Gary Sowders

I currently get about 150lbs of spent brewers grain a week and dry it out for dairy goats and rabbits. If any goes bad I feed to the chickens. Well, the brewery is expanding in March and is anticipating producing 1500lbs. of spent brewers grain a week. With that in mind my wife and I are considering what to raise with the excess SBG. The obvious choices are beef cattle and hogs. We have the ability to pasture both. Being in NW Ohio, I'm leaning towards hogs just because they can be grown out in 5 or 6 months and wouldn't take up as much pasture and can be finished prior to the cold months of January and February. I've also read where people create compost beds and grow mushrooms.

For those of you familiar with spent brewers grain, my question to you would be, if given an extra 1500lbs. a week, what would you do?

My wife and I are thinking of buying a freeze dryer. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks for your responses. We are going to go with the Trojan flooded batteries.

Looking for peoples experiences and opinions on the sealed battery vs flooded battery debate. I'm about ready to purchase the batteries for our system and our consultant is pushing us towards sealed but most of my research says to go with flooded. His pitch for sealed batteries is that their cost have come down drastically compared to years ago. FYI, I am procuring my own equipment. I am not buying anything through our consultant nor does he sale any products.

Thanks

I completely forgot that there is a dormant gas well on the property. It stopped releasing enough propane to burn a wall mount heater in the barn about 10 yrs ago. We are going to see what our options are and have a driller come out and take a look at it.

Good thinking John! I've actually thought of getting a solar pump to pump out of the pond but never thought of windmill. I wonder if throwing an alternator on the end of the windmill would be beneficial?

We also have a creek which is becoming more of a stream. I would love to have a water wheel. But I doubt I'd get much constent movement without lots of rain.

I continue to appreciate the reply's. One reason for all the freezers is we used to sell rabbit and chicken meat off the farm and share alot with family. Since that has changed we now are culling some of our unneeded stock. Still being tied to the grid, its cheaper to freeze them than feed them.

Our motivation is self sufficiency. My wife and I both grew up in families that gardened and raised meat. 5 yrs ago we started our journey getting back to the land. Our oldest son was a typical ADHD poster child and after 1 yr of raising our own food he become an honor roll student and continues to get an academic excellence certificate each yr. After spending years as a stock broker, flipping real estate and trying to establish a nationwide fleet management company, I've come to be content with what the Lord has given me. I sacrificed family and friends for the almighty dollar. Enough was never enough. Money does not buy you happiness. It just makes you more greedy. I'm not against capitalism and I'm definitely not a socialist. I believe in community and taking care of those in need within that community.

I got the methane idea from a friend who works for DanaCorp. The US contractor that trains foreign governments and armies. He was telling me about how all these villages in the middle east and SE Asia all have centralized trash pits and cover them with tarps and run pipes from them into houses for cooking. It could be used to supply 3 families and several outbuildings. I like the idea of producing my own gas versus buying propane or adding solar panels to compensate for the needed energy. Plus, who knows what my boys will do when they get older. They plan to work in my business and will probably live close, maybe even build on the property.

Thanks

Thanks John, Tristan, Rebecca and Ann. I appreciate your replies and sharing of information. I have made a list of appliances and energy uses. That's why I started the thread. To see what others have done and to gain a better understanding of the sacrifices that will need to be made. I agree wholeheartedly that this transition will be a process. The family is on board with going off grid. They are starting to practice the"Turn the lights off if your not in the room". The boys do what they are told. They have daily chores before and after school and before bed. They help in the processing of the animals. They do more work each week than most adults do in this great welfare country we live in.

I have just started to look into gas tankless heaters. I'm still not sure about them. I need to look at what solar water heaters can do.

I never thought about the loss of energy in a stand up freezer. Good point. I'll definitely be looking at the links you sent John.

My wife has started to buy LED lights vs. the CFL. So that is in process. As far as the RMH, we have been putting it off. I was suppose to build one first in the barn to help keep the temps above freezing. Then progress to the house. Hopefully one will get built by the end of this year.

Passive solar cooling is a definite area I need to educate myself on. My wife has no problem going without an AC. The boys can camp in the basement on warm nights and as long as I have a fan, I'm good. Lighting is a challenge in the winter time. This year especially cuz we have had a very warm winter. We normally have snow on the ground for 3 to 4 months straight. This year I think we may have had 5 inches of snow and a foot or 2 of rain.

I'm stuck with a washing machine, especially since we have 3 boys. They are either in sports, doing chores or off in the woods. Our washing machine runs daily. Thank God my wife keeps on me about getting the clothes line repaired. The only time the washing machine doesn't run is the week they are at 4H camp!!! Even with overalls, the boys make a pile of laundry quick!

Water is the biggest area we have made strides in and continue to. We have spouting going into rain barrels for animal waterers and gardening. We have a couple natural springs that we want to encase. Unfortunately gravity does not exist in Ohio. It's F L A T.

Our average utility bill runs between $250 and $300 a month. Since I own my own business I can cover that cost in less than 3 hrs!

I have thought about a walk in freezer. But then again, once that compressor kicks in there goes that wattage. For canning, since it is energy intensive I am building a summer kitchen powered by wood and a solar oven.

If the boys were to move out today my utility bill would easily be cut in half if not more. That's why I'm more interested in cutting my usage than having 100 panels. They are more than welcome to build on the property but raising their family under my roof is unlikely. Luckily for them we have 75 acres.

Thanks for the input. Feel free to continue.

Gary

My wife and I recently started buying parts and pieces to start going solar. We live in NW Ohio. The highest month of energy usage is January at almost 2500KW. The least would be April and October at just over 1600kw. We have a small farm and 3 boys; 17, 14, and 10. The cheapest way to go full solar is to reduce energy usage. We currently run 2 fridge/ freezers, 2 deep chest freezers and 1 stand up freezer. The fridge / freezers, one is 2 yrs old and the other just over 5 yrs old. The freezers are all over 20 yrs old. Our plan is to start canning and smoking our meat to reduce the need for the freezers. We just added the stand up freezer due to having a good deer season this past fall. We have a new washer and dryer, both vertical axis. Both are electric. We hope to eliminate the dryer usage by revamping the clothes line and installing clothes lines and racks in the wood stove room for the winter months. Our water heater is 50 gallons and is electric. It does have an energy star rating for what its worth. We just converted the stove top to propane and the oven is electric. We do have a propane furnace which is only used when the fire in the stove goes out or we are not at home during the day. Which is only a couple times a week. We also have an AC but only use it when the house reaches above 80 degrees. We also have a pond and a water line coming into the house from it. The majority of the bulbs we use is CFL. On average, there are lights on in 3 - 4 rooms during night time hrs. We run 5 laptops and no desktops. 4 cell phones on chargers at night. We also have a submersible well pump.

As for the small scale farming we do, We run a brooder box from March till Nov. We are looking at a hot plate (66W) to replace the 250w brooder light. During winter months we run 2 trough heaters. Our electric fencing is solar. Lights in the barns are only on during feeding and milking times. Most of our shop tools are battery or air driven.

In our business we maintain fleets of diesel trucks. Part of the services include oil changes. Currently I sell my waste oil. I accumulate around 75 - 100 gallons monthly. I would like to run a generator using waste oil. Haven't even starting looking at this yet.

Our plan is to buy a large stand up freezer to replace the 3 freezers and the older fridge/freezer. We are looking at either instant heat water heater or moving back to propane. I haven't really researched solar water heaters yet. The oven in the winter only gets used a couple times a week and normally at low heat but for longer periods. In the summer the oven gets more to cook pies with fruits from the property. Would it be worth switching to propane. What uses can our waste oil be used for and what benefit will come from that?

Lastly, I have given thought of building a methane pit and get off the propane kick all together. That needs much more research. We have rabbit, chicken and goat manure. Getting some cattle within 12 months. I have a friend that has 500 head dairy farme a couple miles down the road and could get as much free manure as I wanted.

My goal is to get down to 1250 kw monthly. Any input, advise and direction would be appreciated.

Thanks

Farmergary