The Birth of a Biscuit

I’ve been on Blog hiatus the last year or so and it wasn’t on purpose. As most of you know, I’ve created a little tiny company called Purple Shamrock Farm. I moved to my tiny farm in August of 2016 and at first I was pigeonholed with the idea that all I was going to do was raise chickens. Chickens, chickens, chickens.

I had these grandiose plans that I was going to raise the perfect lavender orpingtons and make a boat load of money. I still laugh at that thought today and how much I have learned over the past year and even past few months.  

What I quickly discovered was that unless you’re a large production-type chicken farm, you’re not going to make ANY money off of chickens.  

Oh, you might sell a few dozen eggs here and there, but you can’t charge what it truly costs to produce that carton of rainbow colored eggs. No one in their right mind would pay $6 a dozen, at least, not around these parts.  

So, reduce the cost to $3 a dozen and take a loss – comforting yourself that you’re spreading goodwill to others and giving others a taste (a very good taste by the way) of what farm life is like. You watch with joy as people open their egg carton and marvel at the brown, peach, blue and even green eggs and feel a sense of pride that you helped make those happen.  

If one could live on joy alone, I would be absolutely swimming in profit. Unfortunately though, there is feed, medicine, bedding, and fencing to purchase so that is how the I.P.A. Bites (Incredible. Pupper.Appetizers.) got their start.  

I attended a concert this summer featuring the band Blue Oyster Cult. While I’m not exactly a huge fan, it was a fun break from regular and farm work and a chance to hang out with some friends, maybe drink a beer or two and just kick back.  

As I was sitting in my folding chair at the concert that summer evening with a group of friends, waiting for the band to start, another friend walked over and introduced me to a friend of hers that was just starting to brew for a new beer brewing company in Seymour, Seymour Brewing Company.

After some conversation, this friend’s friend and I discovered we’d been in the same high school class and that his wife was the pediatrician of my friends’ kids. He had a lot of spent grain from the brewing process that he didn’t want to just toss out and wanted to know if I’d be interested in feeding it to my chickens.

Free feed? Absolutely! I was all about it. I picked up my first “supply” a week or so later and watched as my flock gobbled down the damp grains. The next four days I picked up three 5 gallon buckets each night and suddenly was starting to worry that I wouldn’t be able to use all of what I was being given.

I was in the shower one morning (all the best ideas seem to come from the shower) when I thought DOG TREATS! Somewhere in my experiences and maybe just a little dreaming too, I remembered hearing that people had made dog treats out of spent brewing grains.

Immediately I went to the web and looked up recipes.  I found one that worked so well with my farm that I actually got tears in my eyes. The recipe only had four ingredients in it; the spent grain, eggs (uh, hello?), all- purpose flour and peanut butter. Oh yes!

I created the first batch of biscuits that evening and took samples to work the next day to coworkers to feed to their pooches. I think the coworkers were confused because I had always been only about the chickens and the biscuits looked a little strange with the grains poking out all over. I also was baking the biscuits on a dark pan which I found out later turns the baked goods dark (stop laughing baker people).

I wish I had photos of those first biscuits – I’m sure they looked less than appetizing, but the dogs LOVED them so I had a feeling I was on to something. I could make a little money on the side to help pay for the farm and its operations since the egg thing wasn’t exactly panning out.

A few days later I approached the owner of the Seymour Brewing Company and proposed what I was hoping to do with the dog treats. As I shook with the uncertainty of what he would say (I hope he couldn’t see my nervousness), to my amazement, he agreed to sell the biscuits in his brewery and the start of I.P.A. Bites was born.  I couldn’t believe it.

Fast forward to two months later and I’ve created hundreds of the treats to satisfied puppers in the area.

I haven’t been able to fully fund the farm operations just yet on the sale of the biscuits, but hopefully that’s on the horizon. It’s difficult working a 40 hour a week job on top of trying to start a small business on the side and take care of the farm as well. With a little planning and a lot of luck, the I.P.A. Bites will carry Purple Shamrock Farm to its next endeavor.