Bran amino
This is part of our series on upcycling milling by-products.
Table of Contents
i. Better than bran flakes
A bland and dusty powder, wheat bran isn’t all that appetising.
However, mixing it with water and treating it with a simple enzyme cocktail transforms the previously bland bran into something quite remarkable, that is a lot tastier than bran flakes.
The result is a liquid full of free amino acids, slightly sweet and umami-rich with hints of rye bread-like flavour, that is also highly nutritious, containing protein and micronutrients. Somewhat akin to a shōyu (soy sauce), it could be used as a condiment, or as an ingredient in sauces, stews, stocks and other dishes to give extra body and oomph. Since eating more plant-rich diets is an important strategy for mitigating climate change in most places, ‘umamifying’ more plant foods to be as rich, savoury, and satisfying as animal products is a key challenge for the dietary green transition.¹ Products like the bran amino can be part of the solution.
This product is quite comparable to a shōyu, but isn’t made with kōji. It also shares a lot of features with garums, or at least what many people now refer to as ‘garums’ as popularised by Noma, though also differs in important ways—for example by being much lower in salt. We think it's important to both honour traditions and take care not to call something that it isn’t. In a future essay, we intend to explore what’s at stake with naming novel fermentations and upcycled products. For now, we’ll stick with ‘bran amino’.
Since this recipe has such great commercialisation potential, and probably makes most sense to implement at the commercial scale where most bran is produced, we won’t share it here. If you might be interested in collaborating to explore commercialisation or are just curious about the impact that products such as these could have, read on.
ii. Endless potential
We think this is a perfect example of how food innovation can unlock the potential of an abundant and otherwise tasteless by-product, transforming it into a range of flavourful products suitable for different uses.
We already mentioned that about 90 million tonnes of wheat bran are produced globally each year in our introduction to milling by-products.² Whilst developing our prototype recipe, Kim yielded about 1kg of bran amino from every 1kg of dry bran (with the addition of water and the enzyme cocktail, and not including the resulting solid presscake by-product—more on that later). No doubt that yield could be even more efficient if developed further and performed at an industrial scale. Even if not, that’s potentially 90 million tonnes of bran amino that could be produced each year, without growing any more food than we already do. That’s about 11kg of bran amino for every person on the planet or 30g—2 tablespoons—per person per day. Whilst we’re not suggesting that all the bran in the world must be turned into aminos, or that everyone should be forced to consume it regardless of their culture and preferences, these numbers show how much untapped potential there is in the food system and how better utilising even a fraction of some by-products could potentially go a long way to bridging the ‘umami gap’ if more people shifted to eating more plant-rich diets.
‘That’s about 11kg of bran amino for every person on the planet or 2 tablespoons per person per day’
When developing the prototype bran amino Kim used a typical wheat bran, milled from an unnamed, presumably industrially-produced variety of wheat. The result was delicious, but we feel we’ve barely scratched the surface of its potential. Kim’s R&D shows that brans from different varieties of wheat and different types of cereal crops can, as one would expect, be used to produce aminos with different flavour profiles. We can’t help but marvel at the potential of aminos made from diverse varieties of oats, corn, rice, rye, millet or even pseudocereals like buckwheat, amaranth or quinoa. More speculatively, we also wonder how the agricultural practices used to grow cereals might impact the flavour of aminos made from them. Could bran aminos, like cereals, even have terroir?
We’re excited by all these possibilities. We imagine a future in which any mill that produces flour could potentially produce their own in-house bran amino, or send that bran to be processed nearby, to produce different types of amino, at different scales and price points, serving different culinary purposes. Aminos made from commodity grain bran milled at large industrial mills could be mass-produced to simultaneously tackle waste and umamify plant products at scale, whilst happily coexisting alongside smaller-batch craft-made aminos produced by smaller mills milling diverse cereal varieties—like microbreweries but for aminos. Both scales have value. Bran aminos could be prepared in different ways with different brans and for different applications, for example by experimenting with adjusting salt levels, and different methods for processing and ageing.
Using the amino as a seasoning is a great way to add more umami to plant-rich diets. We could also see it finding impact if used as an ingredient in plant-based meat analogues, proving the umami flavour that many plant-based products are missing that has limited their popularity with many eaters. One way could be to adapt traditional products like seitan, flavouring them with bran amino, potentially even using bran milled from the same wheat as the flour used to make the seitan. This is something Kim has already been exploring. Another way to do this would be to incorporate the bran amino into ‘whole cut’ meat analogues made through the extrusion of plant ingredients. This is a promising area of research that we hope to explore further in the future.
Bran amino can be used to add umami and savoury depth to plant-based dishes—in this case, making this chickpea stew even more rich and delicious.
Finally, even the solid by-product of making bran amino has untapped potential. This presscake can be used as part of a mixed substrate (with sawdust and other ingredients) to grow mushrooms on. We also wonder if it might be possible to develop other foods from this solid by-product? We do love a bit of second-order upcycling.
Indeed the full potential of most upcycled products might not be realisable unless we redesign food production systems along principles of industrial symbiosis, such that the by-products of making one product are used as an ingredient in the next, all in co-located production facilities. We will explore this related idea further in a future essay.
The possibilities really are endless.
iii. A call for collaboration
Hopefully, you’re now as excited as we are about the potential that bran aminos and products like them have.
We’re looking for collaborators. If you or anyone that you know are producing tonnes of bran (literally) that you don’t know what to do with, and have the interest and/or ability to invest in industrial production, we invite you to reach out to our R&D Chef Kim Wejendorp at kimwej@biosustain.dtu.dk.
We look forward to hearing from you and bringing everyone their daily 2 tbsp of bran amino together!
Contributions & acknowledgements
Kim performed the original culinary research and development for the bran amino. Eliot wrote the article in discussion with Kim, with contributions and editorial feedback from Josh.
This recipe has roots in Kim’s previous work as Head of R&D at the former Amass Restaurant in Copenhagen. Thanks to Amass for facilitating such trailblazing work in culinary upcycling and holistic sustainability.
Eliot photographed the bran amino and the chickpea stew.
Endnotes
[1] Ole G Mouritsen and Klavs Styrbæk (2020), ‘Design and ‘umamification’ of vegetable dishes for sustainable eating’, International Journal of Food Design.; Walter Willett et al (2019), ‘Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems’, The Lancet. cf. this is not universally true, for example Aviaja Lyberth Hauptmann's work highlights how 'plant-based' foods as dictated by western institutions are not food culturally appropriate in Greenland.
[2] Oluwatoyin Onipe, Afam Jideani and Daniso Beswa (2015), ‘Composition and functionality of wheat bran and its application in some cereal food products’, International Journal of Food Science and Technology.
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