Sourdough Stories, Part 14: Homebrew Beer Bread!

If you've been around a while, you know The Hubs is a homebrewer.  We've been making beer since before we had Lil' Man (mostly him--I help with cleaning and any tasks that require an extra set of hands).  Which got me curious: I know there are plenty recipes for "quick" beer breads, but what about a SOURDOUGH beer bread?  The Googles sent me to King Arthur's recipe, which calls for "malted flaked wheat".  

But we're HOME BREWERS.  We don't need King Arthur's fancy-schmancy stuff, right?  I hit up the local homebrew store to talk with the owners.  At which point they informed me that they carry "flaked wheat", and "malted wheat"...but had never heard of "malted flaked wheat".  After some more Googling, we realized that this ingredient is apparently an invention of King Arthur, and at $17/bag, they're quite proud of it.

We deliberated over the benefits of going with one or the other: the flaked wheat would be closer to the texture, but the malted wheat would provide a more malty flavor. I decided flavor was more important (because the cracked wheat would add it's own, interesting texture).  Then they asked, "red wheat, or white wheat"?  Todd, one of the owners, noted white wheat would be more mild, while the red wheat would add some spicy or peppery notes.  I chose the red, which they milled for me onsite (not down to flour, but cracked to allow better access to the starches inside).  They sold me a "heaping cup's" worth for a whopping 50 cents. TAKE THAT, KING ARTHUR!!!  HUZZAH!

Also picked up some wheat & rye flour at the bulk foods store.

After learning my lesson with some previous recipes, I made sure we started this one with a VERY happy, bubbly starter, which I'd added some whole wheat & rye flour to for an extra boost of nutrition. And we transferred Mandough into a much more appropriate container. 

Since this recipe varies a bit from the original, I decided to share my version below.

INGREDIENTS:

Soaker: 120g of malted red wheat, milled + 113g boiling water (combine & set aside for later)

Dough:

• 227g active, bubbly starter
• 255g homebrew (we used a Dunkel)
• 210g AP flour
• 210g bread flour
• 21g raw honey
• 12g salt

DIRECTIONS:

Combine & set aside your soaker for later.  (Note: this smelled like Grape Nuts and I kinda wanted to try a bite.)  

Somewhere in this process, another major difference between malted wheat and flaked wheat occurred to me:  flaked wheat will soak up all of the boiling water.  BUT...the same is not true of just the cracked wheat.  So by going with the malted wheat, I was giving my dough a higher hydration percentage.  If you wanted to play around with this and make something with more internal structure to it, I would recommend actually cooking the wheat in the water, maybe in the microwave for a while, to steam off some of the extra water and soften up the grains a bit more.  

Our homebrew dunkel--and yes, I drank the rest of the bottle while prepping the dough.

Next, combine your starter, beer, and flours in a stand mixer with a dough hook and let it go for about 3 minutes on the lowest speed.  Then let it rest for 30 minutes (autolyze).   After the rest, add the soaker, honey, and salt, and mix on the lowest speed for 1 minute or until fully incorporated. 

Then turn the mixer speed up by ONE and let it go for about 3-4 minutes. It should be somewhat tacky but fairly soft and supple.  The extra hydration from the malted wheat soaker will make it a fairly loose dough.  Cover and let it rise for 1 hour.

Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and gently fold (I like the envelope fold) a few times, stretching the dough as you go. This is a high hydration dough so it won't be too difficult. Then place it back in the bowl and rest for another hour.

After the hour has passed, repeat this folding process and let rest for one more hour (should be at a total of 3 hours of rise time at this point).  Because this is such a high hydration dough, it might warrant some extra folds. Note: if  did this again, I'd use all bread flour to help add some extra gluten & structure.

After the final rest, turn out onto a floured counter & shape into a round (Note: because of the extra hydration, you could also roll this & put it into a loaf pan to add some structure.). Cover with lightly greased plastic wrap & let set for 20 minutes.  As you can see--my round kept flattening out.  So I did a few extra folds in an attempt to give it some more structure.

After that rest, I tried to shape it into a slightly tighter round, placed a floured tea towel in a bowl, and then turned the boule into the bowl, seam side up, & let rise for another 3ish hours.

Post-rise.

Then I turned it back out onto the floured counter, attempted to tighten into a boule (again), cut a few slits with scissors.  I preheated the oven with a pizza stone to 450F, and added a high sided cookie pan to the lowest rack.  When it was time to put the boule on the pizza stone, I also added a cup of boiling water to the cookie sheet for steam.

Bake for 15 min at 450F, then 25-30 minutes at 400F. Then remove from the oven and let cool on a baker's rack.

Scissor cuts kinda turned into heart shapes. 

Result: flat-ish loaf that made long, skinny slices which are too long for the toaster.  Slightly tough crust.  But very flavorful.  

Also made great garlic bread.