100% brown rice bread

This is a follow up to clazar123's post on gluten free rice shokupan.

The idea was to use very simple pantry ingredients to make a gluten free loaf with rice. This means: rice, water, salt, oil, sugar and yeast. A few days ago, I managed to make a simple loaf with soaked short-grain rice. Today, I made two loaves with brown rice, one short-grain, and the other long-grain.

Both loaves turned out well. They were denser than the loaf made with white rice, but that's to be expected. I did not detect any differences between short and long grain.

To make a 660g loaf - good for a 15X10X10 cm loaf pan*

*I only had a 20X10X10, so the loaf was quite short. I don't know if the recipe would work if it were double its height, therefore the recommendation above.

1. Soak 300g of brown rice in 300g of water for at least 18 hours.
2. The next day, blend the rice with all the remaining soaking water, 20g of oil, 4g of salt and 15g of sugar. Resist adding more water unless your blender is really breaking down. Even then, add water in extremely small increments.
3. The mixture will be quite warm after all the blending. It should resemble a rather thick paste that holds the figure 8 for a few seconds in the batter when the whisk is lifted. If the mixture is too runny, add a tablespoon or two of rice flour or cornstarch. If the mixture contains bits of rice, you need to blend the mixture further. If it still contains rice bits after subsequent blending, then sieve your mixture - the rice grains will not cook in the bread.
4. Let the mixture cool down slightly before adding 2g of yeast.
5. Let the mixture ferment till bubbly. At batter temperature 22 degrees, this took me about 1.5 hours.
6. Give this batter a mix, then add another 2g of yeast. Pour this into a buttered loaf pan and leave to rise at batter temperature of about 25-30 degrees if possible. You want a moderately quick rise here.

7. Let the batter rise by 2/3 of its height (this took me another 45 mins) and bake it at 175 degrees for 40 minutes. Let the loaf cool down completely before you cut into it.

   

To get a brown crust, you need to be brave enough not to use parchment paper. Just butter your loaf pan.

If you end up with a runny batter after blending, don't worry. Just add a tablespoon or two of rice flour or cornstarch and you will be OK. Here's the loaf that had a tablespoon of rice flour added to the batter. It used 100% white short-grain rice instead of brown rice. Take note: if you are using the recipe above for purely white rice, you will need to reduce your hydration slightly. Blend the 300g of white rice with 1/2 of the remaining soaking liquid and go from there. Whatever rice you use, err on the side of caution and aim for a thicker batter first, unless your blender starts smoking!!!

Notes:

1. I only have a very cheap stand blender that I use to make smoothies and spinach juice (for spinach pasta). Bought during my student days in the UK and took it with me to Belgium 7 years ago (and continue using till this day with an adaptor!) so it's as basic as it can get. This means that this bread will work for most mixers. I think you will have even better results if you have a good mixer.
2. Brown rice batter is way less starchy than white rice batter. When stirring white rice batter, there's quite some resistance, but with brown rice batter, it might be thick but there isn't the typical resistance you get with starchy mixtures. For that reason, it's important to make sure that the hydration of the brown rice batter is low enough, as there's less to hold it together.
3. Browning of the crust is essential. Do it by skipping parchment paper and butter your loaf pan instead. My pan has 3 vent holes at the bottom, which I covered with parchment.
4. I think it's possible to reduce the soaking time of the rice by using warm water. To judge whether your rice is ready to be blended, just crush one rice grain between your fingers. If it does not crumble, then soak it further.
5. It is completely possible to make this bread with just one rise - add all 4g of yeast to the mixture and rise it directly in the loaf pan. However, make sure that your batter is warm (25-30 degrees) during the rise. Take note that the bread will have a less developed taste.