difference between cereals for humans and animals.

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Demy
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difference between cereals for humans and animals.

Post by Demy »

Is there any expert among you of great cultivation / distribution of cereals? I have a question I never found a "full and safe" answer: what is the difference between cereals destined for human consumption and those destined for livestock? From what I know the larger cereals / first choice are used for flours and other things for human feed while the rest is sold as feed .... is it really like this?
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RC Al
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Re: difference between cereals for humans and animals.

Post by RC Al »

Im just a casual observer as such, but i live rural, and know a few farmers.

Simple answer is - Sure is mate

The farmers have to jump through hoops to get certification for different standards based on what markets they want to sell in or who to. Things like fertiliser and insecticides used, to the moisture/fat/protien/oil contents. Then consider that brewing malts are grown to be brewed and have thier own set of targets. The methods used have to be tailored to the target consumer.

Naturally the bar is much lower for feed grade and is cheaper and easier to produce. Some farmers will do a crop of a particular feed grain as a part of a crop rotation - soil conditioning cycle.

Also naturally, if what they produce dosent hit a particular target, it will get sold at a lower grade. And then there is that bugger Muphey, neighbour of a friend is about to have to "get rid of" a bunch (120 tons!) of export grade barley, just due to market conditions, so some of that may end up in a feed bag somewhere, but it was sounding more like it was going to get dumped though, yes im on to it lols.
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jonnys_spirit
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Re: difference between cereals for humans and animals.

Post by jonnys_spirit »

I did a bunch of AG's recently and used all premium and boutique grains. It's in the barrel now so give me till next christmas but the early polls are in on the white being a bit more special than feed grain that I've used in the past. I'll still use feed corn for sure though... It's just too cheap to pass up and still quite tasty.

However, If I spend $35 on a #100 batch using feed corn plus some malts or $150 using more boutique corn and malts I still net about 3-3.5 gallons of bottle proof instead of $50-$80/750ml of commercial...

Cheers!
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i prefer my mash shaken, not stirred
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NormandieStill
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Re: difference between cereals for humans and animals.

Post by NormandieStill »

Round here the diffference is often simple one of "cleaning". If I buy human-grade wheat I get nothing but wheat. If I buy chicken-feed wheat it has straw, some mud, other seeds (often vesce by the look of it).
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Saltbush Bill
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Re: difference between cereals for humans and animals.

Post by Saltbush Bill »

From my understanding A grade high protein / starch = human consumption ...B grade lower quality .....Stock feed or other uses.
In short quality........ which can be affected by many things, harvested to late or early, Weather conditions like rain or lack of at the wrong times, plant disease or the lack of, ......the list goes on and on.
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Demy
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Re: difference between cereals for humans and animals.

Post by Demy »

As I thought. A few km from where I live there is a mill (I mean where the flour is produced) where you can buy some flours, I have often bought the same cereals that are processed, finally they also sell cereals for feed. I believe that fertilization and phytosanitary treatments are the same or am I wrong?
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