Reusing spent grain

[Kyle]

There is a guy on Kijiji looking for spent grain as chicken feed... its better than going in the garbage, lets help him out.

http://fredericton.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and- ... Z260780544

[Hawoh]

I compost my spent grain...  and it usually doesn't last more than a couple hours before the deer and range of other creatures have it all chowed down.

If I didn't have a composting option, I would agree that is a far better option than sending it in the trash.

[Richard]

Just a thought -- isn't damp spent grain going to mould pretty fast? I suspect mouldy grain isn't going to do much good for this guy's animals.

i guess a trash can outside could be used to store it, until the hotter months.

[Hawoh]

It goes sour real fast. If you've ever had any hang around on a summer day, it only takes a few hours for the stuff to start getting really rancid.

As far as food value for farm animals. I think it's pretty good? But that's just my hunch. If I understand, some breweries ship their spent grains to farms for feed, and their grain would have been utilized far more than homebrew grains.

[Shawn]

I left some spent grain in my garage last summer right before I went away for 4-5 days. A neighbor, who was checking in on my cats, was supposed to take it for his compost, but forgot.

It took about 3 months for the vomit smell to fade from the garage.

[Kyle]

Yeah, the "I'll clean out the mash tun tomorrow" is something you only do once. It was unbelievable how bad that smelled. Since its winter, I've been keeping it frozen outside, but this is clearly not an activity that can occur in the summer in an apartment.

[Richard]

someone should message the guy to see if he's ever actually used damp, spent grain in bulk before.

(dibs not it)

I'm curious as to how the breweries who ship their spent grain to farms actually do it... I'm guessing either very local + large farms (hence able to consume it all nearly immediately), or they either pasteurise or air-dry it first (unlikely due to cost, imho).

[Kyle]

Well, he was looking for barley mash and he said he was interested in trub as well, so I think he knows what he is getting into vis a vis wet grain. And yes, I warned him of the stench potential.

[Gil Breau]

Living day in and day out with chicken crap....I;m sure a little wet grain would be a welcome stench.