From Newsgroup: rec.crafts.brewing

The NY Times has an article about New Yorkers turning spent grain into
flour:

https://nyti.ms/2Kj68iG

A couple of things struck me. One is that so many breweries in Brooklyn
just dump their grain. The local breweries I know hand theirs off to
farmers for compost, although I could imagine that traffic and parking for picking it up in Brooklyn might be too crazy for farmers to bother with.

The other thing was that the wholesale price of the reclaimed flour is $8/pound and the retail price is $16! It would be vastly cheaper to just
turn basic two row into flour, although it would be significantly sweeter.
The article quotes the partners as saying the price will drop if they ever automate the process (they currently do everything by hand) but it's hard
for me to imagine the drying process will ever be highly economical, unless maybe you were operating in a place like Phoenix.
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From Newsgroup: rec.crafts.brewing

On 2018-06-27 09:52, baloonon wrote:

The NY Times has an article about New Yorkers turning spent grain into
flour:

https://nyti.ms/2Kj68iG

A couple of things struck me. One is that so many breweries in Brooklyn
just dump their grain. The local breweries I know hand theirs off to
farmers for compost, although I could imagine that traffic and parking for picking it up in Brooklyn might be too crazy for farmers to bother with.

The other thing was that the wholesale price of the reclaimed flour is $8/pound and the retail price is $16! It would be vastly cheaper to just
turn basic two row into flour, although it would be significantly sweeter. The article quotes the partners as saying the price will drop if they ever automate the process (they currently do everything by hand) but it's hard
for me to imagine the drying process will ever be highly economical, unless maybe you were operating in a place like Phoenix.

The owners of the unfortunately now closed EDH Brewing in El Dorado
Hills, CA, made very tasty thin crackers out of spent grains. Using some
sort of commercial grade pasta roller, then baking them in an oven.
Those went really well with a spicy dip they also made. Of course, even
dozens of people can't possibly eat as much crackers as they had spent
grains so the rest went to a farm.

I don't use grains for food here but we use every bit of the trub. Most
to make starter dough and then bread dough, some to start the next batch
of beer. Baked over wood fire outside, crunchy crust, yummm.

Grains from steeping went to neighbors and friends with chickens but
over time they kept losing all their chickes to bobcats, coyotes and so
on. So now I have to toss the grains :-(

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/
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From Newsgroup: rec.crafts.brewing

In article <XnsA90E830758AC8baloonoononon@46.165.242.75>,
baloonon <baloonon@hotmail.com> wrote:

The NY Times has an article about New Yorkers turning spent grain into flour:

https://nyti.ms/2Kj68iG

A couple of things struck me. One is that so many breweries in Brooklyn
just dump their grain. The local breweries I know hand theirs off to
farmers for compost, although I could imagine that traffic and parking for picking it up in Brooklyn might be too crazy for farmers to bother with.

The other thing was that the wholesale price of the reclaimed flour is $8/pound and the retail price is $16! It would be vastly cheaper to just turn basic two row into flour, although it would be significantly sweeter. The article quotes the partners as saying the price will drop if they ever automate the process (they currently do everything by hand) but it's hard for me to imagine the drying process will ever be highly economical, unless maybe you were operating in a place like Phoenix.

Compost would usually be one more step past getting the spent grains to
the farm - it's almost always "processed through animals" as it's a
perfectly good feedstock (cattle and chickens both like it, probably
several other species...) if you don't let it mold, etc. before feeding
it out. The "end result" makes good compost and is less wasteful than composting the grains directly would be.

Transport _should_ be simple - plenty of farm trucks go to the city full
and drive out empty. But there would be details to the logistics, and sometimes it's simpler to not bother.

I agree that it's pure niche market madness unless you have desert air
handy. But as long as you have mad people with mad money to burn on
wickedly overpriced flour, milk it for all it's worth. Having a "plan B"
for when they figure out what barley flour costs would be a good idea,
but if your marketing division sells the "keeping it from going to
waste" angle hard enough, there are some folks who will happily pony up
too much money.

If you don't malt it first, or don't malt much % of it, barley flour
won't be particularly sweet.

--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by
Please don't feed the trolls. Killfile and ignore them so they will go away. --- Synchronet 3.17a-Linux NewsLink 1.110

From Newsgroup: rec.crafts.brewing

Ecnerwal <MyNameForward@ReplaceWithMyVices.Com.invalid> wrote:

baloonon <baloonon@hotmail.com> wrote:

The NY Times has an article about New Yorkers turning spent grain
into flour:

https://nyti.ms/2Kj68iG

A couple of things struck me. One is that so many breweries in
Brooklyn just dump their grain. The local breweries I know hand
theirs off to farmers for compost, although I could imagine that
traffic and parking for picking it up in Brooklyn might be too crazy
for farmers to bother with.

The other thing was that the wholesale price of the reclaimed flour
is $8/pound and the retail price is $16! It would be vastly cheaper
to just turn basic two row into flour, although it would be
significantly sweeter. The article quotes the partners as saying the
price will drop if they ever automate the process (they currently do
everything by hand) but it's hard for me to imagine the drying
process will ever be highly economical, unless maybe you were
operating in a place like Phoenix.

Compost would usually be one more step past getting the spent grains
to the farm - it's almost always "processed through animals" as it's a perfectly good feedstock (cattle and chickens both like it, probably
several other species...) if you don't let it mold, etc. before
feeding it out. The "end result" makes good compost and is less
wasteful than composting the grains directly would be.

The couple of places I know that take it don't raise livestock -- they're pretty small boutique farms doing restaurant business mostly, I think, with some high end farmers market sales.

Transport _should_ be simple - plenty of farm trucks go to the city
full and drive out empty. But there would be details to the logistics,
and sometimes it's simpler to not bother.

I think in Brooklyn, brewers probably need to get rid of the stuff fast or face health inspectors who are probably rightly worried about rats, and
it's probably hard for farmers to come down from Connecticut or wherever
and cross a bunch of bridges to get there in time.

I agree that it's pure niche market madness unless you have desert air
handy. But as long as you have mad people with mad money to burn on
wickedly overpriced flour, milk it for all it's worth. Having a "plan
B" for when they figure out what barley flour costs would be a good
idea, but if your marketing division sells the "keeping it from going
to waste" angle hard enough, there are some folks who will happily
pony up too much money.

Yeah, I could see there being people in Brooklyn willing to pay $16/pound
for recycled grain flour, although I suspect the market would get saturated pretty fast.
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From Newsgroup: rec.crafts.brewing

Joerg <news@analogconsultants.com> wrote:

On 2018-06-27 09:52, baloonon wrote:

The NY Times has an article about New Yorkers turning spent grain
into flour:

https://nyti.ms/2Kj68iG

A couple of things struck me. One is that so many breweries in
Brooklyn just dump their grain. The local breweries I know hand
theirs off to farmers for compost, although I could imagine that
traffic and parking for picking it up in Brooklyn might be too crazy
for farmers to bother with.

The other thing was that the wholesale price of the reclaimed flour
is $8/pound and the retail price is $16! It would be vastly cheaper
to just turn basic two row into flour, although it would be
significantly sweeter. The article quotes the partners as saying the
price will drop if they ever automate the process (they currently do
everything by hand) but it's hard for me to imagine the drying
process will ever be highly economical, unless maybe you were
operating in a place like Phoenix.

The owners of the unfortunately now closed EDH Brewing in El Dorado
Hills, CA, made very tasty thin crackers out of spent grains.

It's a bummer when breweries close, but unfortunately the margins are
really tight for most of them. I cringe when I see people complaining
about craft beer in a bar run by a brewery that costs $6 or $7 -- that's
what you pay for a glass of wine that was made a thousand or more miles
away, and it's worth the extra $3 or $4 compared to a glass of Bud or
Coors.

Using
some sort of commercial grade pasta roller, then baking them in an
oven. Those went really well with a spicy dip they also made. Of
course, even dozens of people can't possibly eat as much crackers as
they had spent grains so the rest went to a farm.

I don't use grains for food here but we use every bit of the trub.
Most to make starter dough and then bread dough, some to start the
next batch of beer. Baked over wood fire outside, crunchy crust,
yummm.

Grains from steeping went to neighbors and friends with chickens but
over time they kept losing all their chickes to bobcats, coyotes and
so on. So now I have to toss the grains :-(

It makes good mulch, if you can cover it with a final layer of wood
mulch. It also composts really fast.

My wife makes noises about raising chickens from time to time, and I
always have to point out that we have foxes, raccoons and stray cats in
the neighborhood, and a lot of them won't kill every chicken they
attack, they'll just wound them horribly and let them linger. It's
better to just go to the farmers market for eggs.
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From Newsgroup: rec.crafts.brewing

On 2018-06-27 14:56, baloonon wrote:

Joerg <news@analogconsultants.com> wrote:

On 2018-06-27 09:52, baloonon wrote:

The NY Times has an article about New Yorkers turning spent grain
into flour:

https://nyti.ms/2Kj68iG

A couple of things struck me. One is that so many breweries in
Brooklyn just dump their grain. The local breweries I know hand
theirs off to farmers for compost, although I could imagine that
traffic and parking for picking it up in Brooklyn might be too crazy
for farmers to bother with.

The other thing was that the wholesale price of the reclaimed flour
is $8/pound and the retail price is $16! It would be vastly cheaper
to just turn basic two row into flour, although it would be
significantly sweeter. The article quotes the partners as saying the
price will drop if they ever automate the process (they currently do
everything by hand) but it's hard for me to imagine the drying
process will ever be highly economical, unless maybe you were
operating in a place like Phoenix.

The owners of the unfortunately now closed EDH Brewing in El Dorado
Hills, CA, made very tasty thin crackers out of spent grains.

It's a bummer when breweries close, but unfortunately the margins are
really tight for most of them. I cringe when I see people complaining
about craft beer in a bar run by a brewery that costs $6 or $7 -- that's
what you pay for a glass of wine that was made a thousand or more miles
away, and it's worth the extra $3 or $4 compared to a glass of Bud or
Coors.

Red Bus Brewery in Folsom (California) had the recipe sheets on their
tanks which I found surprising, and a nice touch. One for a Pilsener
listed the grain, hop and yeast bill at a whopping total of $847 and it
wasn't a monstrous fermenter.

Using
some sort of commercial grade pasta roller, then baking them in an
oven. Those went really well with a spicy dip they also made. Of
course, even dozens of people can't possibly eat as much crackers as
they had spent grains so the rest went to a farm.

I don't use grains for food here but we use every bit of the trub.
Most to make starter dough and then bread dough, some to start the
next batch of beer. Baked over wood fire outside, crunchy crust,
yummm.

Grains from steeping went to neighbors and friends with chickens but
over time they kept losing all their chickes to bobcats, coyotes and
so on. So now I have to toss the grains :-(

It makes good mulch, if you can cover it with a final layer of wood
mulch. It also composts really fast.

We've got too many ants and bigger critters for that.

My wife makes noises about raising chickens from time to time, and I
always have to point out that we have foxes, raccoons and stray cats in
the neighborhood, and a lot of them won't kill every chicken they
attack, they'll just wound them horribly and let them linger. It's
better to just go to the farmers market for eggs.

Ours kill all the chickens, 100%, mutilated to death. Then they only eat
one. It makes no sense. Just like what humans did to buffalo in the old
days, shooting them from trains for fun.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/
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From Newsgroup: rec.crafts.brewing

In article <XnsA90EB5339F367baloonoononon@46.165.242.75>,
baloonon <baloonon@hotmail.com> wrote:

I think in Brooklyn, brewers probably need to get rid of the stuff fast or >face health inspectors who are probably rightly worried about rats, and
it's probably hard for farmers to come down from Connecticut or wherever
and cross a bunch of bridges to get there in time.

Fast has got to be the tricky part. I've oven dried some spent grains
once or twice for use in baking. Most, I compost. But that spent
grain starts souring VERY quickly - like a few hours. When I oven dry,
I get complaints from the family about the smell. Those little
micro-beasties love the pre-softened grains with the easily digestable sugars...

For composting in the yard, I have to make sure I get every bit covered
by a least a half inch of dirt - it doesn't take much, but if you skip
that part - you'll likely get complaints from the neighbors about the
stench. Well at least out here in California where the neighbors are
closely packed....

Regards,

Mark

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