If you've ever tried home-brewing beer, you've probably felt bad about tossing out all the spent grain left at the end of the process. It turns out there is a way to reuse that grain — and these moist spent grain muffins from the blog Love & Olive Oil are just the beginning.
Taylor at Love & Olive Oil oven-dried the malted barley left after brewing a batch of beer and mixed it into applesauce muffins, where it added a little sweetness and crunch. Even his wife, who is not a beer fan, gave her stamp of approval.
The recipe came from the Brooklyn Brew Shop's blog, which has a number of recipes that incorporate spent grain, from barley-chocolate peanut butter bars to spent grain burgers, crackers and tortillas.
Get the recipe: Spent Grain Applesauce Muffins at Love & Olive Oil See more ideas: Spent Grain Recipes at Brooklyn Brew Shop
Do you have any ideas for cooking or baking with spent grain?
Related: Beer Brewing for Apartment Dwellers: Brooklyn Brew Shop's Smaller, More Accessible 1-Gallon Beer Kit
(Images: Emma Christensen; Love & Olive Oil)
How To Cook Fluffy, Tasty Quinoa
True Greek Recipe: Paximadi Bread Salad with Tomatoes, Feta and Capers
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Monterey Pitcher fr...
Before & After: Emily Henderson Transforms a Senior's Studio Space
Monica & Austin's Charming Bungalow
Great idea! We usually toss ours in our yard for the birds and squirrels
If brewing your own beer isn't enough, you can make beer cupcakes out of the spent grain
That's a great concept, and I've considered it, but all of these recipes to "use up" our spent grain only call for 1/2 cup here, 1/2 cup there. My typical brew day requires 15-20 *pounds* of grain! This isn't a solution to spent grain. Instead, see if a nearby pig or goat farm could use your donated grain. A lot of them will travel to you in order to feed their stock inexpensively.
I brew 1-gallon batches, which leaves me with a largish but still manageable amount of spent grain. I throw it in homemade bread, pizza dough, and savory scones, and I've also used some (both whole and pulsed in a food processor) as a substitute for panko and bread crumbs in several recipes with great results.
Word to the wise, watch out for any brew method that includes rice hulls...you *do not* want to bake with those! As for extras, sprinkle them on your garden or toss them in the compost for a boost!
They are also great for peanut butter dog treats!