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Einkorn and Sleeping Giant Brewery Spent Ale Grain Sourdough with Sultanas

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

Einkorn and Sleeping Giant Brewery Spent Ale Grain Sourdough with Sultanas

I was looking through cookbooks for inspiration and found this recipe in Vanessa Kimbell’s The Sourdough School - The ground-breaking guide to making gut-friendly bread. I altered the ingredient list slightly by adding yogurt and changing the hydration. She uses a whopping 83% so I reduced the water since I really didn’t feel like dealing with goop. My final hydration was 73%. However, this doesn’t account for the water/beer retained in the spent grains. I also increased the salt and the levain slightly, and used my usual dough making procedure.

 

 

As to finding the spent beer malted grains, I sent a message to the local brewery that provided the stout for last week’s bread, and they let me have spent grains at no charge! Bonus!!! Since I have a couple extra loaves this week, I think I’ll drop off a loaf as a thank you. 

 

Recipe

 

Makes 3 loaves

 

Dough:

700 g strong bakers unbleached flour

300 g fresh milled Einkorn (300 g Einkorn berries)

700 g water

30 g yogurt 

22 g salt

200 g spent beer malted grains (Sleeping Giant Brewery)

200 g sultanas 

250 g of 3 stage 100% hydration levain (procedure below)

Wholegrain flour as well as unbleached flour to feed the levain

 

Two mornings before:

  1. Take 2 g of refrigerated starter and feed it 4 g of filtered water and 4 g of wholegrain flour. Let sit at cool room temperature for the day. 

 

The two nights before:

  1. Feed the levain 20 g of water and 20 g of wholegrain flour. Let that rise at cool room temperature for the night. 

 

The morning before:

  1. Feed the levain 100 g of filtered water and 50 g of wholegrain flour as well as 50g of strong baker’s flour. Let rise until doubled (about 6 hours). 
  2. Place into fridge until the next morning. 

 

The night before:

  1. Mill the Einkorn berries on the finest setting of your mill or measure out ready bought whole grain Einkorn flour if you don’t mill your own.
  2. Place the required amount of the Einkorn flour in a tub and add the unbleached flour to it. 
  3. Cover and set aside.
  4. Measure the spent grains and sultanas. Mix together and refrigerate.

 

Dough making day:

  1. When ready to make the dough, take the spent grains/sultanas mixture and the levain out of the fridge to warm up before being used in the dough.
  2. Using a stand mixer, mix the water with the flours, and mix on speed 1 until all the flour has been hydrated. Let this autolyse for a couple of hours. 
  3. Once the autolyse is done, add the salt, the yogurt, and the levain to the bowl. Mix on speed one for a minute to integrate everything, then mix on speed 2 for 9 minutes.  
  4. Add the spent grains and sultanas to the mixing bowl, and mix on speed 2 until they are evenly distributed. This will take a couple of minutes. 
  5. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and place in a lightly oiled covered tub. Let rest 30 minutes in a warm spot (oven with light on). 
  6. Do 2 sets of stretches and folds at 30 minute intervals and then 2 sets of sleepy ferret folds (coil folds) at 45 minute intervals, and then let the dough rise to about 30%. It should have irregular bubbles visible through the sides of the container and  bubbles on top as well. This particular dough rose quite quickly and was ready 45 minutes after the last coil fold. 
  7. Tip the dough out on a bare counter, sprinkle the top with flour and divide into portions of ~800 g. Round out the portions into rounds with a dough scraper and let rest 30 minutes on the counter. 
  8. Do a final shape by flouring the top of the rounds and flipping the rounds over on a lightly floured counter. Gently stretch the dough out into a circle. Pull and fold the third of the dough closest to you over the middle. Pull the right side and fold over the middle and do the same to the left. Fold the top end to the center patting out any cavities. Finally stretch the two top corners and fold over each other in the middle. Roll the bottom of the dough away from you until the seam is underneath the dough. Cup your hands around the dough and pull towards you, doing this on all sides of the dough to round it off. Finally spin the dough to make a nice tight boule.
  9. Sprinkle a  mix of rice and all purpose flour in the bannetons. Place the dough seam side down in the bannetons. Let rest for a few minutes on the counter and then put to bed in a cold (38F) fridge overnight. 

Baking Day

  1. The next morning, heat the oven to 475F with the Dutch ovens inside for 45 minutes to an hour. Turn out the dough seam side up onto a cornmeal sprinkled counter. Place rounds of parchment paper in the bottom of the pots, and carefully but quickly place the dough seam side up inside. 
  2. Cover the pots and bake the loaves at 450 F for 25 minutes, remove the lids, and bake for another 22 minutes at 425 F. Internal temperature should be 205 F or more.

They baked up nice and dark! 

Comments

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

Benito's picture
Benito

Your bread always look great Danni.

Benny

ifs201's picture
ifs201

They look great - of course! Does adding spent grains result in a porridge bread? The combo of ale and sultanas is interesting! 

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

had a texture similar to coarse coffee grounds. They smelled and tasted quite sweet so not sure what Ale they came from. They were not porridge like at all. I expected some liquid to be at the bottom of the container but there was none. They were very well drained. 

I wondered about the combo too but after tasting the grains, I felt they would be a good match. I’ll know more when I cut a loaf and try it. 

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

No complaints here! Very pleased with this crumb!

Benito's picture
Benito

Super crumb Danni, as always with your bakes.

Benny