SBIR-STTR Award

We brew - and drink - a lot of beer in America. Approximately 202 million barrels of beer are produced domestically per year and all of that alcohol requires fermentable sugars which come predominantly from malted barley. Barley starts as a highly nutritious grain known to be rich in protein fiber and antioxidants. After the brewing industry borrows it to extract the least nutritious portion of the grain (the most soluble enzymatically-accessible carbohydrates) we are left with 4.7 million metric wet tons of an extraordinary nutritionally-potent grain known as brewers’; spent grain (BSG).Unfortunately BSG is a very challenging grain: it spoils quickly requires milling takes the levity out of bread contains gluten that doesn’t provide the advantageous qualities of its wheat counterpart and has moisture absorption characteristics that complicate incorporation into bakery products. These challenges often result in BSG ending up as a major underutilized waste stream that is used as fertilizer ruminant feed or pig feed. Even when used as feed BSG can spoil quickly and much gets abandoned. The purpose of this proposal is to directly address technical challenges in fractionation and extrusion/expansion that if successful will enable a highly nutritious grain to be the star of healthy puffed snacks for both people and pets.