I have been thinking a lot lately about alternative building techniques (nope not a BFI thread, just hold on).
One of the things I researched in the past is icochanvre or fibercrete. Basically it utilizes the silica found in plant stems in place of part or all of the sand in a normal lime morter or concrete recipe. Weeeeellll i got to thinking about spend grain, mostly silica rich husks left when we are done with them especially if I were to rinse the grains well to get any residual sugars out.
Could one then mix this with some hydrated lime and sand and make a fibrecrete like product? BrewCrete?
I have no clue to your actual question… But I can say the spent grains I spill in my parking lot (live in a condo) seem to dry into concrete on the parking lot…
fun idea. if there is a local engineering school bring the grains to the civil engineering lab. they do fun tests like slump tests etc to evaluate concrete. would be a reasonable project for them. however, i doubt it is the most cost effective use of spent grain.
Seems I recall one of my buddies who is RPCV from west Africa somewhere that they used grain husks in adobe bricks for building.
Maybe spent grains from brewing has too much goopy stuffs still in it? ??? ie, not pure husks.
Just blabbing out loud here like a BFI thread, but it seems that stuff might not lend itself to a solid composition? Maybe drying it would render it more useful.
That’s kind of the idea, well the part about including the grains in bricks anywy, not the part about the beer bottles which is a different story entirely.
i was thinking about the goopy bits and I don’t see why it would be a problem if you got most of the protein out and residual converted starches with a solid rinse with plain water. but it’s not going to cost me much to experiment with it, the price of some lime and some sand really.
This seems like a cool idea. Now I’d like to build a spent grain adobe oven!
I found this about natural fiber concrete. I’m thinking spent grain wouldn’t add strength, but should work as bulk in non-strength applications (like my oven).
Dried out it might replace perlite mixed with clay slip in the insulating layers of a clay oven. I doubt it would be more effective,( maybe mix with perlite) but I would like the idea of having my spent grains in there when I bake bread and pizzas. Here’s a slide show we made when we made our clay oven a few years ago. Might not work on some mobile devices. : http://www.slideboom.com/presentations/218324/Building-a-wood-fired-earth-oven
Jon I think spent grain might be useful in slipform casting that takes place over a long time period. Every batch you add another tier. After a year you have an entire wall.
