Do you have a home brewer in your life? You’re going to need to find one.

“What is spent grain?” you ask. I’m going to let Wikipedia answer that:
Brewer’s spent grain (also called Spent grain, Brewer’s grain or Draff) is a byproduct of beer brewing consisting of the residue of malt and grain which remains in the mash-kettle after the mashing and lautering process. It consists primarily of grain husks, pericarp, and fragments of endosperm. By mass, spent grains consist of about half carbohydrates, and the rest being mostly proteins and lignin. Carbohydrates include traces of starch, cellulose, β-Glucans, and arabinoxylans.

Mmmm. That sounds tasty

Before we knew that people could eat spent grain, we would end up with pounds of it during brewing. All those lovely, nutty grains would end up in the trash.

Just goes to show you, always do your homework!

For as hearty as these burgers actually are, they have a very light feel in your belly.

And unlike other vegetarian burgers I’ve tried, these stuck together really well, without sticking too much to me.

I don’t think these would work very well on the grill though, unless you have a grill plate. The griddle, however, works quite nicely.

Dress these up just like you would a regular burger. We didn’t use cheese for some strange reason, but they didn’t even need them.

The barbecue sauce in the burgers give them a nice tangy snap, but the nuttiness of the spent grain and quinoa shines through to add some depth.

And even though we’ve made these three times in as many weeks, we still have leftover spent grains!

Anyone else want to give these a try?

Spent Grain Burgers
From the Brooklyn Brew Shop
makes 8 patties

1 cup spent grain (re-hydrated with hot water, if they’ve been de-hydrated)
1 cup cooked quinoa (which is different than cooking one cup of quinoa. Yeah, I definitely figured that one out the long way! Just meant I had leftover quinoa for the next round of burgers)
2 eggs (or vegan egg replacement)
5 tbsp barbecue sauce
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup bread crumbs

Combine all ingredients in a bowl until they are fully incorporated. Heat a generous amount of olive or almond oil in a griddle or cast-iron skillet. You don’t want to fry the burgers, but they do need help not sticking to the pan.
Scoop a handful of the mixture into your hand, and flatten slightly to form a patty. Place the patty on the griddle and allow it to cook on that side for 5-8 minutes before flipping. Repeat until all the mixture has been used.

Serve hot, with all the fixings!