March 27, 2015 - 1:26pm
Beer bread creates controversy
Differences of opinion on this 4-day beer bread with a somewhat burnt crust. I love it. Somehow right that I should make this one as the final bread before Passover, as both leavening and beer are forbidden during the holiday. Also a cosmic synchronicity with reading about both bread and beer in Cooked (Michael Pollan's book) during the four days of developing the dough.
One question remains, which is whether beer means more longer bulk fermentation times or whether I have other forces at play, those being cool room temperatures and unripe starter.
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For my first attempt at baking any kind of bread ever, I had a devil of a time making a sourdough starter. I had the bright idea to add some beer (for the natural yeast) and honey (to nourish the microbes) to the starter. It was not even close to being a proper sourdough starter, and there was no way it could have raised a loaf, but just to get my hands dirty I added some flour and baked it. Sure enough, it didn't rise and it was this flat, dense thing, but it was delicious! It wasn't the San Francisco sourdough I was aiming for but it had the most interesting flavor of any bread I've ever had.
Maybe I'll try making it again some day. I don't know if I could duplicate it. I could leave it unleavened or add a little yeast to get it to rise. Now I make a pretty good San Francisco sourdough with a real starter, but my beer-and-honey bread was a work of art.
I've never had any issues with beer effecting the timing of my breads. I just recently made a bread with beer that I will post this weekend and followed my normal schedule without any changes.
My guess would be a sluggish starter as whenever I have used beer as either part or all of the liquid it has behaved pretty normally. However, I wonder if different beers have different effect. My favourite is a dark beer - either my home brewed Woodforde's Nog (a dark stout like beer from a kit), or good old Guinness. Could the hoppiness of an IPA have an effect? Would the bittering compounds in hops affect the yeast, or would the alcohol content - 7.1% is a strong beer?
Sorry for more questions than answers!
I agree with what has been said. I do beer bread with my sourdough starter often and the rise times are similar to my other non-beer recipes.
My husband did not love the hoppy taste in the bread of the IPA, though I did not notice that. I will definitely pour in a different kind of beer next time. I think the comments are correct about the sluggishness being due to the starter. The starter was (a) cold and (b) hungry, so that the rising was amazingly slow. I was distracted and forgot to take the starter out and feed it hours earlier.