Recently, I was gifted a large bag of spent grains. Spent grains are the leftover grains and malts from brewing a batch of beer. Spent grain still has a lot of flavor and can be reused as flour. I used some of my spent grain to make these honey spent grain dinner rolls!
If you like to brew beer, you may find yourself with plenty of spent grains to experiment with. Simply dehydrate the grains, and grind into flour using a food processor.
Spent grain flour is very dense, and therefore, makes a very dense bread product. I found that a 1:1 ratio of spent grains to bread flour produced a delicious product, but it didn’t rise well enough to make a loaf of bread.
I love the flavor of the spent grain, and decided to turn the 1:1 ratio of flours into a dinner roll. The result is a super dense and flavorful roll, that would be a perfect addition to any meal!
Variations to the Honey Spent Grain Dinner Rolls recipe:
- If you want to make a bread loaf, replace half of the spent grain flour with bread flour. This will result in a fluffier bread that will rise much better than the ratio I used in these rolls.
- I use a quick rising yeast just to make the process a little faster. If you use regular, active yeast, decrease the water temperature to 115 F, and increase both of the rise times to about an hour each, instead of 30 minutes.
- To make this bread dairy free, use soy milk instead of cows milk, and canola oil in place of butter. I do not recommend using other dairy-free milks, such as almond milk, because they are lower in protein. The protein is necessary to help the bread bind together while rising.
Honey Spent Grain Dinner Rolls
Spent grains, or leftover grains from beer making, make a delicious flour for baking. These honey spent grain dinner rolls are dense, chewy and so flavorful!
- Prep Time: 1 hour 40 mins
- Cook Time: 25 mins
- Total Time: 2 hours 5 mins
- Yield: 12 rolls
- Category: Side
Ingredients
- 1 cup spent grain flour (from 2 cups dehydrated spent grain)
- 2 1/4 tsp quick rise yeast
- 1 tsp salt
- 2/3 cup cow’s milk (or soy milk)
- 1/2 cup water
- 2 TBS each: honey and melted butter
- 1 1/3 cups bread flour
- Splash olive oil
- 1 TBS butter, melted
Instructions
- Mix together spent grain flour, yeast, and salt in a large bowl.
- In a liquid measuring cup, mix together milk and water. Heat in a microwave until the mixture is 125 F, checking frequently. If the mixture gets too hot, let it sit until the temperature comes down to 125 F. If it is too hot, it will kill your yeast, and if it’s too cold, the yeast won’t be activated.
- Mix the warm water mixture into the spent grain flour mixture with the melted butter and honey. Stir to completely combine and let this rest for 10 minutes so the grains will soak up the liquid.
- Mix in 1 cup bread flour, and stir until a shaggy dough forms.
- Dust a clean working surface (counter top) with 1 TBS flour, and place the shaggy dough in the flour. Dust another TBS flour on the top of the dough and use your hands to knead the dough (see notes), adding more flour as necessary (up to 1/3 cup flour) to keep the dough from sticking to you, or the counter.
- Knead for 10 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and elastic. If you poke it with a floured finger, it should spring back slightly. (This is a dense dough and will not spring back as much as other dough recipes.)
- Pour a splash of olive oil into the dough bowl. Put your kneaded dough into the bowl and turn it to coat with oil. Place in the microwave (or another draft free, warm location) and let rise for 30 minutes.
- Punch down the risen dough and knead it until smooth again (about 1 minute). Divide the dough in half, and the halves into thirds. Cut each third in half, and you should have 12 relatively equal portions.
- Roll each portion into a smooth looking ball. Poke your thumb into the bottom of the roll, and pull the dough back down into a neat ball at the base. This will increase the tension on the surface of the roll, causing it to rise better.
- Place each roll on a parchment lined baking sheet so that they are just touching each other. Coat all the rolls with melted butter and set in a warm, draft free place to rise for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F.
- Bake risen rolls in the oven for 25 minutes, or until golden, and starting to look dry on top.
Notes
To knead dough, press it out with your palm onto the working surface. Flip in back in over top of itself and press again. Continue this motion to stretch the gluten in the flour, and make an elastic dough.
When I looked at this recipe on my phone, in step 3 it mentions adding the melted butter and honey with the warm water mixture . I did not find this information when I read the recipe on my IPad. The rolls were delicious, I made a doubled recipe and shared them at out knitting group tonight. They loved them!
Is the honey and butter used when eating the rolls rather than part of the recipe. I didn’t see it in the mixing process. Thank you.
Thanks for your question, Patsy! The butter and honey do go into the dough with the milk and water, I have updated the recipe so they are included now!
I see honey and butter listed in the ingredients but there is no step in which it says to add them. I assume it’s somewhere at the end of step 4.
I’m making these now to have with dinner tonight. Look promising.
I mix them in with the water so the sugars are present to activate the yeast. I’m sure it will still work if you mixed it in later, however. The recipe is updated with the missing ingredients, thanks for letting me know there was an error 🙂
What a great idea to use up those used grains!
I completely agree! Thanks Jenny!
How neat! What a great use of those grains!
Thanks Shannon!
that’s so creative! I bet it’s full of flavor
SO full of flavor! They smelled great while baking too 🙂
These look so cozy!
Thanks Chelsey!
great idea! these look delicious
Thank you Rebecca!
That’s so interesting, would love to try!
I think you would love them Kara!
These look amazing! <3
Thanks Farrah!