The left over stuff in the jug.

  • PATRONS: Did you know we've a chat function for you now? Look to the bottom of the screen, you can chat, set up rooms, talk to each other individually or in groups! Click 'Chat' at the right side of the chat window to open the chat up.
  • Love Gotmead and want to see it grow? Then consider supporting the site and becoming a Patron! If you're logged in, click on your username to the right of the menu to see how as little as $30/year can get you access to the patron areas and the patron Facebook group and to support Gotmead!
  • We now have a Patron-exclusive Facebook group! Patrons my join at The Gotmead Patron Group. You MUST answer the questions, providing your Patron membership, when you request to join so I can verify your Patron membership. If the questions aren't answered, the request will be turned down.
I use my spent lees in quick breads. I nuke them in a slurry for food for other still-cooking batches of mead. I compost them. I read on here somewhere that they're nutritionally equivalent to Brewer's Yeast. The Irish feed the spent grain/lees from Guiness and Jameson to the cows...you wondered why Irish butter and cheese are so delicious...happy cows.
 
My wife make lots of banana and zucchini quick breads. How much lees do you put in and what are you taking out to offset the new liquid?
 
Maybe TheAlchemist uses a proper recipe, but I just wing it with yeast breads, start with a cup or two of liquid, add some yeast, a tablespoon of sugar and then just add flour till it's the right consistency, knead... but if I were going to use it in something using baking soda/baking powder as leavening instead of yeast, I'd probably remove an equivalent amount of whatever the liquid content was supposed to have been, replacing most of the oil and some of the water in my chocolate cake recipe with applesauce or zucchini purée works quite well...
 
We use apple sauce as replacement in a lot of recipes. I'm trying to find a way that my wife will eat something with lees in it cause she is B deficient and hates taking the sub-lingual pill. So I'm hoping to find something she will like and have it help that deficiency. ...And if I have to make more mead to help her, I can make that sacrifice. :D
 
...And if I have to make more mead to help her, I can make that sacrifice. :D

What a great guy!

I pretty much just fly by the seat of my pants with adding lees to quick breads. Plus I substitute honey for sugar in many recipes. Maybe I use a bit less oil...I don't honestly know what I do...
 
Wow, that is just soooooooo helpful. ;D The only way I could maybe possibly get her to try something like this is if I had a recipe. After the soup, she has like so little interest in trying anything with lees, so I think I will have to make something and have her try it and hope she doesn't ask to many questions. :D And since I pretty much such at baking with out clear instructions...
 
Wow, that is just soooooooo helpful. ;D The only way I could maybe possibly get her to try something like this is if I had a recipe. After the soup, she has like so little interest in trying anything with lees, so I think I will have to make something and have her try it and hope she doesn't ask to many questions. :D And since I pretty much such at baking with out clear instructions...

Here's the best way to 'fly by the seat of your pants' which is necessary with things of unknown density/water content such as lees.

Make something as per recipe, ie bread, cake etc.

Then make the same thing with lees.
Mix all the dry ingredients. (maybe only add sugar to taste, as the lees may be sweet depending on what they're from)
Add the lees, then top up with the liquid ingredients, until the dough comes to rougly the same consistancy as when you made it by the recipe.
It will work, it will probably taste quite good, from my experience.


If you have a nread machine, it's easy.
Do just as above, then add water until the dough appears right. if it goes too far and is wet, add flour. Bread's simple ;-)
 
I mostly dump the lees on the ground around my fruit trees. I figure maybe I'll get some good feral yeast in the yard.

I have used lees to make smoothies. Just like adding brewer's yeast, you can add old lees. If you use a quarter cup of lees, add a banana, a cup a fruit juice, some ice, +/- a little yogurt (or milk), and maybe a touch of honey or sugar for sweetening, and run it all through the blender, you get a fruit smoothie with plenty of protein and vitamins. Obviously, I won't do this with stinky lees.
 
The Lees might work in bread. I have attempted to make a Almond butter from spent Almonds, grinded up and added sugar. Not good. You can deffinitely tell that the flavor is all gone out of the almonds.

Now I have seen online raspberry seeds are used as a diatary suplament. I saved the seeds from my raspberry batch, about 1 1/2 cups of seeds. I was thinking on grinding it up and putting it in bread. Sort of a fortified Bread.

The lees, I haven't used but I noticed that if I place in another container when racking, like a jar, it will settle out some more and I can tell if it is still fermenting. I release the pressure every day or so. A good way to test if you have active yeast.

I often try to use the leavings of my mead. I currently have frozen, some lemon juice, Lime Juice, Lime Zest (made extract of 10 pounds worth of lemon zest I had), I also have about 2 cups of blueberry pulp.
 
Now I have seen online raspberry seeds are used as a diatary suplament. I saved the seeds from my raspberry batch, about 1 1/2 cups of seeds.

I tried to plant my spent raspberry and blackberry seeds. I thought it was a long shot because they had been fermented, but I wasnt sure. It didnt work. Anybody know for sure this is futile because I am dumb enough to try it again...probably.