Distillers Flour (aka dried spent grains)

[MikeK]

I've always loved the smell of dried distillers grain. Last month I picked up a couple bags of pancake mix (made by Weisenberger) at Buffalo Trace that have some "Distiller's Four" mixed in. Looking at the ingredients list it looks like a fairly small amount is added to the mix.

The pancakes are quite tasty. The distiller's flour announces its presence in a subtle way. You get a faint smell and taste of being in the fermenting room.

Anyone know where I can get a bag of straight distillers flour? I'd like to add this to other things I cook as well.

Thanks,

[cowdery]

Try this. I've had it and it's good.

[MikeK]

Try this. I've had it and it's good.

Thanks Chuck, that looks interesting, I'll give it a try.

Thanks,

[MikeK]

Thanks Chuck, that looks interesting, I'll give it a try.

Thanks,

I ordered a couple boxes of the mix and baked one last night. Very tasty! Good call Chuck. The only downside, if you can say that, is that it made the whole house smell so good that I couldn't nose my whiskey.

But I still want a sack of dried distillers grain or ground flour so I can add it to my own recipes. Do I need to sneak one out the back door of the distillery? Hey Ken Weber, how about directing a wee bit of output from the drying plant over to the BT gift shop?

Thanks,

[brendaj]

I ordered a couple boxes of the mix and baked one last night. Very tasty! Good call Chuck. The only downside, if you can say that, is that it made the whole house smell so good that I couldn't nose my whiskey.

But I still want a sack of dried distillers grain or ground flour so I can add it to my own recipes. Do I need to sneak one out the back door of the distillery? Hey Ken Weber, how about directing a wee bit of output from the drying plant over to the BT gift shop?

Thanks,

Mike,

I'm with you on this one. I would love to try this too. Would like to bread things in it, like fried green tomatoes, etc.

I'm just not sure there is a 'drying plant'. I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that farmers came and got the spent grain as 'slop'. Does BT have facilities to actually dry their stuff?

I'd be up for driving down and picking some up for both of us...:yum:

Bj

[pepcycle]

We got a pretty good tour of the facilities at Barton that handle spent grain.

They have a whole section of the plant with dryers and evaporators that dry the grain separate from the liquid and IIRC mix them back to creat the right texture. You should be able to get some of the dried grain.

[brendaj]

We got a pretty good tour of the facilities at Barton that handle spent grain.

They have a whole section of the plant with dryers and evaporators that dry the grain separate from the liquid and IIRC mix them back to creat the right texture. You should be able to get some of the dried grain.

Thanks Ed!

I'll give 'em a call.

Bj

[brendaj]

Well Thank you Ed, you are a gentleman and a scholar!

I just got off the phone with Greg Davis, and he said if I drop him off a sack sometime next week, he would fill it...

How cool is that?

I also talked with Ken Pierce. We talked about the texture, and how coarse it's going to be. This won't be distiller's flour, it will be the actual dried spent grain. We'll have to grind it ourselves. Guess we could do that in a food processor? Coffee grinder?

Greg did say they were one of the few distilleries that dried their stuff. Now that I think about it, I wish I had asked them why they do it. Do you know why they go that extra step?

Bj

[gr8erdane]

And there it was if you'd just looked out the back door....:slappin:

[brendaj]

And there it was if you'd just looked out the back door....:slappin:

yeah...I wasn't gonna mention it, but I didn't really call 'em...I just yelled over the fence...

[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...:yum:

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.

[jeff]

Buffalo Trace sells packaged biscuit and pancake mixes made from "distiller's flour." Both are quite good.

[brendaj]

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.

You're thinking of the Sour Mash Bourbon Bread Co. and Chef Jim Gerhardt. And its still available. I have some of the pancake mix kickin' around somewhere. Chef Gerhardt left the Seelbach and opened his own place off of Hurstbourne Parkway several years ago. Its called The Limestone, and they carry it there and in several other little speciality stores. If you're coming to Bardstown for the Sampler, you might try Keene's Depot.

Chef Gerhardt used the term 'distiller's flour' in the ingredient list on the back of his packages. MikeK and I came to realize that the words 'distillers flour' was a really a confusing term. There is no 'flour' at all. Simply light, fluffy pieces of spent grain with intense flavor and smell. All the sugars (which is why Jeff's recipe said "Use Spent Grain that still has a small amount of sugars still in the grain.") and more importantly...all the gluten is gone. The guys at Sullivan laughed when I tried to have it ground into flour. It must be mixed with flour, and lots of it inorder to bake anything. It is more a flavor additive than anything else.

But not bad on fried green tomatoes...:grin:

Bj

[cowdery]

That's it exactly. I had some when it first came out. I'm not big on quick breads, but as quick breads go it was pretty good. It reminded me of beer bread.

Something that's mostly corn wouldn't have much gluten in it to begin with, I don't imagine.

Limestone's web site doesn't have a shop, but here it is in case anyone wants to contact them or check out the menu.

[jeff]

That's it exactly. I had some when it first came out. I'm not big on quick breads, but as quick breads go it was pretty good. It reminded me of beer bread.

Something that's mostly corn wouldn't have much gluten in it to begin with, I don't imagine.

Limestone's web site doesn't have a shop, but here it is in case anyone wants to contact them or check out the menu.

Ed, Patty, Leslie and I dined there a couple weeks ago before heading to Chicago Whiskyfest. The food is top notch. We opted for the "Feed Me" menu, in which the server asks if there is anything you are allergic to or do not like, and the chef takes it from there. Very nice! :yum:

[brendaj]

Chuck & Jeff,

Something that's mostly corn wouldn't have much gluten in it to begin with, I don't imagine.

You're exactly right. That's why the whole 'distiller's flour' is such a misnomer.

Yep, I've eaten lunch at the Limestone a couple of times. Their seafood is sushi grade, I just would have liked larger portions. I'm sorry I didn't provide the Limstone link before. I just hate websites that use that pop-up thingy...