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Has any one tried making biomass briquettes from spent grains? If so did you have to dry and grind them finer after the mash? What moisture content did you reset them to and how much pressure was needed to get them to compact? I tried to do with with the grain as it comes out of the mash tun but no luck.
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About 15 years ago, I worked at a couple of breweries which were trying to install biomass boilers. We had to dry the spent grains, from if my memory serves me correctly, 42% moisture ex lauter tun, to < 28% moisture so it would burn and produce more heat than was required to dry it. We used a mesh belt press from Flottweg (though I am sure other people make something similar). It was horribly messy, and the two biomass systems turned into multimillion (UK) pound white elephants as the costs of drying etc far exceeded the cost we got from cattle farmers! We didn't make briquettes, so this would have been an additional cost. I assume you could use some cement dust as a binder, in the same way as coal dust was made into briquettes, or simply allow then to dry. By we would have needed stupid amounts of space to dry them out like that. And have you smelled one or two week old spent grains?dick -
If I remember right...
Alaska used to burn spent grain for fuel years ago. Anything to do with processing wet grain is a messy proposition and I'd steer away from it. Want to brew beer or make briquettes?Phillip Kelm--Palau Brewing Company Manager--Comment
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