Friday, January 11, 2008

Beer = Liquid Bread...

This weekend is shaping up to be an interesting joining of good things!

I will brew Java Coffee Stout on Saturday, and then we will use the steeped grains in a bread following a recipe from Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads.

Part of the beer brewing process is to steep about a pound of crushed grains in warm water (155F/68C) for about 30 minutes. These grains would then normally be discarded (I usually compost them, but some will feed them to the birds), but this time we'll use them as the grains in a whole wheat bread.

The bread will be started tonight with a starter to soak the whole wheat flour. The bread will then be completed tomorrow after brewing the beer and adding the grains and other ingredients.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! I guess we were so busy eating the bread, we forgot to write about how great it tasted! The bread turned out great...with a nice open crumb and a crisp crust due to being baked artisan style (high heat, lots of steam, and free form loaf). Not only did it taste great, there was tons of fiber in it too thanks to the 100% whole wheat used (no white wheat was added) and all of the spent grains from the brewing.

We froze the leftover grains so we can use them another weekend when we bake again. Yum!!

Anonymous said...

Hi Kim,

Glad it worked out for you. I don't brew beer but have wondered about the impact of adding it to my home made bread. 100% wheat with a good crubm and (I assume) not overly dense is quite an accomplishment. Congratulations! If you care to post how the bread was made, I'd certainly be interested.

Barry

Jakob said...

Barry,

Good point on the recipe. I plan on making it again this weekend and will write up the recipe. It does involve an overnight leavening, but it's really not a difficult bread to make.