- Title: Leftover grain used to make beer is recycled into sweet bakery treats
- Date: 15th August 2018
- Summary: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (RECENT) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF MAN POURING BEER EXTERIOR OF KINGS COUNTY BEER COLLECTIVE BREWERY INDUSTRIAL BREWING EQUIPMENT BARLEY BEING TURNED INTO MALT VARIOUS OF SPENT GRAIN IN TRASH BIN RISE CEO AND CO-FOUNDER BERTHA JIMENEZ WORKING IN KITCHEN (SOUNDBITE) (English) RISE CEO AND CO-FOUNDER, BERTHA JIMENEZ, SAYING: "We all believe in th
- Embargoed: 29th August 2018 16:24
- Keywords: industrial symbiosis landfill Rise Products spent grain cookies recycling Bertha Jimenez Brooklyn beer Super Flour barley Runner & Stone Peter Endriss food waste
- Location: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
- City: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
- Country: USA
- Topics: Science
- Reuters ID: LVA0018TAU2XN
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: The fight against food waste could start with a pint of beer.
The beer-making process requires thousands of pounds of barley. To make beer, brewers soak malted barley in hot water to release the grain's sugars. The liquid produced is fermented into alcohol and the spent grain is thrown out. The spent grain can be given to farmers to be used as feed, but in New York City it is usually sent to a landfill.
This is where Bertha Jimenez, co-founder of Rise Products comes in.
Jimenez takes the spent barley, grinds it into a flour and sells it to bakeries and restaurants. Jimenez said she came up with the idea while she was working on her doctorate in engineering at New York University.
"We all believe in this concept of industrial symbiosis. That means the byproduct of a company can become the raw material of another company," she said.
A single batch of beer can leave behind 3,000 to 4,000 pounds of spent grain. In the U.S., craft breweries send about 2 million tons of grain to landfills each year. New York City sends 6,000 tons of grain to landfills annually, according Jimenez.
"If we can at least start making New York zero waste, that will be great," she said.
To turn the spent barley into flour, Jimenez and her team dry the grain in an industrial oven, grind it, sift it and package it by hand.
The end result is two types of whole barley Super Flour.
"We have the lights and darks. The lights come from IPAs, ales and pilsners and the darks come from the stouts and porters," Jimenez explained.
The light is described as having a nutty and light flavor with hints of caramel and almond. The dark flour is described as having a rich flavor with hints of chocolate and nuts.
Because the beer brewing process removes sugars from the barley, Jimenez said, the flour is very nutritious.
"If you compare it to an all-purpose flour it will have two times the protein, 12 times the fiber and one-third of the carbs."
But how does it taste?
Peter Endriss, co-owner and head baker of Runner & Stone in Brooklyn, said, "It has a nice, crumbly texture. And it's a lot more full flavored than other flours. You really taste the maltiness from the beer-making process."
Impressed with Jimenez' effort to reduce food waste, Endriss was one of the first to buy Rise flour.
"I think food waste is one of the number one issues in our food system in America," he said. "I think I read that like a third of food goes wasted, which is pretty appalling. So anything we can do to help that and make a great-tasting product at the same time is perfect."
Endriss uses the flour to make shortbread cookies.
At the moment, Rise Super Flour costs five times the price of regular all-purpose flour, but Jimenez hopes future automation will bring down the price.
Jimenez also said her team is exploring how to recycle food waste left behind from other products such as wine, coffee and juice. And she is looking at ways to bring the technology to Latin America and Africa. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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