Spent Grain Snack Bars

If you are like me and have been struggling on what to do with all the spent grains after brew day?  

It seemed to me wasteful to just throw them away, I don't have a dog and although my parents have a small allotment and compost bin, if I wasn't going to see them for a few weeks I didn't really want them laying around until that point. After some searching I found a recipe on Beer Drink Run. I believe they got the recipe from somewhere else originally.

You will be able to substitute some items if you don't have them in the cupboards and some are also optional. 

Ingredients:        

2 cups spent grains- dried
2 cups rolled oats (quick cooking or old fashioned)
1/2 to 1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
1/2 to 1 cup chopped dried fruit (optional)
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup barley malt syrup — can be substituted with Maple Syrup or in my instance Black Treacle as I didn't have enough Maple Syrup
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon salt

You can also add some milk chocolate chips (I had these on the side, staring me out and I forgot to actually add them in the end).

Directions:

1. Spread the grains on a cookie sheet and dry in the oven at 80°C (175° F) for 2.5 hours shifting the grains around every 30 minutes.
   
2. Increase the temperature to 160°C (325° F) for the final 30 minutes with the oats and chopped nuts to roast everything together.
3. During the final 30  minutes of roasting, start to mix the “wet” ingredients. Take a small saucepan and slowly heat the syrup, honey, butter, peanut butter and salt. 
4. Bring that to a boil and them simmer for 5 minutes stirring frequently. Once the syrup mixture was done simmering, mix it with the dry ingredients completely combining them.
5. Combine all the dry ingredients and set them aside in a large mixing bowl.
6. Spread the mixture out in a wax-paper lined 13 x 9 baking pan. Allow this to cool several hours at room temperature, cut the bars, and wrap them in a wax paper square.

Mixture left to cool. Hardens pretty quickly only took 40 mins or so, then a sharp knife was required. 

The verdict: They were very good, very moorish.  I could taste the malts especially since I brewed with Chocolate & Medium Crystal (60L) malts. I had a background flavour of the syrup with the honey coming through. A bitter sweet snack. 
They would be nice for a mid-day snack, I can imagine it going well with a coffee or an even an evening snack with a beer. 

A cheeky test corner.  

If you feel like you want to give it a try, the only other thing to remember is to properly store the grains you want to use before you start. So if you froze them for a few weeks and make sure you put them in the fridge for a day to thaw them before to keep them fresh.

Until next time.........Happy Brewing