Distillers Flour (aka dried spent grains)

[MikeK]

Brenda,

We both got to visit the Bartons drying plant during the last Sampler. And yes, BT has their own drying plant as well, I saw it during a "backlot" tour that same week.

In the old days it was common for a distillery to have cattle and pigs right on the grounds to make use of the slop. I imagine they dry it these days to make it easier to transport to the farmers. (And it keeps a bit better)

I guess a food processor might do it. I seem to remember that the Kitchenaid mixers have a grain mill attachment available. Or if you know anyone who makes their own beer they could mill it.

If you are able to score some spent grain from Greg, please grab me a reasonable sized bag and I'll gladly reimburse you for your effort!

Mmmmm!

[gr8erdane]

And then again if you are into the old fashioned thing, you can find a round stone and mill by hand. It's a lot of work though.

[cowdery]

There is a better market for the dried grains, as you can imagine. It's easier to store, transport, etc. In wet form, you're pretty much limited to a local market.

For the distillery it's waste disposal, not a profit center. They're lucky if they can sell the grain for what it costs to run the driers. The big cost is fuel so you can imagine it's a problem now, with fuel costs so high.

Dry or wet, the stuff is supposedly very good animal feed. Brown-Forman a few years ago built a catfish farm at the Shively distillery. They did dry the grain, but not completely, then pelletized it to use as fish feed. They abandoned it as a business. At least the tank is gone, but perhaps they established a market with commercial catfish producers. Catfish raised on spent bourbon grain has a nice symmetry to it, don't you think?

[brendaj]

Mike,
Well, I finally picked up that big ol' sack of dried distillers grain from Barton's the other day. Geez does it smell strong... Greg Davis is really a wonderful guy. He made sure he got this done before leaving for vacation. I promised to keep him posted.

I have a big ziplock ready to send you. I've also sent some to Louisville to be ground into flour. I'll send you some of that too, if you'd like.

My Son is attending culinary college at Sullivan and has agreed to mill some into flour for us. He did mention however, not to expect this to actually behave like flour, due to the lack of gluten. I'm really looking forward to using it for breading fish, tomatoes, etc. Now that I see this stuff, Chuck was really right when he said, "Catfish raised on spent bourbon grain has a nice symmetry to it, don't you think?" Yeah buddy, would have loved to have tasted some of that catfish...
Bj

[MikeK]

Marvelous! I love the smell of that stuff. If you want to send me some already ground into flour as well, I shall gratefully accept it

Thanks for the tip about the gluten. I have a box of gluten so I can add in a bit to make up for that. From the ready made mixes I've used, I think the majority of the recipe should be regular flour with some modest amount of distillers flour added for flavoring.

Thanks Brenda!

[gr8erdane]

You know every time I read a new post on this subject I have this little commercial ditty run through my twisted mind:

Purina Man Chow....chow, chow, chow.....

[V Smoothe]

Is this stuff commercially available at all? I would love to get my hands on some.

[JDutton]

One source of spent grain from beer would be your friendly neighborhood homebrewer.

Here's a recipe I just found on a Homebrewing forum. I have not tried this recipe myself. Since grain is only crushed, not milled for brewing, I think this would be a fairly coarse bread, not to mention that there would be a lot of husks in there.

Jeff


BEER BREAD From Spent Grain
Recipe:
o 3 cups spent grain (wet)
o 1 cup flour
o 1 cup warm water
o 1 tsp yeast
o 1/4 cup sugar
Use Spent Grain that still has a small amount of sugars still in the grain. Crystal, Munich, Maris Otter, Honey Malt are great malts to use. Stay away from large amounts of Roasted Malts.
Add 1 tsp salt and knead in or mix flour, one cup at a time, until the dough will not stick to the fingers. This will take about 5 additional cups, the amount depending on the water content of the grain. Continue to knead or mix until a silky texture that does not stick to fingers is achieved.
Let dough rise (covered) in a warm place for at least an hour or till it doubles in volume. Then form into loaves and let rise again. When doubled in volume, bake at 375 for 30-35 min. Test to make sure done inside.
Bread Sticks: Roll the dough into bars about 2" in diameter and about 10" long. Bake until Golden Brown.
You can improve on the texture of the bread if you dry the spent grain and grind it up with the flour mill. One cup dry and three cups water works out for the above recipe.
Add Flaked Oats or Flaked Barley to the top of loafs before baking for extra flavor.

[TBoner]

I don't have a specific bread recipe, but I also use spent grains from homebrewing in cooking.

I usually toss a cup or so into a homemade loaf of whole-wheat bread.

I also make dog biscuits with them. A couple of eggs, 4 cups of flour, 4 cups of spent grain, and a cup of peanut butter (sub Cheez Whiz or soft dog food depending on your dog's preferences). Stir, shape into biscuits (you can use a cookie cutter, but I just mold them into plain ol' patties), and bake at 375 for 25 minutes or so. Let them cool, then dry them out in a warm (150*) oven overnight. My dog can't get enough of 'em. In fact, on brewday, he's giddy knowing what's coming. You may not want to order distillers flour just for these, but you'll be your dog's hero for life if you do.

Just make sure you're ready to scoop some extra poop if you feed him too many.

[cowdery]

Several years ago, the chef at the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville developed a quick bread using distillers dry grain, which he was selling as a packaged mix. I don't think anything ever became of it.