Love, Sweat, and Beers

The comments from yesterday’s preppy post were really interesting. I’m surprised by the number of students who prep their meals. When I was a student, I usually had time to make a sandwich at my apartment or visit the dining hall between classes. I wish I still had access to an all-day, every-day salad bar with pre-cut, pre-washed veggies that wouldn’t spoil in my fridge. (Ahhhh, the things we take for granted…)

Today’s post is a hybrid of sorts. It’s about food, and it’s about beer. What’s not to love?

I want to shed light on spent grain. Spent grain is the leftover goo in the mash-kettle after being separated from the wort. Wort goes on to make the really good stuff (beer).

After separation, the spent grains are a “mixture of barley grain husk, pericarp and fragments of endosperm. The chemical composition of [spent grain] is dependent on the barley variety, harvest time and mashing conditions.” If you want to know more, check out Hydrolysis of Brewers’ Spent Grain by Carbohydrate Degrading Enzymes, which is the source of that info.

As you know, I’m the queen of leftovers, and there are plenty of ways to reuse these babies.

• Cheers Beers posted tasty-looking, chewy grain bars that were made from spent grains. I’d love to try these!
• Many breweries give their spent grain to nearby farms since it qualifies as low-grade feed.

• Sweetwater Brewing in Atlanta sold some of theirs to a nearby Whole Foods. Whole Foods then used it to make and sell bread. This is kind of old news, but it’s still cool.

• Seven Bridges Coop lists even more ways (with recipes!) to use spent grain. They even list cookies! Maybe I should bake more often…

I usually prefer to talk about beer and food as it relates to cooking with beer or complimentary pairings, but I hope you enjoyed this unique blend of the two.

• Would you try cookies/bread/bars made with spent grains?
• If you plan on drinking a beer (or two) this weekend, which will you be enjoying?