It's the Chief who brews the beer, not me. He really loves beer! I'm more of a Mojito gal myself…
Say, did you see the article in yesterday's New York Times food section about Mo-TEA-tos using this new sweet tea vodka? Has anyone tried that? I'm very suspicious of any attempt to adulterate the purity of iced tea with fancy-shmancy cocktail ideas, and I sort of think the rum is part of the tastiness of a mojito, but I admit I'm curious…
Aaaanyway, his beer is very hoppy and on the bitter side. In so far as I enjoy a few sips of beer, it's definitely my style. He gets a kit from the brew store nearby, but he's looking forward to branching out into his own recipes soon. It was he who suggested finding a use for the grains, and lo! there is such a thing as spent grain bread!
Since the grains are boiled and then steeped, but not for very long, I think they retain a lot of nourishment. If you don't happen to have a handy brewmaster around, you can use any soaked grain — leftover oatmeal would be great!
This time I decided to make my bread the “fermentation” way, which I've been very interested in, using a poolish. You can read about these things in this book that I borrowed from the library.
You can also google the terms and come up with lots of informative pictures and methods.
Now, the recipe I saw online called for a biga, but what I made was a poolish. It just happened that way, because they are not very different.
By the way, I think those two words, biga and poolish, are two of the silliest words I have ever come across. They don't sound like what they are or even the countries they come from. Poolish is what the French use to start bread, but it sounds…Polish. And biga is what the Italians use, but it sounds…Romanian. This drives me crazy. I'll just say starter.
One recipe I read for spent grain bread called for a soaker. Since I have been reading Nourishing Traditions (also borrowed from the library),
I was attracted to the idea of soaking the flour before using it. I don't have time to go into my conflicted thoughts right now about this book, but if you want to tell me what you think about it in the comments, I'd be very interested!
I wish I had thought to take a picture of the grain before mixing.
Now, I'm not going to give a recipe, because you can find one by googling it and it will be a lot more precise than what I do. I just have an outline in my head and proceed accordingly.
This is the starter,
which is an equal (more or less) amount of water and flour (2 cups each) and about a 1/4 teaspoon of instant yeast. For the soaker, I mixed about 2 cups of King Arthur White Whole Wheat flour with enough cold water to make a loose mixture, and left that to… soak. Then I washed bottles…
To make the dough the next day, I mixed the starter (minus about a 1/2 cup which I used to make more starter), the soaker, the spent grain (about 3 cups plus liquid), warm water, another 1/4 teaspoon of yeast, a small dab of mashed potatoes I had lying around, about 2 tablespoons butter, about 1/4 cup honey, 1 1/2 tablespoons salt, and enough unbleached white flour to make a loose, wet, not stiff, slack, sticky, and any other adjective you can find to prevent yourself from adding too much flour, dough.
Since this made a large amount of dough, I divided it into two batches and mixed each up in my Kitchenaid mixer. Here it is in my handy rising pan in the two lumps, doing the autolyse, a step I highly recommend, although these days I add the salt along with everything else and it doesn't seem to make too much difference. But resting the dough after mixing is crucial.
After the final integration (a short gentle knead) in the rising pan:
I put it over in this warm corner to get started fermenting. (The difference between rising and fermenting is explained in that book. It's all very chemical.) In the bowl is a bit of the poolish getting going with some more flour and water, for the next bread-baking adventure.
After a few hours I gently folded the dough and put it in the fridge until the next day, then let it rise in this spot (the dough will simply never warm up in my kitchen in February unless I do this).
Here it is partially risen.
I am particularly happy to see this gluten development:
Now it's fully risen and ready to be shaped into loaves:
Since I find it annoying to always scoop into my big, somewhat inaccessible flour bin for every little quarter cup I might need to make a roux or flour a board, I keep a jar handy for just that “intermediate” purpose. It gets grubby but I can close the cover tightly and wash it off before putting it away on the shelf.
Since this bread is quite hefty, I made 5 small loaves and one larger one. They sat on my floured butcher block and quietly rose as I heated the oven and otherwise puttered about.
I transferred them onto a preheated corn-mealed sheet (except for the big one, which I baked in a preheated floured pyrex dish) and scooted them into the 400* convection oven (this one was my first, test, one):
They baked at this temp for about 15 minutes for the small loaves. The larger one was 30 plus an additional 15 at 350*.
The bread is tasty and moist, with a good crust. It tastes a little like beer 🙂
It freezes perfectly and makes a great meatloaf sandwich!
Jen - Balancing beau says
my friend – we are so much alike. My friends always want my recipes and I am always nervous since I do it a bit different every time. This bread looks amazing, such a unique twist. I do want to know your thoughts on the book. I have heard it mentioned and thought of getting it…hmm…yes, the library – great idea. I haven't soaked my flour or my grain. I know it's supposed to be extra healthy. I have SO MUCH grain still in buckets…probably about 300 lbs. literally. Wish you were closer so I could share. 🙂
Freckled Hen says
A meatloaf sandwich on that bread sounds mighty delicious. I will share this post with my sister who brews her own beer and makes amazing bread. I am sure she will be as inspired by you as I am!PS You are very pretty in the picture below. So let me tally all this up…organized, amazing cook, mother of seven AND pretty? You are making me look real bad!
Erika says
This makes me want to brew beer just to make that bread! That looks so good, and I really appreciate all the detail about the process. That Nourishing Traditions book keeps coming up all sorts of places–I'm going to have to read it finally. Would be interested to learn your thoughts about it; most of what I've read is totally & completely, almost religiously, positive. Have to tell you: we have dial up at home so photos take a long time to load. So I read the text, then looked at the pictures as they finally popped in. I thought, "oh wow–she uses the exact same flour I do…interesting." Then I looked at the pictures, and recognized other things from my kitchen–that enamel pan with the lid…the butter bell…and that's not even getting into my mojito fixation 😉
Leila says
Jen: I SO wish we could share grain 🙂 It would be a lot of fun…FH: You are a dear. Erika: Sorry about the loading time; don't let it keep you away! We are clearly kindred spirits! Read that book and tell me what you think! Thanks to the commenters on the last post too! You guys are the best!
Lindsey in AL says
This looks LOVELY! I do love a good sour, chewy, crust bread. I just bought a sourdough starter online (I know I could make my own but it just wasn't going to happen) My first batch was terrible. I haven't given up. Probably because I spent $14 for the starter- that's too expensive for a one time experiment. I have read NT pretty much all the way through and I read a lot of things about that way of cooking. I am pretty well convinced but implementation is slow for a mom like me. The recent mercury in high fructose corn syrup has finally gotten us to give up that junk altogether and that has sort of jump started some of the other kitcheny things I've been putting off. Last night we had sprouted lentil sloppy joes (no meat at all) and they were FABULOUS! So easy and the sprouting was painless. I am going to start some pintos today and see how they go, so I can make some cowboy beans with my leftover pork roast. It's really not hard to implement the NT ideas, especially if you go slowly. I have always been partial to real foods anyway and that's what NT is all about- no fake food. It doesn't have to be expensive and the benefits are many. The hardest part is when you get involved in email groups and start finding out about new "issues" all the time- safe cookware, environmental toxins, etc, etc, etc. That gets overwhelming and the book alone can be pretty overwhelming.I'll warn you that the recipes are not all fantastic. Some are great, some are terrible. It's better as a primer on the basic ideas- lacto fermentation, sprouting, soaking, etc. Then use your own recipes and fix the things that are less than optimal, nutritionally speaking. I've had a pretty easy time converting my children. For one thing, I don't make separate dishes for picky eaters. And lately I have been educating them on the reasons behind our unusual food choices. They've been upset with the people who make that "poison food" (like Coke :D) but not at the messenger (me) who brought them the news.Wow. This is an awfully long "comment." I think I'll close now with my agreement with Freckled Hen- you are very pretty! I wish I knew what an eternity ring is- I feel badly that you can't wear your wedding rings! I had to have mine enlarged last year after baby #4 came along and 6 months later I still couldn't wear them. I hope you cna get yours fixed soon.Blessings!
Decadent Housewife says
Leila, We must have been separated at birth. 🙂
Sharinskishe says
Your dough and baked bread looks very yummy. At first I was thinking beer bread? I don't drink alcohol and have only cooked a roast in beer one time. It was good.But Spent bread would be like sourdough so if I can find some 'spendings' I would happily make some.Shari
Carrien says
Did you use hulled or unhulled grain? I've a bunch of spent grain I'd like to do something with, but it all still has husks on it. I'm not sure that would turn out well in bread.Any thoughts?
Leila says
Hi Carrien,The grain the Chief uses is what comes in the kit. It seems to have a lot of fibrous characteristics, but I asked him and he doesn't know aboutthe hulls. I would think the hulls would have to be taken off, but I really don't know!The bread was fantastic.
Carrien says
Thanks Leila. 🙂
Carrien says
Well, I made it, hulls and all, and it turned out fantastic.MY husband words, "You can definitely make this again."I think I'll put more flour in this time though, because I had to use a pan to keep the loaves from turning into puddles. Too slack I suppose.
Sarah says
This looks fantastic! My husband is hoping to begin making beer this winter and I've already been planning on making bread with the spent grain! There is also a similar recipe for spent grain bread in "Peter Reinhardt's Whole Grain Breads" book. Sounds like it might be a pretty similar read to the one you found at the library . . . I too have read NT and certainly appreciate it for what it is. Do I cook from it? Not so much. I've used some of the lacto-fermented recipes and how to make whey and am hoping to use it to make creme fraiche soon, but in terms of dinner? No. (They have a lot of Indian and Asian inspired cooking and we cook much more French, Mediterranean and American style food) What I do use it for is information and technique. And then I take it all in with common sense, logic and a grain of salt. 🙂 Reading NT has definitely made me change some of my purchasing and cooking habits (I'm cooking with coconut oil, butter and olive oil primarily along with my beloved bacon grease! No longer using shortening or any other vegetable oils. Plus we avoid all soy, MSG and HFCS) and I make a lot more of our food homemade these days to avoid fillers and just to eat real food, but I agree, there are those who are so focused on the nitty gritty of it all after reading NT that they can't just appreciate life and a good meal shared with friends and family, in the worry that something bad might be snuck in. Anyway, I just stumbled across you today from Elizabeth Foss' blog link to your pickles post. And I'm so glad that I did! Looking forward to further reading!Best,Sarah
Leila says
Sarah — Yes, this is my take on NT also.I have always tried to get "real food" and avoid things that go against common sense. I'm interested in the fermentation thing too, but too distracted to do it right, or maybe needing some real life examples to taste!Thanks for stopping by — come again! And good luck with the brewing and baking!
Ashley says
I love how balanced your take on food and feeding your family seems to be. I’ve read a number of books on nutrition, including Nourishing Traditions, and after a few years of being grain-free (Primal/Paleo) it’s hard for me not to get caught up in the their crazy fundamentalist attitudes towards certain foods. It’s crazy how easy it is in these circles to get caught up in which foods are “good” and “bad,” which can be very isolating. We’re still trying to find a balance and not make food into a false god which is hard for someone with an all or nothing personality like mine. 😉 Or maybe I’m just too easily influenced….I’d love to get to a point where I can enjoy a meal out or make my family homemade pizza dough without feeling guilty that we’re 1)eating wheat or 2) that it’s not “properly” prepared.