soil Anyone ever use spent grain from homebrewing in their soil?

[NoVa Hothead]

Planning out a few batches of beer, and was thinking that spent grain would be a good potential soil amendment. Dry it out, and it should help aerate the soil. Plus, it is low pH.

Anyone ever done this before?

 

[Pepper Ridge Farm]

Never tried before but found an article where somebody is trying to get a patent doing just this. Hope this helps.

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2009/0227452.html

 

[smokemaster]

Read somewhere about breweries that used to give away their spent grain to farmers are selling it now.
Supposed to be good stuff.

Links,1 with a recipe for garden use...

http://patwelsh.com/wpmu/blog/soils/barley/

http://blog.stonebrew.com/?tag=spent-grain

 

[millworkman]

Been on brewing websites a lot in the past couple years and the general consensus is that they are great in compost piles. May attract a bit of vermin if used straight in the garden.

 

[NoVa Hothead]

Thanks for the responses guys. One of the links that smokemaster provided specifically references not using dried out spent grains as a soil amendment, but that they're great for compost. Unfortunately, composters or compost piles are disallowed by my homeowners' association, under the auspices of the potential to attract vermin.