Spent Brewery Grains: A New Free Resource For Our Compost
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- Опубликовано: 15 окт 2024
- We discovered a new free local resource for our garden - spent brewery grains. Despite a good effort, we ran a little short on our production of homemade compost this year. To make sure we have enough next year, we'll continue to produce compost outdoors through the winter, and the spent brewery grains from a local brewery will help make this possible. After just 24 hours, the spent grains and wood chips shown in this video heated up to 140 F (60 C).
OYR is all about growing a lot of food on a little land using sustainable organic methods, while keeping costs and labor at a minimum. Emphasis is placed on improving soil quality with compost, mulch, and compost tea. No store-bought fertilizers, soil amendments, pesticides, compost activators, etc. are used.
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I'm pleased to see what looks like gloves that have worn out fingertips, yet you still see and use the value they have
Thanks! Yes, we should have more than enough compost next year. This morning I checked the temp on the bin featured in the video and it was already up to 140 F (60 C). So far, I'm very happy with how it's going. Next I need to see how the red wigglers like the spent grains.
Yes, it is a bit of a misnomer. A bit of local history makes their name choice more understandable. Our town was at the forefront of the temperance movement in the US and remained dry until fairly recently. That history inspired the ironic name. Thanks for watching and commenting!
My husband gives his spent brewing grains to a friend pig farmer. When she can't pick them up I get them. Just spread a thin layer on top of a new bed. Will cover with some leaves and just leave it for a while. Some excess liquid was poured over the bed as well. I am sure the microbes will love that. When I add them to my composter I turn them in with my handy corkscrew aerator. 🙂
That's great Nicole! One thing I found out quickly is that the grains will heat up a compost pile fast. The pile is already up to 150 F, so it seems like the grains are a great ingredient for thermophilic compost.
Hi, I know this is an old video but with all the fertilizer shortages that are predicted, I wondered how this worked out and if you have any updates? Thank you!
This
Yeah, I picked up an extra bucket of grains for the red wigglers. Once it cools, I'll see how they like it.
Great video. I agree spent grains are a great idea for composting. I am a homebrewer so this would be easy for me to get into. Just to share what I know, the grain you picked up was not warm from bacterial breakdown, but was likely used for a batch of beer within the past 24-48 hours. To mash, the grains are kept in very warm water (150-160F) for an hour then the sweet liquid that will become beer is separated from the spent grains. The grains take days or longer to cool off depending on the mass. They are likely nearly sterile after mashing.
Thanks Brian. I think that you are right that the initial heat is from the brewing process, but I found that the grains heat up compost like nothing I've seen before. After adding spent grains to one pile, the temp of the pile shot up to 160 F and stayed there for about a week. It stayed above 140 F for a number of weeks. I've never seen anything like it. I also added grains to a pile in the fall, and the pile stayed hot until early January despite record cold temps here in Chicago.
Spent grain prise in India average 3/- it's for using cattle feed
I tried this two times as my hubby makes home brew. First time was too wet, grew lots of weird insects. Second time, I dried it out on tarps and it was lots better, but drew flies. I will give it another go, as I doubled my garden and need the compost. Wil re-watch this a couple of times to see what I'm doing wrong. Thanks!!!
Sadly missing new videos! But I’m grateful for you teaching me how I can continue gardening through the winter and all the composting ideas for a great start for in the spring 🥰
I brew and I add my spent grains to the compost. I find that it's best to mix them thoroughly with a brown (rather than layering), as even the smallest amount will clump up.
Thanks Chuck. It really gets the compost pile cooking fast - almost up to 150 F already.
Hi David. Thanks for your kind words. Yes, the music on the video is written and played by me. I'm glad you like it!
Yeah, I poked some holes in the pile with rebar today to get more oxygen in. A few days at around 150 F is fine. Longer than that, or hotter than that could be a problem.
Very well done video! I will look for a brewery near us to score some of this.
Thanks
Chuck
Thanks Elyse! The grains really get the compost cooking. It's approaching 150 F (65.6 C) already. Why not send them out in the winter? That's when the compost could use it the most!
Been doing this for years and years. Its free, relatively hassle free and easy to integrate. Just dump out, rake it a bit out, and turn it in. Or run a tiller, and then cover with existing already composted material to 'lock it in'. Or finally just dig a hole in the fall or spring on a resting yard, and bury it. 3-6 months later it will be gone. Layering is OK, but turning is critical due to the goo/layering nature of grains. It almost becomes a cake if you don't turn or have worms added after things cool down, or just turn it. If not, 6-12 months can be considered normal decomposition. And I have never had inhibition of sprouting, on a variety of 10-12 crop types. Great video, thanks!
Thanks! I'm glad you've had success with them too!
Thanks for sharing! Interesting read.
Thanks Mr. B!
Thanks Paula!
If you need green material in winter for your compost, any grocery store will have some. Everyday there are guys in the produce department removing the outside leaves from lettuce and cabbage, trimming stuff etc. They throw out boxes of material every day.
That's a great idea, Peggy! Thanks!
There is an organic grochery store near my garden. They leave over ripe fruit and vegetables, old leaves in bags in front of their shop for some time before the garbage truck arrives. I simply take them to my compost pile nearby. I do have troubles in finding wood chips and mulch though...well, perfection doesn't exist. :)
Thanks! Now you have another use for your spent grains from your homemade beer!
Thank you for this video and information! I looked up where my local municipal wood chip pile is and it is LITERALLY the same intersection I live on (we live out in the county). I had no idea that free resource was less then two blocks from my backyard. THANK YOU SO VERY VERY MUCH! :-D
-22 F? Wow that is cold. How often does it get that cold? We usually have some temps below 0 during the winter, but haven't since 2011.
So smart Patric,. I think there is a brewery on my way home! Thanks for sharing your information with us. I am learning alot.
If you need greens, go to Tractor Supply and get a bag of horse feed. They have alfalfa pellets cheap and the ingredients are just alfalfa and molasses. (they have two kinds, so get the one with just the two ingredients) I live in Arizona and grass clippings are almost non existent. After adding the pellets and watering, the pile heated up to 130 in a short time. You also might think about adding urine. It's high in nitrogen.
I made a one cubic metre (bigger than a yard) springtime heap of oak leaves (thought it would be an easy way to break them down) and spent grains... it want anaerobic and STUNK... hit 170ºF in a couple of days... way too hot, so I pulled the heap down, but still had to cover it with a tarp to try contain the stench - didn’t help much. Bad experience (is that possible?) At least I learned something. At the very least, the oak leaves should have been shredded to prevent the slimy compaction.
We usually get cold spells in January through February. We also had a few milder winters lately but that not common for us. Whit the wind factor it can be even colder, we are built strong ;)
awesome video's, I am about to get into all grain brewing and my first thoughts are to produce as little waste as possible. I'm looking to adopt your method of cooling the grains before adding to a compost pile. The woodchips are brilliant to keep animals, rodents, and bugs away. My question is can I put a lid on a 5 gallon bucket while letting the grains cool and decompose a bit or will they need oxygen from the top? Can I take the lid off sporadically for oxygen? As I will have holes in the bottom draining excess moister, the sugars will attract life also. In my current living space I need as little smell and flies as possible. Thoughts? THANKS!
Thanks nstuartv ! I only cool mine off when feeding them to my composting worms. When adding them into the compost pile, I just keep them near the center of the pile and cover them thoroughly.
If you want to cool them, I'd recommend having them in an environment where they get a good amount of oxygen - just to keep the anaerobic bacteria from taking over. A lid on the top might not allow enough oxygen in.
I'd just add them directly to the compost and make sure to add lots of brown compost ingredients to thoroughly cover them. Flies and mice really like the grains.
Excellent ideas!
Thanks!
Great info Patrick.
Do you have a sense for how much a 5-gallon bucket full of spent grains weighs? I'm trying to figure out how much I might need to balance out the C/N ratio in my compost, and weight is a lot more accurate than volume.
Ok thats composting it,but could I add freshly brewed spent barley directly in to my container plants?
Grains smell great! No need to hide that smell ;)
Hi Ryan. Fresh grains smell great, but brewery waste smells pretty awful after it starts decomposing.
Great idea!!
If you have a lot of wineries around you like I do you can also get spent grape skins, or from cider mills spent apples. Grapes smell the worst out of the three I think. I used to watch deer come in every morning and get drunk on fermenting grape skins when i worked next to a winery.
Great free resource!
I have encountered some information about the use of coffee chaff in gardens online, but have not seen anything about its use in composting. Have you heard about people using coffee chaff in composting? I live near a coffee roaster that gives me a bunch of chaff and grounds each week.
Hi Jonathan! You can definitely use coffee mulch as mulch and add it to compost. I would.
I talked to a local microbrewer who said he has experimented with composting spent grain and according to him, one of the problems is that they can become highly acidic, especially after they have gone sour. Have you heard anything about that problem? Your videos always do such a great job of evaluating the available science and evidence on these topics.
Hi Ian! The pH of finished compost is usually close to neutral, even when acidic inputs are used. I wouldn't be concerned about the pH of grains. I added a few dozen 5 gallon buckets to my compost the year I made this video, and the compost was excellent.
@Ian Young Make sure you are balancing them out with roughly equal weight carbon like dry leaves or clean cardboard and it will be fine
Hi Patrick, I am using Plastic storage bins(Husky, the sturdy one) in my garden to collect all my kitchen scrap and decompose in it. There might be direct sunlight falling on the bin for few hours.
I am also using the black container, that we get when you purchase a plant/tree, as worm tower in my garden bed.
My question is, can plastic be used in the above methods in edible gardening? Thanks.
Yes, we use food grade plastic containers and plastic grow bags.
It depends on the type of plastic and whether it will leach or not. Also certain types of plastic will get very brittle and can make a huge mess when it starts to crumble under too much UV light.
The wigglers will love it once it`s cooled a little.
I am enjoying your videos. Question: what plants do not like beer? I want to use it as I would use wood chips in the hopes they would break down faster than chips. I may use some as covering/mulch but dont want to use them near plants that arnt beer friendly.
Thanks, ***** ! Spent brewery grains are great for adding to compost, but I wouldn't apply them directly to the garden. One reason is that mice/rats love the spent grains and would be all over your garden. If you add them to compost, make sure to thoroughly bury them with brown ingredients like wood chips or leaves so that mice and rats won't be attracted to your compost pile. I hope this helps!
OneYardRevolution | Frugal & Sustainable Organic Gardening Ohhhhh, that helps. I didnt consider mice. You might have prevented a disaster, thanks.
***** You're welcome!
Did you find out for sure if the grains made the compost allelopathic? I would be very interested in your answer, please. Even though your friend uses his for starting seeds, did you remain shy of this? Many thanks for your time.
Kevin Hannan Hi Kevin. We had amazing results last year growing in compost made from brewery grains (among other things). It definitely wasn't allelopathic. We didn't start seeds in it though. Thanks for watching!
I have a brewery near me. Might be worth a check.
Yeah, the grains really helped me increase my compost production. If you try them, just make sure to thoroughly cover them with leaves, wood chips, or shredded paper. They really attract the pests. Thanks for watching and commenting.
"Temperance" beer co. bit of a misnomer LOL. Looks like a good source of material to compost.
Great stuff. It`s nice to see how much free stuff you can pick up. Here, I would be charged for taking these kinds of things. Local tree surgeons want money from me for taking their shredded leaves, branches etc. You`ll be over-run with compost next spring. :)
Hey, thanks for for thoughts and passion for gardening. I didn't know Wills website until now. Cool. Hope it all works well for you this winter. Finally, the music s excellent, I mean really really good. Is the guitar yours? Cheers David
You have such a wonderful organic garden,and you take care of it extremely well.
I do have a question--Are you concerned at all about using spent brewery grains that are probably from GMO grains? I too am trying to use free sources for compost.I'm starting a new organic garden over grass this fall. I should say I'm preparing a plot for an organic garden in the spring! Right now I've sheet composted with cardboard, grass clippings.coffee grounds(thanks), compost, and wood chips.
Next spring I want to start a Back to Eden style garden but my soil is rock hard now. Wish me luck!
Hi Julia. Sheet composting is a great way to start a garden and turn rock hard dirt into soft crumbly soil. Wood chips will help a lot too over time.
My understanding is that corn is the only GMO ingredient sometimes found in beer. Usually it is in the form of corn syrup. Most brewers, especially micro-brewers, don't use corn syrup as their sugar source, and if they do, most of it ends up in the liquid and not the spent grains. So, I feel okay about using them in moderation when I don't have enough other nitrogenous ingredients available.
Best wishes with your new garden.
I get that hot compost can kill pathogens, but what if the tree mulch has undesirable wood that leeches chemicals that kill other plants?
Can you start a compost at freezing temperatures? Im guessing you'd have to start it inside until it gets hot enough to put outside...
You can start hot compost piles outside when it's cold, but it's much more difficult.
Put one at the side of your greenhouse over fall/winter.
Why does Charbucks stop giving out their used coffee grounds over the winter?
Just in case your brewery visits get you in contact with used hops as an ingredient, note that they are poisonous for dogs, especially Greyhounds.
+Roger Crier Thanks for letting me know.
wat r used hops??
To me, composting brewer's grains is a lot like adding steak to your compost pile as a nitrogen source. It will work, but that might not be the best use of the steak! We prefer to feed this nutritious feed to animals, and then use their compost for the garden .
Many animals love brewer's grain, and the sugars and starches have essentially all been converted into alchohol by microbial fermentation, so they won't tend to upset the rumen microbes of hervivores, like cattle or horses. Any feed change or addition should be done gradually, to allow the gut microbes to adjust. If the manure becomes loose, that usually indicates a ration too high in protein, so more carbonaceous material, aka nigher energy feed substances, should be added to the ration, or the amount of brewer's grain should be reduced.
These grains were diverted from the landfill to my compost, which makes a lot of sense to me.
Interesting video. Thanks for sharing the information. Subbed ya.
There is a local Brewery near me that have grains that have not been lautered out. Have you had any experience with this form of spent grains?
Hi Ray! I'm not sure. The grains I collected were from a wide variety of beers, but I'm not very familiar with the brewing process.
Homebrewers need to watch this
why don't the coffee shops have grounds through the winter?
150 F!!! Very impressive. At -22 F in the winter I'm afraid they could get frostbite Hahaha!
Great stuff! I'll have to look for a local brewery. I always send my husband and male guests to pee in the compost, well in summer at least, it would be quite cruel to ask of them in winter LOL
straw or whole branches in layera add air
Why don't you mix the spent grains and the wood chips together to make a the mixture as homogeneous as possible? That way, there should not be any smell and the mixture will compost faster. I once heard in a TED talk about composting that if you think layering the materials is the most efficient way (as opposed to mixing them), you must have failed physics :P
+Rick Blaylock Keep in mind that hot composting methods involve turning piles, which thoroughly mixes ingredients together.
Right, so my point is why not mix the components on the initial build up of the pile?
+Rick Blaylock I think both approaches work fine. A lot of mixing takes place even when using the layered approach, especially when putting something like coffee grounds or spent grains over top of coarse wood chips or branches. I'd be curious to learn if there's any research showing that either approach results in a faster composting process.
With ingredients that smell (e.g., spent brewery grains, fish waste), the best method of limiting the smell is to bury them rather than mix them (or mix them AND bury them).
I really like your voiceovers - but I'm curious about the process that goes into making one of these videos. Could you do a video on how you do videos? :-)
Thanks, Scott! That's a very interesting idea. I'll keep it in mind for videos during the "off-season" (this winter). Thanks!
If the temp goes over 160 the pile will go anaerobic. At 150 you need to get more oxygen into the pile asap.
I've sussed out where you are after googling "The Temperance Beer company. I'll stop by next time I'm en route to Portland and have a word with your local Starbucks and get them to explain why they are so unenthusiastic to provide you with coffee grounds through the Winter! Do you ask your neighbours for lawn clippings and garden waste during the Summer months?
+Michael Ball Fortunately, I eventually found a local organic coffee shop that is always very helpful. Yes, we've collected grass clippings and leaves from neighbors for years.
the coffee grounds are hard to get.
You're right. It can be hard to find a shop that gives used grounds. After asking a number of shops, I was fortunate to find a couple shops that would save their grounds for me.
Mix with rice hulls...
Thanks Chris. If I were single, there'd be some urine in the compost, but Karen is not fond of the idea.
Where did you get your compost bin?
We have 2 Geobins, which we got from Amazon: amzn.to/2nWJgyz
The grain will most likely still be hot from the brewing process
0:57 why dont starbucks let you have the coffee grounds in winter?
I guess they don't think anybody is gardening at that time of year in our area.
Why does Starbucks not provide coffee grounds in the winter?
it's used for feed the pigs to hahaha. it's a nice stuff I think
Very true. Pigs love it!
They would get frostbite on their "bits" LOL! Not funny.. but it is really. : > P
Dam ruined it with newspaper and its ink
Aren't drunk little red rigglers wot populated the world lol
LOL