsing the net.
silly question:how can spent grain be reused in the brewing process again?
i understand it can be used for other purposes,compost livestock feed,baking.
but is it really that spent that it cannot be utilised in the brewing process again?
seems like a waste to the homebrewer
Gday welcome to the forum.
Well it depends on how much convertible sugars are left in the grains starches. I suppose if your doing a really big beer like a Barley wine or such you can 're mash the grains or 're sparge the grains and make a lite beer from them grains.

But as for your regular mid level gravity beer all them grains are good for is as you stated above chicken feed.

Others more knowledgeable will beak it down science wise for you over sparging and all can extract tannins or something :).
 
Do a little experiment, and do another batch sparge, or pour over sparge with the spent grains, see what gravity you get. I think you will find that the grains are, ummm, well, their spent!
 
hi all,hope u having great saturday.
waiting on my mash to finish and was browsing the net.
silly question:how can spent grain be reused in the brewing process again?
i understand it can be used for other purposes,compost livestock feed,baking.
but is it really that spent that it cannot be utilised in the brewing process again?
seems like a waste to the homebrewer
Short answer, no. The sugars have been extracted and there's nothing to be gained from trying to squeeze a bit more out of them. In fact, you would remove sugars from the wort by having draff (spent grain) in the mash. You can also introduce bacteria you don't want. About the only positive, and this is not an endorsement, is it could be used in place of rice hulls to loosen the mash.
 
There is a type of beer called small beer. In medieval brewing, the monks would drain the wort and brew the first runnings and sell this beer as a premium. They would add more water to the mash and brew small beer. There was a little sugar left, resulting in a beer of 1-2% alcohol. This was sold to the peasants or distributed to the poor.

This is likely the sort of beer that St. Arnold encouraged his parishioners to drink to avoid cholera.
 
hi all,hope u having great saturday.
waiting on my mash to finish and was browsing the net.
silly question:how can spent grain be reused in the brewing process again?
i understand it can be used for other purposes,compost livestock feed,baking.
but is it really that spent that it cannot be utilised in the brewing process again?
seems like a waste to the homebrewer
To really KNOW what you can get from YOUR spent grains you will need a HYDROMETER... I can sometimes run another gallon or so through my grains and get a wort between 1.022-1.030... Not really much to work with except making a starter maybe... BUT, with some DME I could maybe make a gallon or two of some other beer if I boil, add hops etc. - Typically nothing worth putting the time and effort into UNLESS you have the time and effort...

Have you managed to get your hands on a hydrometer yet?
 
There is a type of beer called small beer. In medieval brewing, the monks would drain the wort and brew the first runnings and sell this beer as a premium. They would add more water to the mash and brew small beer. There was a little sugar left, resulting in a beer of 1-2% alcohol. This was sold to the peasants or distributed to the poor.

This is likely the sort of beer that St. Arnold encouraged his parishioners to drink to avoid cholera.

This also happens to be the exact same brew process for Michelob Ultra
 
but is it really that spent that it cannot be utilised in the brewing process again?
seems like a waste to the homebrewer
What part of "spent" is confusing? :D
It's possible to wring the last bit of sugars out of a batch of grains in one way or another, but once it's done, there's not a lot left but hulls. It's not even particularly good chicken or livestock feed except for the fact that some of the proteins are left behind after the carbohydrates are turned into sugars...it's mostly just "roughage".
If you were to try to save it for use somehow at a later date, it'd have to be chilled quickly and refrigerated because it'll sour within hours if left on it's own.
 
This also happens to be the exact same brew process for Michelob Ultra

...and so many others that have either been born crappy or dumbed down over the years :)
 
As one that is looking to get as much as possible from pretty much everything I can...my cheap bastard ethos....

Take in some reading on the historical side of the art and science of brewing and you'll note that they too were looking to get as much as they could out of their grain bill. It wasn't a happy for those folks...they were trying to make a living out it! The bottom line Brewer is that you reach a point of diminished returns! There is only so much blood in that turnip and you would be better off focusing your time and talents in your efficiency and you'll never get cholera but you may make some really hearty, fiber rich bread to eat with our brew.

Believe me, I admire your drive but some things are not worth the time!
 
From the Shakespeare play, "Henry VI, Part 2": There shall be, in England, seven half-penny loaves sold for a penny: the three-hoop'd pot shall have ten hoops; and I will make it felony, to drink small beer.

How many other brewing forums would you find Shakespeare quotes on? Brilliant :)
 
The lower you were in the heirchy of a household, the smaller the beer you got to drink. First runnings were for the master of the house, second runnings for the high end staff, third runnings for kitchen staff and kids, fourth runnings for the gardeners and such. This is loosely how I remember the description of how the party gyle brewing style came to be
 

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