Toast Ale

[ballantynedewolf]

I just came across this great environmental initiative Toast Ale - using waste bread to make beer eg from sandwich factories. It's made under licence in several countries now and the recipe is open source.
https://www.toastale.com/toast-ale-recipe/

Has anyone had a go? Can anyone suggest why it's necessary to dry the bread only to then mash it in water? Couldn't one more simply miss out the toasting step? It wouldn't be called Toast Ale then, I guess, but would it taste the same?

 

[manticle]

I can think of 3 reasons - gelatinisation (although without hydration first I can't see that working)* and easier to crush into more uniform crumbs for enzyme access.
Melanoiden formation will affect beer colour and flavour too - like munich, rather than pils malt for example.

Unless it tastes amazing, it feels about as waste free as turfing in the compost.

Making your own breadcrumbs or a pudding like bread and butter makes more sense to me (home scale anyway).

*Also the proving and baking process should have done some/most of this already - I am an (very) ex-chef, not a baker though so I may have ****** that up.