Ale and Asiago

This bread is the result of a coworker giving me a chunk of Asiago cheese and asking if I could make bread with it. A friends home brewed ale sounded like it would round out the flavors. It also has some agave syrup, and a little fresh ground pepper. 40% of the flour was in a sourdough preferment and 25% was sprouted multigrain along with AP and just a little WWW. It came out to 72% hydration with beer and water.

I can't say it is my favorite in terms of structure or taste. Got to figure out where those big holes come from, they were not planned and the crumb also has dense and too moist spots, maybe shaping is to blame. When tasting the cheese seems to have mostly disappeared even though you can see chunks of it I expected more out of assertive Asiago, it also has a slightly bitter aftertaste like it needed more sweetener. Oh well! I'll give the uncut loaf to the coworker everyone has there own tastes, maybe he will like it. I will also try it with the pot of beans that's for dinner, maybe it will go better with food instead of just butter.

The brownies in the background make up for the bread. The recipe came from Martha Stewart and it is the first time using melted bittersweet chocolate instead of dry Hershey Coco, makes a big difference. The only change made was the addition of some pecans. Decadent stuff if your into chocolate.  

Stu