Yesterday Rebecca and I went over to ‘Nesbitt Farms’ (her dad’s house) to brew the first of our two wedding beers (Kleinen Keisel’s Kolsch). It went surprisingly well but for a hiccup with the cooling of the wort. Turns out snow insulates as expected. Because the hose lines were shut off we could not use our immersion chiller and ended up having to rely on circulating water around the carboy in our brew pot and even that required that the wort be cool enough that we could transfer to the carboy. All said and done we were brewing from 4:00 p to 1:00 a on Saturday.

Today Rebecca is making bread from the spent grains of the Kolsch. She’s been using this recipe for almost a year and a half now. The results vary widely by the type of grain used, but the recipe itself is great. We found it somewhere on the internet and have since lost the source. If you’re interested in trying it to, here’s the recipe we use:

Spent Grain Bread

Ingredients:

• 2 cups spent grain, milled or used whole
• 4 cups flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp active dry yeast
• 1 cup water
• 2 tbs honey
• 2 tbs vegetable oil

Directions:

1. Mill grains in food processor
2. Mix yeast, water, honey and oil and let sit for 5 minutes in a warm spot (~70 F)
3. In a large bowl, mix grains, flour and salt with hands–should feel like wet sand.
4. Make a well and pour in liquid ingredients and mix until completely hydrated but not sticky
5. Oil bowl, cover, and let rise until two times original volume is achieved (~90 minutes), punch down and transfer to 9 in. loaf pan.
6. Cover and let rise again 90 min to 2 hrs.
7. Pre-heat oven to 350 and bake 50 min. Internal temp should be between 190 and 200 F

Dog Treats

After Rebecca finishes her bread, I’ll be trying out a spent grain dog treat recipe I found here. I’d like to skip the flour, so I may try to replace or remove the flour the next time I make them. But for now I’ll be using the recipe as it is written. I’ll be using the last bag of grains from the Midwest Godfather Stout. The grains are dark and have a nice chocolate aroma without actually having any chocolate in them. Honestly, with a bit of sugar these might be a nice sort of biscuit for people too.

I’ll add pictures and and modifications I make to the recipe here when I’m finished.

Spent Grain Dog Treats Recipe

Ingredients:

• 4 cups spent grains
• 2 cups of flour
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup peanut butter

Directions:

Mix spent grains and flour (my grains were wet so this made a sort of paste), mix peanut butter and eggs into the dry-ish mixture.

Spread on oiled baking sheet, score into 1in x 1in squares using a pizza cutter or knife, and cook for 30 min on 350 F. Check the pan for doneness and, if done, drop the temperature to 170 and let them dehydrate (mine took 6 hours). If you’re in a hurry you could probably up the temperature and check them more frequently.