Spent Grain Bread–We Brew Econo


D. Boon from the band the Minutemen dreamt of a day where every block would have its own band, a distributed and democratic D.I.Y network of musical creativity encircling the globe. Why trek to faraway Hollywood when you can jam at home in San Pedro?

With the band on every block, Root Simple would like to add a brewery in every kitchen (seems like a obvious combination). Last week we made our first attempt at beer, in the improvised two gallon plastic tub on the right, and next week we’ll know if it’s worth drinking or if it’s compost. We’ll do a taste test and report back on the whole process when we crack the first bottle.

What we do know was a success is using the spent grains, the leftover malted barley and crystal malt that we used in the beer recipe, which are strained out before the beer is put away to ferment, as a flavoring for our wild yeast bread (recipe and instructions for making that bread here—we added 4.5 ounces of the spent grains to the dough–and we just threw them in whole without grinding them up as some folks on the internets suggest). The rich, smoky taste and the dark color these grains imparted to the bread makes us want to brew another batch of beer soon, if just to make bread. The spent grains we didn’t use for bread got fed to the chickens who clucked appreciatively.

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4 Comments

  1. You’ve inspired me to use my spent grain to try to make some bread and I was also looking for someone else who fed their spent grain to their chickens.

    I also didn’t know that wanting a secure boarder automatically makes you a racist. I’d like to see people be more careful with the term racist, because it’s a very serious word that gets thrown around way too loosely just because you disagree with someone.

    Great article otherwise.

  2. Cool – and you can bandy the word “racist” around all you want. Maybe people’s sensitivity will be dulled by its overuse. Works for me.

    Thanks for the recipe on Beer Bread! I’m so excited. I’m doing a Home Brewing class in a couple weeks and am totally hitting them up for spent grain. 😀

  3. Thanks. Looking for a spent grain bread recipe. Got a batch of it (the grain) in my freezer now and can’t wait to try it out. Unfortunately the recipe doesn’t come up on your website.

    Oh, and the racist comment? Seriously? For believing in the rule of law? Agree with above poster – the more you use the term, the less meaning it has.

    • VJB, You have discovered a very old post on this blog. I fixed the bad link, but I no longer make bread this way, though it does work. I also pulled the political comment–I no longer have any interest in politics, especially on this blog. I’d rather we all just talk about spent grain bread.

      Speaking of which, here is what I’ve found. The best spent grain bread I’ve made was with dark roasted specialty grain used as part of a partial mash brewing process. I’m working on a bunch of whole grain bread recipes, and will include some spent grains in some of them. But those recipes are many months away. In the meantime I would suggest you take a look at a great new book, Josey Baker Bread. You could toss in some spent grains into almost any of Josey Baker’s recipes.

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