Breaking new ground with "mash breads"?
Ok, so I've seen alot of info online about "mash breads" with different flours, and "spent grain breads", but I'm wondering if there has been more experimentation with "mash" breads using roughly milled, MALTED grains such as barley, rye and wheat. Not flour. Heating them up to ~150 for about an hour or longer, in order to bring out the maximum amount of sugars from the grain. In reading about how to make whole grain breads taste good, this seems the optimal route, both health wise, and taste wise. I haven't seen much info on this, other than with spent grains (in which most of the sugars have already been lost), and methods using diastatic malt powder, or just wheat flour, which just seems to be less interesting,and also less practical and healthful. Any info out there on this?
Bob
if you put "spent grain" in the search box above you will see a lot of posts where people have made bread with these by products. I didn't dig into the posts for more than a minute - but I would think on some level they wouldn't taste as good as lots of the flavor compounds have been extracted out. Guessing you would need to add sweetner and herb/nuts to get anything approaching a typical loaf. or blend in say 1/3 spent with 2/3 regular flour.
Some of the pics show nice looking loaves, but not seeing much in terms of how they taste - granted I only looked at a couple of posts....
I have not tried "spent grain" bread making, however I have recently made a bread where we mashed the grains in 150 degree F water, and used the sweet water and grains in the bread. It was delicious. I am just befuddled that with as many spent grains recipes there are out there, I haven't seen more people try this NON spent grain method. Lots of different varieties of roasted malts out there available, and it seems to really enrich the bread with a nice sweet roasty flavor, dark color, and fibery richness from the coarse grind.
Bob
Try entering "mash" in the search box. A few years ago, there was a discusion on this. Ananda may have been one of the contributors so you might try searching his posts.There was a "how to" portion on how to keep the mash at proper temp for the period needed to properly develop the flavors-that is a tidbit I remember.
I believe one of the popular authors (Reinhart?Hammelman?) had a chapter on this topic also-I just don't remember which one as I never used the info-it was just of minor interest to me at the time.
I am interested in hearing more about using spent grains in a loaf. Perhaps I am probably looking for a lazy way to incorporate more flavor.Currently I use preferments,long rises and natural levain and small amounts commercial yeast to encourage flavor development. It would be interesting to use spent grains as an additive.
The grains I have seen for sale at a local brew store would be quite expensive for bread making. Maybe that is the local market. Spent grains , on the other hand, are given away.
I checked out some old posts by ananda, thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I do agree that the homebrewing grains are a little pricey, but the results are way worth it to me. I suppose if you're a homebrewer it'd be a little more practical. You don't need much in a loaf to get significant flavor and color. Spent grains being given away - I'd also be wary of how old they are. Doesn't take long for those to get .... ripe.... to put it lightly. Wouldn't want any off flavors in my bread.
Bob