|
1
|
cup
|
butter
|
|
1 3/4
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cups
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all-purpose flour
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|
1/2
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cup
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spent grain - wet
|
|
1
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tsp
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salt
|
|
1
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tsp
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baking soda
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1/4
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cup
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sugar
|
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1 1/4
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cup
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brown sugar (dark, because I had it on hand)
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|
1
|
|
egg
|
|
1
|
|
egg yolk
|
|
2
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Tbsp
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milk
|
|
1 1/2
|
tsp
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vanilla
|
|
2
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cups
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semi-sweet chocolate chips
|
Geoff & I brewed our 3rd beer this past Monday, our first 2 came out pretty tasty and we were really impressed with ourselves. Raise Your Glasses Brewing's (our brewery cuz we both wear glasses and because beer glasses etc. pun junk) first brew was El Hefe, a basic hefeweizen that we had ready in time for our crawfish boil last year, which worked out pretty perfectly. Then we went a little crazier and made a double IPA, greatly named JedIPA. This 3rd one we're anxiously waiting on, for many reasons, is our coffee porter which we're calling Frothy Coffee Soup. (This post is not about the beer so I will explain the name in the post about our brewing process, or the process the way I see it through my crazy eyes, coming soon to an internet machine screen near you.)
This post is about the spent grain from our brew and what edible options I found and made with it.
Spent grain, y'all.
I did a lot of googling to find out what people did with their spent grain, lots of people seem to make dog treats with it. We don't have a dog, so I made human treats! Cookies & pancakes. Some people dry the grains and some people turn them into flour, I did neither, but something for me to consider in the future. Other important things I learned that you should remember. The spent grain should be refrigerated or even frozen if you're not going to use it right away. I refrigerated it and used it about 12 hours after we brewed. We still had tons, I should really look into using it as compost and things of that nature, there is just so much waste otherwise. Some of the tips I got about drying and grinding I read here: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/spent-grain-preservation-grain-drying-154122/ Anyway, the decision to make cookies was easy, because cookies. I found a lot of similar recipes when searching, all involving peanut butter, I have no problem with peanut butter except that when I was at the store I forgot to buy some. Being too lazy to go back to the store, I searched for a recipe that did not involve peanut butter. I did this on my phone, this is only important because the mistake I made I would like to blame on the fact that I was reading on a tiny screen, but it's probably more that I wasn't paying close enough attention.
I found this recipe: http://mylifeoncraft.com/?p=892 (Feel free to open this recipe and ignore the rest of my post and pretend you never had to read me ramble in the first place.)
If you're still here, yay! Let's get on with my accidental version of the above recipe, which will be very similar to the link above until my flub. (Making sure credit is given where credit is due.)
Recipe:
Preheat oven to 375 F.
I melted the butter over a low heat. While that was happening I sifted the flour, salt, & baking soda, ignoring the sentence where it said "set aside."
I now creamed together the butter and the flour. Now if you know me at all, I bake a lot. Like once a week a lot. And never in my life have I ever creamed anything together but butter/shortening/etc. and sugar, I should've realized this was wrong, but kept going.
I then added the egg & the yolk, the milk, and the vanilla. Mixing it nicely until it was combined. THEN I read the step "add the flour in small batches." UM! Panic mode!
Panic mode is brought to you by the letter B. As in breathe.
I proceed to dump the sugars in instead because at this point I don't want to waste the ingredients I've already used. Again, since I bake quite a bit, I knew the batter (click link for pictures of the way cookie consistency should look) looked off.
After I dump the sugars in and mix them some I realize when the recipe said "flour" it also meant the spent grain (the recipe teaches you how to make a spent grain flour)... the peanut butter recipes I had found used wet grain so I was ridiculously assuming that this recipe would also call for the wet grain. Determined to make these work I put the spent grain in while the batter still looked off. Then I added more all-purpose flour to the mix until the consistency looked right. Then mixed in the chocolate chips.
I took a deep breath and used my cookie scoop to put them on an ungreased cookie sheet (no clue why I made the decision for ungreased, but it worked out pretty well, taking them off when they were still slightly warm and moving them to a cooling rack). Then baked for 10 minutes. (You may need more or less time depending on your oven and preferences of cookie consistency.)
When the cookies were done they looked wonderful, they were some of the most evenly cooked and shaped cookies I had ever made. Was it a miracle? I waited til the cooled a little and ate one and they tasted great too! The grain makes it feel healthy, the chocolate gives it some sweetness, and the cookies themselves have a brownie-esque consistency. I'd love to say this recipe would work for everyone all the time, but I have no clue because I think I may have cheated the system.
I think they're pretty.
As usual this post is extremely wordy and for making it this far with me, I thank you.
For a simpler recipe I also made spent grain pancakes, so we could have breakfast for dinner! I used this recipe: http://519kitchen.blogspot.com/2012/02/spent-grain-pancakes.html but used 3/4 cups of spent grain instead of a full cup. They look dense, but were actually pretty fluffy to the touch and taste (especially with some butter and syrup!).
Look at that grain!
What the spent grain consisted of:
Briess Cara-Pils Malt
Briess Victory (Biscuit) Malt
Muntons Chocolate Malt (one of the reasons for the darker color of cookie compared to the ones from the linked recipe.)
Muntons Roasted Barley (the other reason for the darker color.)
Weyerman CaraAmber Biscuit Malt
One more picture for good measure. Where's a milk stout when you need it?
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