In a remote location such as Castle Black, and to a lesser extent Winterfell, supplies can be hard to come by, and as such, the cooks and kitchen staff would make sure that nothing went to waste. Bones and trimmings go into giant pots for stock, stale bread gets made into bread-pudding, and anything that can be salvaged or reused, is.
This got me to thinking: Since the brothers of the Nights Watch have (and presumably make) their own beer, what happens to all those spent grains?
The typical medieval brewing process involved a strong beer from the first run of grain, then a weaker small beer from the same grains. In a setting like on the Wall, I concluded that they would then recycle the grain into everything else they made. This could include pie crusts, breads, desserts, breakfast mush, and anything else they could think of. To make sure the grain kept, they likely would have dried it, then put it in the icy storerooms until needed.
Spent Grain Recipes:
- drying your spent grain
- Spent Grain Bread
- more to come!
