[yaxley]

Hello not sure if i have posted this in the correct place please move if i have ..Does anybody use the spent grain from breweries to add to there compost heap have read a little about it some people feed livestock with it chickens cattle and goats sheep dont like it but read that people add to there compost suppose to speed up the composting process ..

[compostqueen]

Do you mean spent hops?  If so, yes they are good for the garden. I put mine in the compost bin but they do seem to take an age before breaking down. They smell lovely    I put some directly onto the plot but they've stuck around for ages

[Sparkyrog]

Do you mean Grains or hops as cattle love brewers grains but not hops ! 30 years ago I had the pleasure of milking a herd of cows that had got drunk on the residue after they were rained on in the night ,it was quite comical dealing with cows with a hangover 

[yaxley]

No not the hops it,s the crushed barley grains they smell quiet strong just wondered if anyone had used them before ...

[compostqueen]

Well I only know that the brewery near me leaves out the bags of spent hops for free collection by veg growers. The other residue left in the mash tun I think is used for pigs

You can use malted grains (barm) for bread making but it's a bit of an art apparently

[yaxley]

Yes read a post about them being used in bread making have a small brewery near me that has sacks of the spent grain the guy that runs it has people collect it for chicken feed and has a few that compost it just wondered how good it was ...

[compostqueen]

Well if it's grain then it will sprout so you might unwittingly grow a crop of oats and barley 

If you did get some maybe you could rot it down separately rather than mix it in with everything else.  Make sure your bin is in full sun to ensure it gets hot enough.  You'll get better composting action in summer when there's plenty of sunshine to get things going.  Even on a sunny day in winter the bins will heat up well so you do see some decomposition but probably not enough to deal with those grain seeds. They will be softer though having gone through the brewing process so part of the break down will have begun though

[yaxley]

Well had six 25 kg sacks of it looks like squashed barley that has just sprouted will try different methods of composting on it,s own and with other material to see what works best and see what it does to the soil when added eventually ....

[Eblana]

It depends on the process that they have been put through.  Large scale modern breweries grind the grain into a flour and then boil them to get the starch out which means it is highly unlikely that they will sprout but these are usually sold as cattle feed.  Smaller breweries often just crack the husk on the grain to get at the starches inside and these can often further sprout if used in composting etc.  It sounds like you have the latter.

At one stage a company here in Ireland was adding the spent grains from our famous brew to a peat based compost and selling it commercially, when I asked about this I was told that these were dark coloured grains which had been roasted as well as brewed but I don't think they added any nutrient value to the compost and were only being added for bulk and to cut down on the amount of peat based product being used.

[davejg]

Having made beer from grain and hops there is no chance the grain will sprout. The malting process brings it to the point of sprouting then dried, when it is used in the beer it is boiled for a minimum of 30 mins to extract all the sugars. What is left could never grow again but would be an awesome addition to compost but an even better worm food.

[yaxley]

Hello think i have the latter have been on yahoo and asked about composting spent grain and read some good reports on there so i will have to wait and see my dog likes the taste of it think she thought it was mueseli ..

[compostqueen]

   It will be a fine addition to your compost, free too so nowt to lose    The hops smell gorgeous too, especially when you've just lifted the lid 

[Eblana]

Hello think i have the latter have been on yahoo and asked about composting spent grain and read some good reports on there so i will have to wait and see my dog likes the taste of it think she thought it was mueseli ..

Just be careful there are no hops mixed in with the spent grains as hops can be fatal to dogs.

[yaxley]

Thankyou eblana for pointing that out never found any hops in it think the grain comes to me before the hops are added and she only gets a handful now and then she,s more into her veg carros and raw brussels which she picks off the stalks ...