Audience: The individual(s) responsible for transportation / drying of spent grains (typically transforming food processor)
Timeframe: To ensure the spent grain doesn’t go sour (affecting the acidity causing the dough not to rise properly), we recommend that the drying process takes place within 2 hours from grain out.
Summary: Ensure it cools to room temperature and then freeze it.
Typically the spent grains are hot and we need to let it cool before we can pack it for upcycling.
This is a key component as the remaining heat continues to cook the spent grains if we let it remain in the container.
Typically the brewmaster puts the grains into a 5 Gallon pail which is collected within hours of grain out and the Bakery performs the cooling & freezing stage below. However, if you don’t have access to baking trays, experiment with filling a pail with 25-50% spent grains allowing the heat to dissipate naturally and (food) safely in a room with good air flow.
This step should be initiated within hours of spent grains removal / as soon as the grains can touched (warm to touch, not hot)
Cooling to room temperature can take a few hours, so feel free to leave it overnight on the rack but preference is to do this same day as the brew run so you can store it in freezer by end of day
Once at room temperature, use gloves to handle the spent grain and transfer to provide containers / plastic bags
Store in freezer
We recommend that you pre-portion out into bags based on what you require on a daily basis so you can defrost only what you need.