Spent Grain - What is it?
Ellie’s field trip to Denali Brewing Co., Talkeetna
I talked with owner Sassan. He was an excellent teacher!
The brewery brings in and processes raw grains.
The raw grains come with a high amount of sugar/carbohydrates compared to protein.
The brewing/fermenting process uses most of the sugar.
The by-product or waste product is called “spent grain.” It’s the cooked and filtered out barley (or whichever grain) in the brewing process.
Spent grain is low in sugar and about 16% protein
So here you have:
An ideal livestock and poultry feed.
It’s about 70% water (e.g. heavy, dense). It’s full of beneficial microbes which bolster the gut microbiomes of the livestock/poultry.
2. A compost booster. It provides a wonderful source of nitrogen for composting as well as all those active & beneficial microbes. Spent grain will heat up compost piles because of the microbes and high nitrogen content (due to the protein).
3. A beneficial mulch to feed your soil. Sprinkle this around your veggie plants, perennials, flower beds. Easy and so yummy to your soil.
As farmers, Sassa and his wife see the immense savings in using spent grain. It significantly supplements and therefore reduces the expense and volume of purchasing bagged feeds shipped to Alaska from the Lower 48 states.
Just think how many happy chickens, ducks, turkeys, horses, cows, goats, pigs there could be!
Find the local breweries near you—ask to collect their spent grain. Talk with them. Develop a relationship. If you say you’re going to pick up on a certain day, be dependable. Then feed your livestock, compost piles, & garden bed soil.
When you’re in the area…
~~A word about Denali Brewing in Talkeetna~~
Denali Brewery gives spent grain away to farmers.
They have an elevated chute that makes it easy to fill a truck or trailer.
Sassan wants us all to promote and spread the word to get even more farmers & ranchers & dairy people to come get this.
And yet, the brewery still has excess spent grain that no one takes. *
He wants more farmers to come get the waste (=spent grain).
He wants to decrease the brewery’s one dumpster load of it per week to almost none per week.
Want to loan up? Call Denali Brewery office directly to arrange pick up-- 907 733 2540.
The brewery is glad to set out buckets and barrels for people to shovel into their own containers.
For those wanting pick-up loads and dump truck quantities, the system is set up to make it extraordinarily easy to drive under the chute and quickly fill up with a load.
the chute at Denali Brewery, Talkeetna
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*They compost this excess in piles.
They turn it with a bobcat with bucket.
They can use MOST of this composted material to grow vegetables (in a huge high tunnel) that are harvested and served in their dining program. There’s still about a dumpster a week that goes to the landfill.
Sassan very much wants to give more spent grain away to farmers, and have less waste.