New Venture

As with many of our new ventures and adventures it started by my wife reading the classifieds in the local paper. I never read them as she makes a religious habit of doing so ever Wednesday and pointing out all the interesting deals and possible bargains for me to check out. On more than one occasion this has led to a new venture or change in plans to an existing one, or just a purchase of something that would look nice or be useful. I can't complain as we have a lovely set of old beams in our house and deck that she spotted one time, so when she told me the local brew pub was giving away 20,000lbs of spent brewers grain per year to any one who would pick it up, my mind and pencil began working.
Brewers grain are the left over grains after a brew mash has been made and it is a good source of feed for cows, sheep , goats , pigs and chickens. It is low in sugar and starch as that was used by the beer but is high in protein and is palatable to livestock. It can be used for 30% to 50% of a pigs ration and in these days of high grain prices it could make a money loosing pig into a profitable set of pork chops.
Here in our town it costs 3 cents a lb to dump garbage, so the pub is saving $600 a year and that would be triple or more with the cost of labour and transport as the dump is a six mile round trip. I had a chat with the manager and brew master at the pub and they were pleased that we could recycle the waste. But I reeled them in when I suggested they might wish to put a special on their menu of "beer" fed pork. How cool is that, eating pork chops that ate the grain that made the beer you are washing it down with. Aah the circle of life!!