Feeding Grain from a Microbrewery

[whanna]

We are new to the LBHA world and have 3 gilts and 1 boar. Our ladies and gent have been a delight to get to know and watch grow. We have had the ladies since February. We know we will need to supplement them during the winter and have an opportunity to obtain leftover grain from a local brewery. Does anyone have any opinion as to whether this would be a good supplement for our tribe or not? Any opinions are appreciated as we are definitely “rookies” at this and want to learn everything there is to know about Large Blacks.
Thanking you in advance for any information you may provide.

[Jill]

We also are newbies at raising LB Hogs. We have two 7 month old gilts and just got a 4 month old boar. We do have access to mash from a microbrewery,we get a large batch every couple of weeks. We dry it out and then mix it with their grain. They love it and it saves on grain cost. I recommend it to keep your grain cost down. Hope that helps!

Jill

[Paulstar]

How do you dry out the grain?

[Jill]

We actually spread it out on our driveway when we know it will be a warm sunny day. We periodically rake it around so it dries all out. It usually is completely dry by the end of the day if it is a long hot day. You can also keep it in the fridge, but that is kind of tough with a large batch. We made a mistake with our first batch by just keeping it in the container. Since it was still damp when we got it, it became moldy within a few days.

[whanna]

Thank you so much for the information. We tried to feed it to them directly from the brewery, still wet and the pigs were not interested in it. We will try drying it out. Again, thank you for the information.

[Phillip & Dena Parham]

I used to doing quite a bit of home brewing and tried using my spent grains for feed. I have not doubt it is a good filler to add to other feed. I would not depend on it for a sole source of feed though and here is why. When the grain is used in brewing they extract all the sugars and other goodies from the grain. This is the primary goal of whole mash brewing. The “wort” is the extracted fluid from the grain and is the basis of the beer/ale. What you are left with in the grains after this is a very minimal source of feed. You can tell by watching the extract process. The runoff of the wort goes from very dark to almost clear at the end indicating all the sugars are extracted from the grains.

Once again, as a filler it would be okay but plan on supplement with grazing are high quality feeds.

JMHO.

Thanks

[Author]

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