Spent Grain Bread

Tom has embarked on his third batch of homebrew, a yet to be named IPA. Since he started making beer in September 2010 I've been wondering about using the spent grains for bread making. Since we are essentially making the liquid and baked version of the same thing (yeast, grain, water, sugar fermentation) it seemed like I should be able to make a bread out of what he leaves behind.

His current brew used crystal malt and toasted barley, and there were heaps left over. I did some research and found many other like-minded brewer/bakers. The recipe I ultimately adapted was from a site called Top Fermented. I made some adjustments here and there, with my final product being a large and lovely loaf.

Spent Grain Bread
Ingredients:
1 cup whole wheat flour
2-1/2 cups bread flour
1/2 cup spent grains
1/2 tsp kosher salt (after the tasting the bread, I'd go to at least a teaspoon next time)
1 Tbs yeast
1-1/4 (and a bit more) warm water
1 Tbs molasses

What to do:
Mix grains, flour, salt & yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the dough hook. Mix the molasses into the warm water and then add to the dry ingredients. Mix on low to medium low until dough comes together in a clump, pulling away from the edges of the bowl.

Put dough into oiled or buttered bowl to rise. As usual, mine went into the microwave which gets nice and toasty when the light underneath is on (my micro is mounted over my stove, so there is a light on the micro that illuminates the stove top).

Before the rise. You can see the grains in this dough.

 Total rise time was about 3 hours, though the bread was probably ready after 2. However, I was hungry and wanted to get to the store for some dinner items and lunch, so my dough waited patiently at home, along with the dog.

Top Fermented suggested to bake on a pizza stone (you can substitute a cookie sheet sprinkled with cornmeal) and putting a broiling pan on the next lower rack. When you add water to the preheated broiling pan the steam helps to create a good crust on the bread. I preheated my oven, pizza stone and broiling pan to 425 while I formed and shaped my dough, as described next.

Remove the risen dough from the bowl and, adding minimal flour, work the dough into the shape you want. I shaped mine into an oblong loaf. I put it back in the microwave for the final rise, about 30 minutes. The oven and stone preheated during this whole second rise.

The dough poofed up quite well in this second rise. Not a big surprise - the yeast to flour ratio in this recipe is pretty high. I made some slashes in the top of the loaf and slid it - on parchment - on to my hot pizza stone. I probably would have gotten a better bottom crust cooking directly on the stone, but it was easier to transfer the dough while it was on parchment. Next time I'd make 2 smaller loaves and skip the parchment. Once I put the bread in the oven, I poured about 1-1/2 cups of water into the broiler pan below the stone.

I baked the bread for 35 minutes and for once resisted temptation to sample it too soon. It helped that there was a Belgian Beer tasting that we wanted to go to, so I was physically removed from the good smelling, hot loaf.

 Back home after the tasting - some good beers and one that had a bit too much cheese-funk taste for my liking - we cut into the loaf.

It was perfectly cooked, with a pretty tight crumb. The chew of the crust is a nice contrast with the soft bread. It smelled kind of beery (no surprise). I liked the taste of it, though I'd increase the salt to a full teaspoon next time.  The salt level of this loaf  does lend itself to both sweet and savory toppings. I had to sample a piece with butter, then with some honey.

I realize not everyone has spent grains hanging around their kitchen. I think you could try using leftover cooked grains - farro, oatmeal, quinoa. Alternatively you could leave them out all together, or throw some uncooked oatmeal in the mix.

I think this would be a good recipe if you are interested in trying bread baking, but leery of the time commitment and have a fear of bread impotence (i.e problems with the rise). As I mentioned, the yeast / flour ratio is high, which provides a Viagra like effect. My total  hands-on time with this bread was about 10 minutes.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to have this bread with it's beer cousin unless I freeze some. I think the IPA is due to be ready in about 6 weeks. You can read all about that process at Tom's new blog Pitch the Yeast.

Peter Reinhart on bread

Do you know about TED?  TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a non-profit devoted to ideas worth spreading. It's kind of hard to explain TED - they host a couple conferences each year where the speakers, "the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers," are challenged to offer inspiring, thought provoking talks, in 18 minutes or less.

The short videos found at the TED website inform me and inspire me. I found this one recently Peter Reinhart on Bread. Reinhart is master bread-maker, teacher & theologian. who talks about the process of bread becoming bread. This talk reminded me that bread is more than just yeast, flour and water - it's a process of transformation.

I hope you like it, if it doesn't inspire you to bake bread perhaps you'll be a just a bit happier the next time you eat some.

Variation on No Knead Bread

While trolling around baking sites with my coffee this windy morning, I found some more information about No Knead bread. I like the additional details in this recipe and there are some good links at the bottom of Michael Ruhlman's post about this bread. I've got my eye on the whole grain recipe, as I'm still trying to incorporate more whole grains into my baking.

Here's the link to Michael Ruhlman, and his conversion to No Knead Bread.

Oatmeal Bread on a Snow Day

I can't say that the Groundhog Day Blizzard lived up to the hype. By early afternoon the snow was pretty well wrapped up. If I had to guess, I'd say we got 8-10 inches - a pretty standard Maine snowstorm. But...with work closed down for the day, I had the rare chance to do some mid-week bread baking.

Always a sucker for a good oatmeal bread, I decided to try a recipe in Good to the Grain for Oatmeal Sandwich Bread. The recipe included a step to let the dough autolyse - something I hadn't tried before. This step allows the water, yeast and dough a chance to rest after being mixed together. After this rest period (in this case, 30 minutes)  the dough is mixed or kneaded more vigorously. From a more technical perspective, autolysing helps the flour to hydrate and allows the enzymes to start working. All of this helps to make a good crumb.

Interestingly, most of the information I found about this process indicates that you mix the flour & water then let this mix rest, but it doesn't include the yeast or salt. The recipe I followed did include the yeast in the mixture, but not the salt.

Whatever the process, after autolysing (is that even a word?) the dough gets whipped around in the stand mixer for 6 minutes or so, resulting in a cookbook picture worthy, smooth, supple, lovely mound of dough.

The lovely dough, post autolyse, pre-rise.

Into the trusty and warm microwave for an hour to rise. Another rise once it's shaped and in the bread pan, again about an hour.

After the first rise, with a sweet little belly button!

While the bread baked, we headed out to our snowy world to do some clean up. The happy dog created multiple avalanches onto the walk I was trying to shovel. Between the dog-a-lanches and the snowblower jetsam, my initial efforts were un-done pretty fast.

The happy snow dog.

Back inside to the smell of baking bread, what could be better? Once done, the bread popped right out of the pan and went to rest on the rack. It was a lovely looking loaf, and difficult to resist for the "couple of hours" recommended by the cookbook. This rest time allows the flavors to develop more and prevents you from squashing the crumb by cutting into it too early.

Right out of the oven.

Yum.

We held out for about an hour (which is about 45 minutes than we usually do with fresh bread - major accomplishment!). Then, risking lasting damage to the crumb, we cut. We slathered - Kate's Butter again - and happily chewed away.This bread had a great crust - hearty and chewy, with a little crunch. The bread flavor had a smidgen of a sourdough taste to it. I had to use a bit of Rye flour, as I didn't have quite enough wheat flour. I don't know if I used enough Rye flour to influence the flavor. At any rate, one of the best Oatmeal bread recipes I've tried. Give it a whirl.

Oatmeal Sandwich Bread - From Good to the Grain, Kim Boyce.

Ingredients: 
1 package active dry yeast
2 cups warm water (I aim for 110 degrees or so)
3 tablespoons molasses (not Blackstrap)
2-1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups bread flour
1 cup rolled oats
2 oz (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 tablespoon kosher salt

What to Do:
Put the 2 cups of water, yeast and molasess into the bowl of a stand mixer. Stir and let the yeast bloom for about 5 minutes. If the yeast doesn't bubble, toss it and start over. Mix the flours and oats together, then add the melted butter and flour mixture to the yeast mixture. Stir together. Cover the bowl with a towel and let stand for 30 minutes (I put mine in a warm spot for this step).

While the dough is resting (this is the autolyse phase), butter a large bowl for the first rise.

Attach the bread hook to the mixer and attach the bowl to the base. Add the salt to the dough, and then mix on medium for 6 minutes. The dough should slap around the sides of the bowl, but not stick. Add a tablespoon or two of flour if the dough is sticking. After mixing 6 minutes, the dough should be soft and supple, slightly tacky.

Scrape the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead a few times. Put dough into the buttered bowl, cover with a towel and put in a warm place to rise (proof). The first rise will be about an hour, or until the dough has doubled in size. A dough is proofed when it has risen fully. To test this, poke your finger in the dough - if it springs back, it needs more time. If the dimple remains (see belly button picture), move on to the next step.

While the dough is rising, butter a 9x5x3 loaf pan.

To shape the dough, turn out on to lightly floured surface. Press down on the dough, forming it into a square, and pressing any air bubbles out. Fold the dough down from the top to the middle, then up from the bottom to the middle. Bring the newly formed top & bottom edges together and pinch the seam in the middle and seal it with your fingers.  Pinch the sides together and roll the dough back and forth, plumping it so it is evenly formed and roughly the size of the loaf pan.

Put the dough in the pan seam side down, and press the dough into the corners of the pan.

For the second rise, cover the dough with a towel, put it in a warm place and let it rise for about an hour. The dough should rise to half again its size, or just over the edges of the pan. During the rise, pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees.

Optional - once the second rise is done, sprinkle the top of the loaf with oats or bran (I spritzed with a bit of water so the oats would stick).

Bake for 40 minutes, rotating the pan after 20 minutes. The loaf is done when the top crust is dark as molasses and the bottom crust is dark brown. When thumped on top, the loaf should sound hollow.

Remove the loaf from the pan and cool on a baking rack for a few hours, to let the flavor develop and so the crumb doesn't collapse when it's cut.

No Knead Bread for a Cold Weekend

It seems like everywhere I turn, I see another recipe for no knead bread. While I don't think kneading is a particularly arduous step in bread-making, I've been intrigued by the idea of this bread. With temperatures predicted in the single digits and teens for the weekend, I figured that bread making would be a good plan.

The process started Friday evening, and I mixed the dough and had it rising by around 5:30. My dough rise location of choice these days is in the microwave. I'm hard pressed to find a place in my home (in Maine, in January) that is a constant 70 degrees. My micro sits over the stove, and has a surface light. When the light is on, the inside of the microwave gets pretty warm. I've never actually checked the temperature in there, but it feels about right.

What makes no knead breads so approachable is that the "active" time involved is all of about 15 minutes. Mixing the dough is un-fussy, then it can rise for 12 - 20 hours. After the first rise, you gather the dough together in a roundish form, plop it in another bowl for rise # 2 (about 2 hours). After the second rise, the bread bakes for about 45 - 60 minutes.

Though the active time is pretty minimal, this isn't a bake it on a whim kind of thing. But really, is any bread baking a spontaneous activity? Quite the opposite, it's more deliberate and planful, which is part of the appeal of it, to me at least. My timeline for this bread was about 20 hours - I started this bread Friday evening, we were sampling it around 1:30 Saturday afternoon.

The dough.

I was pretty happy with how my final product came out, but I have to admit, I was a doubter throughout the process. My dough was probably a bit too wet to start. Sometimes you just have that inkling when you are baking, that something may not be quite right, but then you employ a bit of denial, or faith, depending on your mood. After the first rise, trying to work with the gooey, amorphous blob did not leave me confident about the final loaf. I think I threatened the dough with the trash can at least once.

After the first rise. This rise was about 16 hours.

Ready for the second rise.

Things were not looking better after rise #2. Despite flouring the towel, a fair bit of dough stuck to it. Trash can was considered again as the final resting place, but I figured that at this point I had about 12 minutes of active time invested in the bread, so I thought that I might as well throw it in the pot and in the oven to see what happens. This is the faith part of baking.

Truth be told, my doubt remained even through baking. About half way through the baking time, you take the lid off the pot (this bread cooks in a pot, more about that in the recipe below). It may have been the ugliest bread loaf in progress that I've ever created. However at this point I was committed to a household cu/pu effort (clean up / pick up), and I wasn't quite done. Since I wasn't going anywhere, the bread stayed in the oven to finish baking.

When I took the bread out and moved it to a rack to cool, I was thinking, 'huh, a bit flat, not nearly as attractive as pictures of this type of bread I've seen. But hmmm... it looks worth trying.' I let it cool on the rack for less time than it should have (honestly, I admire those of you who can let baked goods cool for as long as the recommended amount of time). Then we sliced. We oohhed. We sniffed. We ahhed. Tom said, 'get the butter.' The butter, in this case, is  Kate's Homemade Butter It's made here in Maine and if you love butter (and what's not to love about butter?), give this a try.

Ok, so this bread wasn't necessarily glamor-shot worthy. It did have a nice crumb, some good holes, a passable crust. But damn, it tasted good. Give this recipe a try.


No Knead Bread
This recipe first appeared in the New York Times on November 8, 2006. It was adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery.

Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.
What to Do:
1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.
2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.  
3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
(A note about a change I made here - as you can see from the picture - I did the second rise a bit differently than the recipe describes. Since my dough was so wet, I was worried that left without any structure for this rise, it would seep and ooze and I'd have a dough that was Kansas-like in it's elevation. I put the dough on the floured towel, then put that into a bowl so it would rise up, rather than out.) 
4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.
Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.