Spent Grain Crackers

When I have free time, which let’s be honest isn’t all that often, I like to try new recipes. Not just for dinner but especially for healthy snacks. We are desperately and continually trying to veer away from processed foods and lean into a simpler, easier lifestyle. Now I know that homemade doesn’t always seem easier than grabbing a box or bag off a shelf but truly the little bit of extra time it takes to make homemade goodies is so worth knowing what is in your food and saving money at the same time.

While I’ve been experimenting a lot with sourdough, I wanted something different; something I could make from ingredients we already had. John had mentioned a while back that a lot of home beer brewers will make things from the spent grain that’s left after brewing. So what is spent grain you ask? The grain in beer brewing is used to determine the color of the beer and provides the sugars that initiate the fermentation process, which in turn determines the alcohol content. Once the sugars have been extracted, John ends up with approximately 12 pounds of spent grain.

Most of the time, we will feed this grain directly to our chickens as a warm snack during the winter. We also freeze the grain to give to them as a cool snack in the summer. But, why not save some for us to use too? So the search was on! My go to site for recipes has always been Pinterest and it didn’t disappoint! But as is always the challenge, I had to sift through and try many recipes before I found the one that we loved. This one, as it turns out, is not only simple but delicious and healthy as well! Luckily the whole family enjoys them too, which is always a bonus!

The first step in the process is dehydrating the spent grain. There are recipes that call for wet grain but because wet grain goes bad quickly, it just made more sense for us to dehydrate the grain. Now, it is shelf stable and can be used anytime. In fact, the most recent batch I made were from grains we had dehydrated in 2022! Once you have your grains dehydrated you are good to go!

Here is the recipe:

2 ½ cups all purpose flour (substitute up to half with whole wheat flour)
½ cup of spent grain
1 tbsp. salt
1 ½ cups beer (any style)
2 tsp. garlic powder (optional)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F

2. Combine the flour, spent grain, and salt in a bowl

3. Add one cup of the beer and mix into the dry ingredients.

4. Mix thoroughly until a shaggy mess has been made in the bowl. If it look like there isn’t enough liquid, add a little bit of the remaining beer to the bowl. Keep mixing until the mixture looks like it will hold together but isn’t soaking wet.

5. Dump the dough onto a work surface coated in flour. Kneed the dough until it forms a nice ball.

6. Cut the dough ball into manageable pieces (4 to 8 pieces)

7. Roll the dough balls to roughly 1/8 thickness then using a pizza cutter or knife, cut into squares. Any scraps can be rerolled.

8. Place on to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silpat.

9. Bake at 325 degree F for 25 to 35 minutes. Check regularly after the 25 minute.

10. Remove crackers from oven and let cool.

I have made them both with all white flour and whole wheat mixed and don’t see much change in the crackers. I also like to add in the garlic powder. I imagine, though I haven’t tried it yet, that you can add different seasonings as well: Italian, everything bagel, paprika, chili powder, etc.

I also grind my spent grains in a food processor a bit before adding them to the flour mixture but this is not a necessity.

While these are delicious alone, pairing them with homemade cheese spread puts them over the top! I hope you will give these a try. They don’t require many ingredients and come together super quickly. If you are not a home brewer, you may be able to hit up your local brewery for some of their spent grains and some yummy beer to use in your crackers!