Horse Cookies!

As in, cookies for horses. What were you thinking?

I finally had a chunk of time to thaw out those spent grains from the last batch of beer, and make a batch of horse treats. I drained the grains in a colander but not enough as you'll see in a bit. Here's the recipe:

6 cups spent grains

4 carrots, shredded

2 cups molasses + honey (any proportion will do)

1 bag Canada Peppermints, broken into pieces

5 T. coconut oil

L-R: First, second and third batches. See the difference in color and shape?

Here's where things got interesting. The mix was very watery, but I tamped it down into mini muffin tins and baked for 50 minutes or so at 325. The sugary liquid boiled over and caramelized and the cookies were too soft. While that was going on, I tried a different approach; for the second batch I squeezed the liquid out of handfuls of the mix and placed the little balls on a cookie sheet. Those were baked for 40 minutes. What I found was the first batch was so soft that when I took them out and let them cool a bit, I couldn't get them out of the muffin tins without them breaking. So I took each one, squeezed it into a ball, and put them each onto a cookie sheet and baked them again for about 20 minutes, trying to dry them out. The second round, squeezed out but not in the tins, fell apart in the oven. When they came out I took each one, formed it into a ball again, and put it on the cooling rack. 

The last batch worked the way I wanted it to: each handful of mix was squeezed out and then pressed into the muffin tins and baked for 40 minutes. Then I turned the oven off and left them overnight to finish drying out. This morning they were the correct shape and consistency. Now I know!

Mocha got to eat the grain crumbs from the second attempt - he can't eat a lot of these because the sugar content is so high, but he certainly approved of them!

Spent Grain Bunny Treats

The last time we brewed a batch of beer, which was, sadly, over a year ago, I attempted to make bread with the spent grain and it was a disaster. I don't really know why, but it was. The bread didn't rise or bake all the way through or something and it was a gelatinous mess. This time I'd planned to make horse treats with the spent grain, but my husband wondered if I could make treats for the rabbit as well. I did a little research and made these:

Bunny Cookies

1 cup spent grain

1 pureed carrot

1 T. honey

some raspberries and blueberries

1/4 cup flour

This was mixed up and then spooned onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and baked at 350 for about 30 minutes. After they'd cooled a bit, I brought one to Mocha. He sniffed it and licked it a few times, then turned his back on me. I put it in his bowl. About 5 minutes later he went over to his bowl, dragged out the cookie, and ate some before he accidentally dropped it. It took a few minutes for him to find it again, but when he did he ate some more. I guess he likes them! However, for future reference, I think it'd be better to use dried fruit rather than fresh.

The beer itself is the "Hophead Pale Ale" kit, and when it's time to do the second rack we'll split it, so half will get the foraged hops and half won't. This way we can see what they add to the flavor. The only other difference with the kit this year is that we added Irish Moss as a clarifying agent which we hadn't done before. I also boiled about 3 gallons of water ahead of time and kept them in the fridge so we had enough sterile water to top off the brew. Starting SG is 1.042 at 72 degrees.

The rest of the spent grains are in the freezer; when I have time to make horse treats (and more bunny cookies) I'll thaw them.