S'more Stout + Spent Grain Chocolate Chip Cookies

Happy New Year! After a busy end of 2013, we are officially back with some new posts to kick off 2014. We have been brewing a lot lately and experimenting with baking with the spent grain (the grain that we steep to start the brewing process). This time, I scooped out enough to line a square baking pan and tried to dry out some of the moisture in a 200 degree oven for about 5 hours. We were brewing a chocolate-y stout, so the grain had a great sweetness to it. After getting most of the moisture out, we put it in a food processor to grind it up a bit. I think next time we'll let it stay in the oven a bit longer, but we were pleased with the nutty, earthy flavor that the gain added to the cookies. Here are the recipes for both the cookies and the S'more Stout (inspired by this beer by Highwater Brewing Company).

S'more Stout

Grain:

1 1/2 lbs Maris Otter

1/2 lbs Roasted Barley

1/4 lbs 

1/4 chocolate

1/4 150L Crystal Malt

Hops: 

2 oz Fuggle (1oz at 60 min; 1oz at 30 min)

Other:

6 lbs malt extract 

Nottingham yeast

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 cup honey

2 cinnamon sticks

3 vanilla beans (2 in boil, whole; 1 in the primary, sliced lengthwise)

About halfway through the boil, we took 2 cups of wort and placed it in a saucepan. To it we added the cocoa, honey, cinnamon and vanilla beans and let simmer for the remaining time. The goal was to create the flavor you get in a s'more- chocolate, honey from the graham crackers, and vanilla in the marshmallow. Before cooling the wort, we added in the cocoa mixture. Once we had transferred to the primary fermenter, we added the third vanilla bean, sliced lengthwise to maximize the flavor. We have about 2 weeks to go until our S'more Stout is ready to drink, and we can't wait!

Spent Grain Chocolate Chip Cookies

We used the recipe from the back of the bag of chocolate chips, with a few minor substitutions. We used 1/2 cup spent grain in place of 1/2 cup of the flour. Because the grain was not completely dry, we did not have a flour consistency, so the result was that the cookies were a little flat. Next time I'll add some baking powder in addition to the baking soda in the recipe to try to get them to rise a bit more. 

Ingredients: 

2 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 cup ground spent grain

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar 

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt and set aside. 

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs and vanilla until smooth. Next add in the spent grain, then gradually mix in the flour mixture until all ingredients are combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

Bake on cookie sheet 8-10 minutes, or until golden brown.