September 17, 2012 - 6:41pm
Hello from Wi! AI Grad & professional baker
Hi! I'm a professional baker living and working in Northern Wisconsin. Currently employed at a brewery/resturant baking all the breads, pizza dough, & pretzels using the spent grain from the brewing process!
Happy to meet you!
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I recently moved to Florida from Illinois so I am jealous of you because fall is my favorite time of year. Oh well. Even being a professinal baker this website is great to ask questions, show off creations, and just see different techniques and tips. Welcome to the site!
HI--I know your original post is several years old, but just in case... I'm a baker and will be living near a soon-to-be brewery. The brewer asked if I would like to use their spent grains for bread. Am thrilled to but am looking for tips, suggestions, formulas, any help at all on how to incorporate this new (to me) ingredient. Thanks (hope you see this)!
"spent". so while they can be a nice addition to a bread I don't think one can make bread out of them. So treat them like extra added ingredients like nuts, herbs and spices.
A quick websearch and I got this http://byo.com/hops/item/714-great-bread-from-spent-grains
Something to start you off.
Thank you AbeNW11! That's exactly what I will do. It sounds like although the grains are "spent" they still have some flavor. May try to incorporate some of their beer, too. Looking forward to testing.
Treat them like adding a non gluten flour to a normal bread recipe. Better way of understanding it then nuts, herbs etc.
So I think adding about 10% of spent grains to normal recipe will add depth of flavour. I imagine it'll taste malty.
Enjoy experimenting. Looking forward to seeing your breads.
Thanks! I plan to incorporate it into my basic sourdough recipe. Have used soaked and sprouted grains, dried grains, and seeds in various loaves with success. Always looking for new ideas and "flavors."
Thank you for your advice! I actually add 200 grams of wet mash to a kilo of flour. The loaves were lovely. Mild flavor, but very nice. For some reason the crust burned (but truly added a positive note), not sure if something happened with the oven or if the mash was the cause. Baking again tomorrow to test. Hope this wasn't beginners luck.
10-20% sounds fine if we're treating them like non gluten grains. So 200 grams is a good amount. Did you have to alter the hydration of your usual recipe because you're adding in wet mash? Or did you just go for it and do a higher hydration bread? I'm positive this wasn't beginners luck and your next bake will be as good if not better. I'm curious as to the flavour. Not so easy to get hold of these spent grains from beer making unless you make your own beer or know someone who does. I wonder what the nutritional value is...
Yes, I did alter the hydration. I made three batches in total—didn't mention one batch because it was an absolutely puddle and near impossible to work with (it was a test so I just wanted to see what would happen if I kept to regular formula). I baked it anyway and it looked like a large cowpat...but it had a nice open crumb. The chickens got that batch. Third batch was lovely. Again, mild flavor. I am torn between squeezing all the liquid (I'm told it's called wort) out or leaving it in for flavor (?). Have to really pay attention to hydration. The spent grain was wheat and three barleys. Yes, I know the person who is opening the brewery. Nutritional value? I'll have to have a beer and think about that.
The sludge by-product from beer brewing is called barm. Barm has live yeast in it and was the precursor of commercial yeast. It can be treated very much like a sourdough starter. I've been looking up spent grains and they seem to be dryer then you're describing. What you have sounds like a mixture of spent grains + barm. It should be live!
You can probably make a beer bread out of it and not just using it for flavour. Do you wish to try an experiment? Are you familiar with sourdough?
These are sourdough loaves. Have thought about using beer instead of water.
So the process will be the same.
Make a pre-ferment with the "sludge". Mix the barm with flour.
IF... the next morning it is nicely and bubbly, like a starter, then proceed with your recipe (just minus the sourdough starter this time).
It'll be a barm bread. Abandon if barm starter appears inactive.
i.e. replace your sourdough starter with barm starter. However i'm curious if it's wort or barm you have. If it's barm then go ahead. If it's wort then just add it as the liquid in your dough but it will still need added yeast or sourdough starter.