Spent Grain Bread - Attempt 1 and 2

I got quite a bit done over the past couple days.  Yesterday I transferred the American Pale Ale into secondary and made about 30 yeast slants that are now ready to be inoculated.  Today we bottled the Rye-rish Red Ale which should be ready for consumption in about two weeks.

Anyways, onto my next topic for the day.  I am a baker by no means, but I try.  The latest attempts were a couple loaves of spent grain bread.

The recipe I used for the spent grain bread was fairly straight foreword:

3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup wheat flour
2 tsp salt
1 packet yeast
3 cups spent grain (ground with a food processor)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
1 egg (beaten)
milk
cooking spray

Mix flour, salt, yeast, spent grain, sugar, olive oil, and egg.  Depending on the consistency of the mixture at this point, you may want to add a small amount of milk or a small amount of flour.  Aim to keep the total amount of milk under 1 cup.

Lightly flour a counter top and knead dough for 10 to 15 minutes.  Shape into ball and let rise in a bowl that has been sprayed with cooking spray for 90 minutes.

Punch down, divide (or shaped as desired), and let rise for 60 minutes.

Score tops of loaves, preheat oven to 350 F and make loaves for 40 to 60 minutes.  Spray the top of the loaves with water before baking in order to achieve a crispier top.  Let cool on a drying rack for 60 minutes.

My first attempt at this did not go so well.  That go-around I will blame on my inexperience.  I had never baked a bread before and I was not sure what the consistency of bread dough should have been so what I ended up baking was a bit too wet.  When it came out, it was much too doughy on the inside.  Completely raw.  On the bright side, the bread had great flavor, so I decided to try it again.

After getting some pointers on doughs, I was ready for another attempt.  This time I did a lot more kneading and added a bit more flour.  These came out quite a bit better.  I got a little anxious and cut into it early (only about 20 minutes after baking) and it was still quite doughy.  As the night went on, it got better and better.  I cut into a loaf a day after baking and it was delicious.

I plan on baking the bread as normal at least one more time.  After that I want to try a few other things, one being a cinnamon-raisin bread (this is a very dense bread that lends itself to this very easily).  Another thing I may try will be adding some herbs, possibly a rosemary, olive oil bread.  I also want to explore the possibility of substituting beer for the milk and yeast off of the fermenter for the packet of yeast.  If anything turns out, I will post the results here.





Primary: None
Secondary: American Pale Ale
Carbonating: Rye-rish Red Ale