Sweet Wort Bread

This is my second experiment with using beer brewing methods to make a bread.

This time I wanted to see how the flovor of hops would taste in a baked loaf. 

barley flour soaker. Leave at room temp overnight.

1 lb of malted barley of your choice... I used 90% special B and 10% chocolate malt. Place grains in a large pot and cover with water (no more than 2 cups) Slowly raise temp until it reaches 160F, then turn off heat, cover, and let sit for an hour. strain the liquid into a new pot. Save the spent grain for other fun stuff. 

add whole hops to the strained wort, and begin the boil. Boil for 30 minutes, keeping a loose cover on the pot to prevent evaporation. Allow to cool to room temp. Strain out the hops and your wort is ready to add to the dough!

Combine the flour, salt, sugar, and yeast. Whisk together. Tear up the soaker and add to the flour mixture. Add oil, wort and water. Mix until you get a ball, then transfer to stand mixer.

knead for 5 minutes, rest for 2 minutse and knead 2 minutes more.

Place dough in oiled bowl and refrigerate at overnight or longer if needed. 

On baking day: Remove dough from fridge and allow to reach room temp, about an hour. Stretch and fold and place back into bowl. After 30 minutes, do this again. ferment until dough reachews 1.5x original size. Divide into 2-3 pieces depending on size of loaves desired (I made two, but I think smaller loaves would be better for a more open crumb). Allow to proof for and hour. Preheat oven to 500F. Add water to steam pan, insert the loaves and reduce temp to 450. After 15 minutes, rotate and reduce temp to 350. Bake for 30 minutes or until center of dough reaches 200f. 

The finished bread had a moist, chewy sandwich bread texture. It is not very sweet. I does have a nice malt flavor and i can detect a little of the hop bitterness and flavor. I think I'll add more hops next time!

NOTE: all these amounts are approximate!

SOAKER

2 cups barley flour

a few grains of instant yeast

enough water to make a sticky paste (about a cup... I didn't take exact measurements.)

FINAL DOUGH

about 3 cups bread flour

2 tsp salt

3 tsp raw sugar

1 tsp instant yeast

1 tbsp canola oil

about 1 cup of cooled wort

about 3/4 cup water