# Spent brewers grains



## dragonlair (Mar 24, 2009)

Recently one of the local brewery's advertised that they are giving away their spent grains. Is that anything that can be used for the goats in addition to their regular diet?


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## Aja-Sammati (Oct 26, 2007)

There is a goat dairy here in CA that uses all spent brewer's grains and pasture, but I have never contacted them to ask how they manage it...


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## Bernice (Apr 2, 2009)

We used it to feed our cows when we had our cow dairy. We lived in western NY near the Canadian border and back in the day the Canadian breweries used to bring semi loads down. It helped with milk production. I wanted to try feeding it about 10 yrs ago to our goats but there isn't source here in VA.


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

Will you be picking it up wet or dry? If wet the drawback is storage as well as transport as it is mostly water but can increase milk production because of the water content but- you must use it rapidly or it will mold or you must dry it thoroughly. If it is dry it is great additive in measured amts. Our feed mill uses it widely in their formulas.

Marion will know about this since she has developed plans for dairy management.
Hopefully she will chime in or if not maybe PM her- she is Trysta on here.

Lee


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## dragonlair (Mar 24, 2009)

I haven't checked into it other than seeing the ad. If I can find it again I will respond and see what form it's in.

Thank you!


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

My husband homebrews sometimes, and so I have given mine a little bit. Mine haven't liked it all that much because it is wet (although they like beer, which is obviously wet-explain that one!). I learned in my nutrition class that too much ddg (dried distiller's grain) in the diet can lead to polio-don't remember the exact mechanism. So, just like most things, in moderation, it is probably just fine.


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## Trysta (Apr 5, 2011)

Wet brewers grain is great stuff. We fed it to our cows (mixed into the Total Mixed Ration), because they loved the taste and it just helped in their general health and we believed their reproduction, too. As wet as it is, it also helped on hot days when the cows just didn't like to eat a pile of dry stuff! I am assuming you are talking about wet brewers grain, since the breweries themselves do not dry their 'waste' product. 

The big problem with wet brew is, that it's only good feed if, and only if, you can store it well and feed it fast enough. We fed it in TX, made a little concrete pit for it (after we messed with plastic in between some round bales a bit: VERY messy), and made sure we fed a load per week. That's the kicker: you really can't keep it since it is so wet. It goes bad fast and then has a very strong smell to it, which may very well stick in your goat milk (don't know, but just thinking it could). That's why I really wonder if it will work for the goats, unless you can pick up small amounts at a time and keep it in a bag somehow (I know this can be done, seen it with silage and wet brewers grain at small Amish farms). Still, it will have to be mixed in a ration, because by itself it won't be great feed and since the goats have less space in their rumen, they'd have a harder time picking up enough nutrition if their total ration contains too much water and not enough DM. Personally I would love to try it with my goats, but there's no plant here, and even though the wet brewers grain is cheap (or free in your case), transportation costs make it expensive here!


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## Trysta (Apr 5, 2011)

Oh, and DDG (dried distillers grain) and wet brewers grain are TOTALLY different products, can't compare the two.


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

Ohhh, can you explain the difference Marion?


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## dragonlair (Mar 24, 2009)

Being so cold most of the year, it may keep better up here than down there if it's wet. I can't find the ad now. sigh.


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## Trysta (Apr 5, 2011)

The biggest difference is the percentage of Dry Matter (DM). Wet Brewers Grain runs around 17-20 %DM (so 80-83% moisture!), while DDG usually runs a %DM of 85-88% (12-15% moisture). In that DM protein content of these two products is probably alike, fiber bit higher in Wet Brew (again calculated in the DM). Push comes to shove, a goat will have to eat a WHOLE lot of Wet Brew volume to get the same nutrition. Let's say DDG has 30% protein in the DM and Wet Brew 33%. Just for the example let's mix the product with oats, which runs about 11% protein in the DM, and has about 90%DM. 

What do we feed our milking does (I know everyone does it different) but let's say we give her 4 lbs of a 12% protein grain mix? So I am feeding about 218 grams of protein. Now, with DDG and oats, I'd have to mix about 2 lbs of oats with 1 lbs of DDG to get (454x0.85x0.30)+(908x0.90x0.11)=115.77+89.89=205 grams of protein. Close enough to that 218 for this calculation. lets add a small handful of DDG and my doe now gets the same amount of protein as with the 4 lbs of 12% grain and only has to eat a little over 3 lbs of feed. She can do that! With wet brew, we're looking at (908x0.90x0.11)+(1755x0.20x0.33)=89.89+115.83=206 grams of protein. Nice right? Only......now my doe has to eat 5.86 pounds of product to get to these same nutrients. :eek That's almost twice as much, and she may not be able to eat that much!


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

Okay, so you are saying that DDG is just wet brewer's grain that has been dried, right? I understand the moisture content thing...I've learned to always do calculations on a dry matter basis, and I will even do it when looking at dog food, and sometimes even human food.


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## Trysta (Apr 5, 2011)

No, there are some other differences. DDG comes from Distilleries (Liquor), slightly different process there and possibly a different original grain? Not sure about that. Wet Brewers grain comes from beer breweries. But as long as you stick to looking at nutrienbts in DM you're fine. Someone here posted something about a relationship between DDG and polio, I have never heard of that, but maybe that person can tell us more about the research that produced that info? I do not have experience with feeding DDG.


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

Ha, well, that was me, and all I can say, is that is what I was told in my nutrition class. It was a relationship between DDG and polio in cattle. It was in reference to feeding the finishing cattle, when they are on a higher portion of grain...I think. I am pretty sure that a high amount of grain can cause polio in itself, but that DDG was even more likely to. I will try to search and find studies involving this.


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/ansci/beef/as1242w.htm

Okay, here is one reference to the polio thing. The thing that causes polio seems to be high sulfur levels in DDG..which interferes with thiamine, and also copper. Most sites are saying the main source of DDG is byproducts of the ethanol industry, and most of the time corn is used in ethanol manufacturing. So, DDG usually comes from corn, and Wet Brewers Grain will probably mostly come from barley, and sometimes wheat.


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## LLB101 (Sep 29, 2009)

I feed homebrewer's waste spent barley regularly, when I'm feeding any grain at all. My neighborly homebrewers LOVE that they don't have to deal with the slimy, and soon stinky, mess. Its a popular hobby around here, and we have a lot of micro breweries and brew pubs too that various farmers get the waste spent barley from. I just don't have enough goats to use their volume. 

:LOL I need more goats!

Depending on the weather, remember I'm in Seattle so I have a lot more leeway than those of you in hot places, anything they won't eat in 2-3 days in our hottest summer days 70's& 80's but cools off to 50's at night. The excess gets bagged in gallon ziplocks and frozen flat so they stack nicely in the freezer. I use the frozen bags as "ice" to cool the jars of fresh milk in my ice chest, and then the bags are thawed by the next morning to be fed. Its quite a good system if I do say so :biggrin

In the majority of the year, its not warm here, so it can be out longer and not be an issue. Heck, the northern half the country could leave it out in winter and it would be frozen, lol.

Mine also eat a lot of apple cider pressing leftover pomace. That has a lot of variability in it as far as how much juice and sugar is left in it, so I advise caution if you try it, lgive them a little at first, look for clumpy poops just like if they got into apples, make sure they have free choice baking soda and/or Diamond V yeast. Mine get so much food variety that they have pretty diverse rumens I think, and adjust very quickly to having it free choice from mid-Aug thru mid-Nov at least, and then fallen apples thru Dec.

I used to be very worried about the pomace getting smelly. It smells like cider vinegar and they LOVE it that way. I sent some samples to the lab different times and it was very similar to apple cider vinegar so I've relaxed and just let them enjoy it. Often there is pear and grapes in it too, depending on what folks brought to the pressing.

I thought their consumption of baking soda would go up, but it doesn't after the first week or so.

The more I read about grain and ruminants, the more I think its not a great idea, they really weren't designed to eat it, and I try to feed mine as little grain, and as much forage, as possible.

My question about the spent beer barley is how much its still like "grain" since most of the carbs are taken out of it. So is it now really more like beet pulp, mostly just fiber and protein? And water


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

LLB101 said:


> In the majority of the year, its not warm here, so it can be out longer and not be an issue. Heck, the northern half the country could leave it out in winter and it would be frozen, lol.


This cracked me up! My father-in-law loves to use natural refrigeration/freezing in the winter! He just shoves stuff in the snow, lol! He also often gets fresh apple cider jugs, sets them outside, then brings them in and lets them ferment for a few days on the counter, letting the gas off as needed...makes a nice fizzy drink and it lasts awhile sitting out on the porch in the coldish weather!


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## LLB101 (Sep 29, 2009)

Yep, very sensible if you ask me! Depending on your wild critter issues...


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## dragonlair (Mar 24, 2009)

I love using natural refrigeration, which is a good thing because I can use it at least 6 months a year!


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