Philosophy of Food, Issue #010: Beer-Grain Bread

In addition to my culinary adventures, I also brew beer with a friend of mine.  I have not recorded recorded the details of my brewing endeavors for a number of reasons, and likely will not until I have a few more brews under my belt.  But, the two have overlapped.

Brewing requires the use of grain.  Mainly barley.  The grain is, however, removed before the yeast is added and there is no other use for the spent grain in the brewing process.  For my friend and I's first brew, we simply tossed out the spent grain (although I'm not sure we would have been able to use it for anything, as it was saturated with pumpkin).  I had the forethought to toss the grains from the batch we brewed last Sunday in the freezer.  Today I put them to good use.  I made bread.

The Ingredients
-3 cups of spent grain (I had a mix of victory and crystal malted barley).
-1 1/2 cups warm water.
-1 package dry bakers yeast.
-1/3 cup brown sugar.
-3-5 cups all purpose flour.
-Dash of salt.

The Process
Mix the brown sugar into the warm water and add the yeast.  Within a few minutes you should see a foam forming at the top.  This is called the krausen.  Put the grain in a large mixing bowl and pitch in the starter.  If you have a mixer, use it.  I didn't, so I went with a wooden spoon the start with.  I mixed in the flour 1/2 cup at a time.  The recipe I worked off of said to keep with the flour until the dough smooths out and stops being sticky.  For me this was after around 4 cups (8 1/2 cup portions).  If you're using a spoon, it will get to thick at around 2 1/2 or 3 cups.  At this point flour up your hands and kneed it in.  Transfer the fully mixed dough to a new bowl, cover it, and let it rise until it doubles in size.  At this point punch it down and split it into to bread pans.  Let it rise to double volume again then bake it for around 40 minutes at 375 degrees F.  The bread will be done when you stab it with something and the something comes out clean.

This grain went into our next brew, a Vanilla-Nut-Bourbon Brown Ale.

It looks kind of like a glass of beer, doesn't it?  But it's not.  The color comes from brown sugar and the foam is krausen: live yeast!

Dough!

Double dough!

The Results

Behold!  Bread!

This is the first time I've used yeast for something that isn't a beverage.  The results are. . . interesting.  It's not as gritty as a truly whole grain bread, but still has a good bit of crunch to it.  I had a few slices with my dinner, and I'll probably try it with peanut butter tomorrow.  I'm not unhappy with it, per se, but it isn't as amazingly delicious as some of the other things I've made (I'm looking at you, stoofvlees).  I still have enough leftover grain to try it again.  Or, maybe I'll fish up another recipe that uses spent brewing grains.  I know I've seen one for dog treats. . .