International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Science (IJAERS) [Vol-5, Issue-9, Sept- 2018] https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijaers.5.9.3 ISSN: 2349-6495(P) | 2456-1908(O) www.ijaers.com Page | 18 Physiochemical Characterization of the Brewers' Spent Grain from a Brewery Located in the Southwestern Region of Paraná - Brazil Sideney Becker Onofre 1,2 , Ivan Carlos Bertoldo 1,2 , Dirceu Abatti 2 , Douglas Refosco 2 1 Universidade Comunitária da Região de Chapecó - UNOCHAPECÓ - Centro de Ciências Exatas e Ambientais - CEA - Programa de Pós-graduação em Tecnologia e Gestão da Inovação - PPGTI - Av. Senador Attílio Fontana, 591-E EFAPI - 89809-000 - Chapecó - Santa Catarina - BRASIL. E-mail: beckerside@unochapeco.edu.br. 2 União de Ensino do Sudoeste do Paraná - UNISEP - Av. União da Vitória, 14 – Bairro Miniguaçu - 85605-040 – Francisco Beltrão - Paraná - BRASIL. Abstract — Brewers' spent grain is a by-product generated in the production process of breweries formed by the solid part obtained from the wort filtration before boiling. It is mainly comprised of pulp and husk residues of the malt, but it also contains grains of the adjuncts, such as rice, maize and wheat. Quantitatively, brewers' spent grain is the main byproduct of the brewing process and currently it is used as animal feed. The objective of this study was to determine the physiochemical composition of the brewers' spent grain and its potential use in human food. To this end, brewers' spent grain samples were collected from a craft beer brewery located in the southwestern region of the state of Paraná, determining such parameters as moisture, ash, total proteins, lipids, crude fiber, carbohydrates and energy. The results revealed that the moisture and ash levels were 78.23 ± 1.45 and 3.76± 1.23g.100g -1 , respectively. The figures for carbohydrates, total proteins, total fats and crude fibers were 1.89±1.21; 4.89 ± 0.29; 2.67 ± 0.68 and 4.19 ± 0.56, represented in g.100g -1 respectively. The energy values obtained were 109.23± 4.23 kcal.100g -1 . As such, the conclusion can be drawn that brewers' spent grain can be used in both animal and human food. Keywords— Food, Waste, Agriculture, Bromatological Analyses. I. INTRODUCTION According to the Brazilian department of Agriculture (Brasil, 1977), every grain that is subjected to a malting process, i.e., the grain is subjected to partial germination and subsequent dehydration and/or toasting at appropriate technological conditions, should be called malt followed by the name of the grain. Malted barley, or malt, is one of the main raw materials used in the manufacture of beer (Reinold, 1997). In the first step of the beer manufacturing process, called mashing, two fractions are obtained: a liquid fraction (wort) and a solid fraction (brewers' spent grain), which is characterized as waste. For every hundred liters of beer produced, 20 kg of dry waste is generated, representing 85% of the total solid residue from the production process (Reinold, 1997). Brewers' spent grain is the brewing residue resulting from the initial beer manufacturing process and it is generated from the filtering of the wort (mixture of ground malt and water) before boiling. This spent grain is basically made up of the husks of the malted barley. Brewers' spent grain is predominantly fibrous (70 percent of dry weight) and proteinaceous (15 to 25% of dry weight), and it also contains lipids, minerals, vitamins, amino acids and phenolic compounds. Starch is the main source of glucose in the human diet, representing 40 to 80% of the total energy value in daily nutrition and being of considerable importance. Proteins are essential molecules for maintaining the structure and functioning of all living organisms and they have different properties and functions (Aliyu and Bala, 2011; Lima 2010; Robertson et al ., 2010). Since brewery waste has a rich composition of organic compounds with a significant nutritional value, it must be treated before it is released to the environment in order to prevent changes to the ecological equilibrium. As such, there is a great incentive to reduce the generation of waste or to promote its reuse in other processes. From the perspective of producing higher value added products and allocating the generated waste to more noble ends, industrial bioprocesses have presented themselves as a potential way of allocating these residues (Pandey et al., 2001), in addition to their potential applications in animal and human food (Mendonça and Oliveira 2012).