A glass of local beer on a terrace on Saint-Denis Street or in the soft lighting of your favourite bar always feels good. If you and your colleagues drink the equivalent of 10 litres of beer during your 5 to 7 at Parc Laurier, did you know that those litres will have generated 2 kg of spent grains?
If we multiply that, one hectolitre (100 litres) of beer gives 20 kg of spent grains. In 2018, we produced 1.94 billion hectolitres worldwide. We ended the year with 38.8 million spent grains.
That’s a lot, but what exactly are spent grains? It sounds a little strange, we know.
Spent grains simply refer to the solid cereal residues from brewing production. With all the craft beers that are created each year, spent grains are created in Quebec.
But let’s start at the beginning.
Where does the spent grain come from?
Grains, typically barley, are at the heart of beer making.
After the malting process, the cereals are crushed and brewed in hot water. Then, they are filtered to collect a sweet liquid, the wort. This liquid will slowly continue its journey towards your pint of amber beer thanks to the know-how of the artisans in your region.
On the other side of the filtration, we end up with malt residues These residues, the spent grains, represent 85% of the by-products of the beer industry. That’s huge.
Even if we use them for animal feed, many of these approximately 39 million spent grains generated annually end up in compost or in the trash.
Basically, we love beer, we love making beer, but we’re short on options when it comes to what comes next.
Even with all the good will in the world, recovering, preserving and transforming spent grain requires thought, a little effort and a touch of imagination.
If you’ve already looked at our ingredient lists, you might see where we’re going with this. Still Good cookies contain spent grain. In just a few steps, they go from grain residue to delicious cookies that help fight food waste.
How? We’ll get back to that soon, I promise.
Sources
BIÈRE CANADA. « Comment fabrique-t-on la bière », dans Bière 101, [En ligne], 2021. [https://www.beercanada.com/fr/biere-101/comment-la-biere-est-fabriquee].
BRASSERIE SAINT-CLAIR. « Les drêches, un sous-produit de brassage valorisé », dans Vie de la brasserie,[En ligne], 3 juillet 2020. [https://brasserie-saint-clair.com/les-dreches-un-sous-produit-de-brassage-valorise/].
CHETRARIU, A., et A. Dabija. « Brewer’s Spent Grains: Possibil
ities of Valorization, a Review », Applied Sciences, 13 août 2020. doi : 10.3390/app10165619.
SHEN, Yizhao., et collab. « Feed Nutritional Value of Brewers’ Spent Grain Residue Resulting from Protease Aided Protein Removal », Journal of Animal Science and Biotechnology, 18 septembre 2019. doi : 10.1186/s40104-019-0382-1.
