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Captain_Cap
Stranger danger


Registered: 12/29/19
Posts: 26
Last seen: 2 years, 2 months
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Spent Brewers Grain Experiment
#26516585 - 03/04/20 02:00 PM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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Alright y’all, I’ve been brewing for about two years now, and was curious if I could use my spent brewing grain (malted barley) to grow mycelium. Actually, there are a lot of similar supplies and procedures for “brewing” and mushroom cultivation.
I took spent grain approximately 12 hrs after it was “mashed” (set in 152*F water for an hour to convert and extract sugars. Gypsum and calcium chloride were added to brewing water, ph is around 3.5 before grains were added.)
-Jared up the grain that was still pretty saturated, probably a little wetter than field capacity on my coir. -PC for 75mins @15psi -Noc’d with LC (diluted “wort” I also use to propagate my brewing yeast @1.010 specific gravity)
It’s been over a month and this is the SSSLLOOOOWWW progress, but the mycelium looks strong?
(Sorry for the sideways orientation 😅)

So my conclusion is that this is way too slow to use realistically. And this is maybe 5% of the total spent grain after a single brew day. I wonder though, if I did not “sparge” (flush our remaining sugars with fresh water in the mash) and only collected the first runnings of the mash, maybe there would be more sugars left behind? Or if I mashed at a higher temperature, I would create less fermentables wort, but have more complex sugars left behind for the mycelium?? I’m not too knowledgeable about the science behind sugars needed for mycelium and everything, what do y’all think?
I could have added coffee? Or Verm? It’s pretty tight in there so maybe some room for the mycelium to maneuver would be beneficial?
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bodhisatta 
Smurf real estate agent


Registered: 04/30/13
Posts: 61,889
Loc: Milky way
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Re: Spent Brewers Grain Experiment [Re: Captain_Cap] 3
#26516695 - 03/04/20 03:15 PM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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Spent grain is better for feeding pigs. Trying to get moisture content right sucks and then the consistency of it as spawn sucks too. I dealt with literal tons of spent grain, every day for years. And though its a free commodity it was appealing as an idea until it was tried, and quickly realized that buying grains specifically to use for spawn was so well worth it.
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AndyHinton


Registered: 12/05/16
Posts: 434
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Re: Spent Brewers Grain Experiment [Re: bodhisatta]
#26521335 - 03/06/20 09:03 PM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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I agree with bodhisatta. A mushroom farmer told me of his failed experiments and I also have a documented failure. The problem with beer grains: moisture is so concentrated in them that you would have to use a thimbleful per cake, and the whole point is to recycle lots of it.
Composting them with spent cakes is probably the best way to go. If I were to use any brewing by-product in mushroom cultivation, it would be to freeze ice cube trays of yeast sludge and use one cube per batch of fruiting substrate.
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Edited by AndyHinton (03/06/20 09:07 PM)
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