black_labb
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I've been meaning to make some bread using spent grain for a while now, and finally got around to doing it on new years eve after brewing the night before. My only experience making bread was kneading some for my grandmother when I was a kid but it was easy and turned out very well. The only difficulty is the waiting when you let it rise twice.
I did a bit of research and recipe reading and came up with a plan. I didn't decide on a recipe as I'm hopeless at following recipe's without making it my own. Basically it seemed that I could follow a recipe for bread, add the spent grain and remove some of the liquid, and then add enough flour so that the dough wasn't sticking to the sides of the bowl.
In the end I used the following
3 heaped cups of spent grain
1 egg
1 tablespoon of butter
1/8 cup sugar
an unmeasured amount of breadmaking yeast (a couple tsp probably)
1/2 cup of milk
Roughly 4 cups of plain flour
There are some simpler recipes that ommit the egg and butter and use water instead of the milk. I expect ommitting these would make a lighter style of bread.
The process is:
1. Proof the yeast by adding yeast to some water and sugar, I used some spent grain with a touch of sugar and warm water
2. mix up everything but the flour and what is in the yeast starter
3. add the flour bits at a time while mixing it in
4. once the yeast shows activity ( something with kittens will happen) add it to the mixture and stir in
5. keep stirring and add flour until the dough no longer sticks to the side of the bowl
6. dust the bench top with flour and knead the dough
7. divide bread up into loaves/rolls and cover them with a tea towel until it rises to roughly double the size (about an hour)
8. knead the dough quickly again and put it into it's final shape. let it rise for roughly another hour. after 40 mins you want to get the oven on the preheat to about 220*c.
9. Dust the tops of the bread with flour and make any decorative cuts you would like.
10. Put the dough in the oven. for the right amount of time. Apparently an internal temp of 95*c is what you are aiming for. My small loaves (about the size of a baguette) were ready to come out after about 18 mins. My larger loaves took 15 mins at ~220 and a further 10 at about 180* (when I turned the oven down).
Notes
If you have a bread stone or something similar (I used some terrecotta tiles from under the house) cook the bread on that. Make sure to preheat them with the oven
Add some boiling water to a tray in the bottom of the oven when you put the bread in so that the bread cooks in steam. This will give a crustier crust. If you want a soft crust don't do this.
So how did it turn out
Fantastic!
The beer was a crystal heavy best bitter and the toffee sweetness from the grain came through very nicely and made for a very flavoursome bread. I did a double batch and was glad I did. It looked the goods too!
I did a bit of research and recipe reading and came up with a plan. I didn't decide on a recipe as I'm hopeless at following recipe's without making it my own. Basically it seemed that I could follow a recipe for bread, add the spent grain and remove some of the liquid, and then add enough flour so that the dough wasn't sticking to the sides of the bowl.
In the end I used the following
3 heaped cups of spent grain
1 egg
1 tablespoon of butter
1/8 cup sugar
an unmeasured amount of breadmaking yeast (a couple tsp probably)
1/2 cup of milk
Roughly 4 cups of plain flour
There are some simpler recipes that ommit the egg and butter and use water instead of the milk. I expect ommitting these would make a lighter style of bread.
The process is:
1. Proof the yeast by adding yeast to some water and sugar, I used some spent grain with a touch of sugar and warm water
2. mix up everything but the flour and what is in the yeast starter
3. add the flour bits at a time while mixing it in
4. once the yeast shows activity ( something with kittens will happen) add it to the mixture and stir in
5. keep stirring and add flour until the dough no longer sticks to the side of the bowl
6. dust the bench top with flour and knead the dough
7. divide bread up into loaves/rolls and cover them with a tea towel until it rises to roughly double the size (about an hour)
8. knead the dough quickly again and put it into it's final shape. let it rise for roughly another hour. after 40 mins you want to get the oven on the preheat to about 220*c.
9. Dust the tops of the bread with flour and make any decorative cuts you would like.
10. Put the dough in the oven. for the right amount of time. Apparently an internal temp of 95*c is what you are aiming for. My small loaves (about the size of a baguette) were ready to come out after about 18 mins. My larger loaves took 15 mins at ~220 and a further 10 at about 180* (when I turned the oven down).
Notes
If you have a bread stone or something similar (I used some terrecotta tiles from under the house) cook the bread on that. Make sure to preheat them with the oven
Add some boiling water to a tray in the bottom of the oven when you put the bread in so that the bread cooks in steam. This will give a crustier crust. If you want a soft crust don't do this.
So how did it turn out
Fantastic!
The beer was a crystal heavy best bitter and the toffee sweetness from the grain came through very nicely and made for a very flavoursome bread. I did a double batch and was glad I did. It looked the goods too!
