The Grain Debate by Bob Montemurro Did you ever get a chance to watch a professional brewer work? I just had that opportunity. Once a year my local brewpub invites the public to come into the brewhouse and be a "helper" for a day. Actually the day is only a couple of hours and the work is mainly watching (and sampling). You might think that scores of serious beer people would show up for this treat but considering his the session is usually on Saturday at 8 AM it's easy to see why the total has yet to hit a dozen. People don't know what they're missing; its well worth getting up early for just about anything to do with beer, especially this. One of the things I never thought about until I was there helping to clean out the spent grain is just what happens to them. Spent grain, as you might know, is the gooy aftermath of the brewing process. They have been heated up to extract sugars, proteins and other nutrients that go on to make beer. The process is called mashing. The spent grains are a byproduct — with no real usefulness purpose left for the brewer. I always just assumed that the professionals throw it out just as a home brewer would. Well, that's not the case. I was surprised to learn that for years, smaller craft brewers and places like my neighborhood brewpub have donated – or sold on the cheap – their spent grain to farmers. It's a neat idea. Rather than sending it to landfills, the handshake transaction between brewers and farmers is mutually beneficial. To the brewer it's an efficient way to get rid of something with no real value while to the farmer the spent grains are a valuable dietary supplement for their livestock. It’s common for breweries to reach out to local farms to offer up their spent grains. Most often, farmers are happy to oblige, picking up the spent grains themselves a few times per week. It's not an insignificant amount either. Spent grain accounts for as much as 85 percent of a brewery's total byproducts. A small regional commercial brewery might create over 10,000 pounds each day. Last year U.S. brewers produced nearly 2.7 million total tons of spent grain. I was reminded of all this when I read that this productive relationship between farmer and brewer is now being threatened by the government. The Food and Drug Administration is proposing a rule that would make the transaction of spent grain so burdensome that it could effectively end the entire process. Specifically, brewers would need to purchase expensive equipment and devote more time to properly packaging their spent grain before farmers could legally serve their animals. Most small and medium- sized brewers wouldn’t be able to follow these rules because of the costs involved. Additional expenses would hit the farmers who would in turn would have to dry, package and analyze the grains, all without it touching human hands. The total costs would be prohibitive. The Brewers Association has taken a strong position on the issue. They just released a statement that says in part: "The current rule proposal represents an unwarranted burden for all brewers. Many of the more than 2,700 small and independent craft breweries that operate throughout the United States provide spent grain to local farms for use as animal feed. The proposed could lead to..... the sending of spent grain to landfills, wasting a reliable food source for farm animals and triggering a significant economic and environmental cost." It's a convincing point especially since there is little if any evidence that breweries’ spent grains as currently handled cause any hazards to animals or humans. In defense of its proposal the FDA says the rule is aimed at “ensuring the safety of animal food for animals consuming the food and ensuring the safety of animal food for humans handling the food, particularly pet food”. As of now the proposal is still in the public discussion phase but that will end soon and the final decision will be made. I'm going with the brewers on this one. After all, they make beer. ----------- I invite everyone to send me their own columns about beer just as Liv did. I'll select the best ones and publish them here. So join in and get writing! Cheers! Bob |
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