Alternative Uses for Hops-Cattle feed

[wildcrafter]

Current research on hops for cattle.

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2010/100420.htm

Any thoughts?

[liammckenna]

Mixing hops with rumen fluid and studying the effects is one thing. Getting cattle to eat hops (fresh or spent) is another. Every time I've tried (many times) the cattle nose it aside.

Perhaps at very low levels with the spent grain?

Pax

Liam

[kai]

We mix our hopback hops in with a little spent grain, apparently the cows just pick out the grain. More importantly our farmer is happy to take the hops as a favour to us because he feels the grain is a favour to him...

[James Murray]

Spent Hops

We are not allowed to dump any spent yeast, hops, trub, or any brewing solid matter down the drain at our brewery. So we simply collect it in bins and dump our hot spent grain on top of it, essentially cooking it. The only complaint i have heard from our farmer is that his head bull loves it so much that he has been fighting off others at the farm. They say happy cows come from California...bet its because they eat brewers grain

James Murray
Lead Brewer
Ballast Point Brewing & Spirits
San Diego, CA

[banjo]

payment?

Is your farmer paying you anything for your waste stream? I'd think you could get in on the same deal Strauss has going with the fuel digesters. I've been talking to the people at Skip Sharipro Enterprises about waste stream value and it's been pretty interesting learning about the possible uses and values associated with brewery waste streams. (I'm very interested in recycling opportunities)
Starting with spent grains yeast and trub and including returned beer, etc. It's nice to have a farmer haul it off for free or for some meat in return, but if there's a return revenue stream possibilty I think it should be investigated.