Sunday, July 20, 2014

Spent Grain Dog Biscuits

We've started brewing beer here at our house.  Along with our neighbors, we attended a beer brewing class and decided to take the plunge.  Our first brew, a Summer Ale .



One of our favorite breweries here in town serves pizza and the dough is made with the spent grain.  Spent grain is the leftover grains used in brewing their beer.  We had four cups from our first batch.  Curious if I could freeze the grains?  A google search showed, yes freezing is an option. That's a good thing,  because after brewing, trust me, you're too tired to bake.  I divided it into four one cup packages and put it in the freezer.

There's lots of recipes out there to use the spent grain.  I do want to make a loaf of bread but on this particular day, I was making a loaf of bread already.  (Which by the way, was somewhat of a fail, so no post about the bread).  I decided to give Spent Grain Dog Biscuits a try.

These were quick and easy to make.  Baking them takes the longest.  If you don't mind a softer dog biscuit, you don't have to bake them quite as long.  The original poster said, she wasn't responsible for the dogs who go crazy about the biscuits!!  I did a half recipe and it still made a lot of biscuits.  We shared them with some friends and Tim shared them with his coworkers.  Our dog Copper loves them and is thrilled about the new hobby of his owners.


 Spent Grain Dog Biscuits
Recipe courtesy of 17 Apart

Ingredients:
  • 4 cups spent grain
  • 2 cups whole wheat flour ( I used white flour)
  • 1 cup natural peanut butter
  • 2 eggs
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Meanwhile, combine and mix each of the ingredients thoroughly until a thick dough forms:

The mixture is very sticky at this stage, but added flour as needed to help roll into a ball. It will stick to your fingers but will harden up and become easier to work with the more you work with it

 Roll out the dough on a generously floured surface and cut out shapes with cookie cutters, lining them up on baking sheets. No greasing was necessary for the baking sheets.

If you don't have cookie cutters or want a more natural shape you can cut the dough with a knife, or use spoons to create drop cookies.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, then reduce temperature to 225 degrees and continue baking for 2 hours. Cooking them the additional time at the lower temperature will help ensure they dry completely, extending their shelf life.  The treats will keep about two weeks at room temperature, longer if frozen. 

4 comments:

  1. Sounds like a win-win! Both the humans and pups will be happy:@)

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  2. How fun! My dad used to make his own beer and root beer for us kids when I was much younger...wish I would have known about this use for the grains back in the good old days. I'll bet that pizza dough is amazing too.

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  3. So much healthier for mans best friend. Blessings, Catherine

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  4. Congratulations on your new home brewery! Those two frosty mugs look great.

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