Bread from spent grains

[Cwrw666]

You'd pay extra in a wholefood shop just because they forgot to grind the grains...

 

[Nicks90]

I'm thinking spent grain would make a really good dense polish rye bread type thing.

 

[Dutto]

Haha thanks. I am tempted to invest in a mincer like @Dutto said to grind the grains a a bit smaller.

Back in 1967, I was a lookout on a ship at anchor off Martinemi in Finland. At that time I had teeth and bit my fingernails, so I wasn't unduly worried when I swallowed a bit of fingernail and felt it catch in my throat.

Four hours later, after swallowing a few slices of bread and drinking a variety of liquids, my throat had swollen up so much that I couldn't swallow! At about mid-day, I was having trouble breathing as my throat continued to swell so I went by taxi to a hospital in the city of Oulu where a Consultant gave me morphine and antibiotic injections and fished the fingernail out of my throat with a pair of forceps; and by late afternoon my throat was sore but back to normal size.

The result of that little incident is why I recommend grinding the husks rather than swallowing them! It only takes one!

 

[An Ankoù]

Made 11½ litres Elusive Brewing "Level Up" American Red yesterday morning from Andy Parker's recipe.
Here's the bread made from the spent grains:

Normal bread recipe based on a kilo of flour with 400g of spent grain.
It's very ok until you come to swallow the last mouthful, then the bits of husk hang around screaming out for a good swig of Tetley's. (You decide).

 

[fury_tea]

Made 11½ litres Elusive Brewing "Level Up" American Red yesterday morning from Andy Parker's recipe.
Here's the bread made from the spent grains:
View attachment 19337 View attachment 19338
Normal bread recipe based on a kilo of flour with 400g of spent grain.
It's very ok until you come to swallow the last mouthful, then the bits of husk hang around screaming out for a good swig of Tetley's. (You decide).

Looks good. Would you make it again?

I had a couple of slices of pilsner bread toasted with my eggs this morning! I really prefer it toasted when it's more than 1 day old, but sometimes doesn't last that long!

 

[An Ankoù]

Looks good. Would you make it again?

I had a couple of slices of pilsner bread toasted with my eggs this morning! I really prefer it toasted when it's more than 1 day old, but sometimes doesn't last that long!

Now that it's more than a day old, I have to say it's really nice. I sprinkled the tops with caraway before putting it in the oven and this is just discernible when the bread's toasted. Had a friend staying a couple of days and he loves it and was astonished it was made from spent grain.
Yes, I'll certainly make it again even if next-door's chickens have to go hungry!
Also got Merra Sodha's book "Made in India, Cooked in Britain" so had fresh paneer and fresh yoghurt with the bread for breakfast.
I never knew Yoghurt was so easy to make!

 

[Drunkula]

Cheaper strong flour and even some of the well known brands like Allinsons do not perform as well in my view.

Yes! Allinson's is crap.

If anyone's making bread with anything heavy like these grains then add some vitamin C if you've got it as it'll help with the rise. If you've ever seen dough conditioner then that's basically all it is, ascorbic acid.

 

[terrym]

I never knew Yoghurt was so easy to make!

I don't know what method you use but I make all my own yoghurt and have been doing so for some time, and agree its easy.
I make 800ml yoghurt at a time in a 1 litre SS flask from Wilko dedicated to yoghurt making.
1. Preheat flask with boiling water
2. Heat 800 ml milk in a pan to 85*C.
3. Add 4 tbs dried milk powder and whisk
4. Cool to 49*C (I use a bowl full of cold water)
5. Add 4 tsp yoghurt seed* and whisk.
6. Empty flask and pour in seeded milk into flask through a small nylon filter (this catches any undissolved dried milk bits).
7. Leave for 5 hours and pour into 2 x 500ml recycled yoghurt pots. Whisking optional.
*The trick is to use good quality natural yoghurt seed that is not over BB date, a small pot of Yeo lasts about 3 sessions.
Also to make sure the cooling does not drop the temperature below 49*C before the yoghurst seed is added. I can't remember where the dried milk thing came from but my guess is it soaks up some of the excess whey.

 

[terrym]

Yes! Allinson's is crap.

If anyone's making bread with anything heavy like these grains then add some vitamin C if you've got it as it'll help with the rise. If you've ever seen dough conditioner then that's basically all it is, ascorbic acid.

We used to use VitC for wholemeal bread but found it really made no difference so don't use it any more. I suspect its analogous to using 'yeast nutrient' in beer making.

 

[An Ankoù]

Yes! Allinson's is crap.

If anyone's making bread with anything heavy like these grains then add some vitamin C if you've got it as it'll help with the rise. If you've ever seen dough conditioner then that's basically all it is, ascorbic acid.

I use a 42g cube of fresh bakers' yeast and the bread comes out light and fluffy. I've used powdered yeast in the past and I seem to remember that it worked.

As for the youhurt. raise 800 ml full-cream milk to 40-45 c and stir in a pot of live yoghurt from the supermarket. Wrap it in a towel and shove it in a just-warm (and turned off) oven overnight. Delicious. keep a bit of the yoghurt to inoculate the next batch.

 

[terrym]

I use a 42g cube of fresh bakers' yeast

I'm sure there are specialist bakers or delicatessan shops in UK cities and large towns selling fresh bakers yeast if you know where to go, but I suspect most people would be hard pressed to find it. We certainly have none in our area. We used to use it but our source closed years ago.

 

[Dutto]

I'm sure there are specialist bakers or delicatessan shops in UK cities and large towns selling fresh bakers yeast if you know where to go, but I suspect most people would be hard pressed to find it. ...........

Apart from the benefit to be found in using it to bake bread, fresh bakers yeast is delicious to eat!

It is definitely an acquired taste, but pop a small knob of it onto your tongue and feel as it melts on your tongue to flood your mouth with the taste of yeast. Brilliant.

BTW, like many new tastes it can result in a few extra visits to the loo; but it's well worth the experience!

 

[chrissyr63]

"pop a small knob of it onto your tongue and feel as it melts on your tongue "

I can feel my gout coming on just reading that!

 

[Drunkula]

Morrisons sometimes put big blocks of fresh yeast out for 15p. In Asda and Morrisons I've asked for it at the bakery and they've always given me some. I tried to freeze it when they gave me a load but it goes a manky colour and doesn't work, just like beer yeast. And I'm not storing bread yeast with glycol, that's even too tedious for my curiosity monster.

 

[An Ankoù]

Well done Fury-tea, Dutto et all for your bread recipes using spent grains. I've adapted them using 400 grams spent grains to a kilo of strong white flour and the first batch was amazing. Second batch is all kneaded up and rising nicely. I'm going to try soaking some malt overnight and make a bread with that, using the water I used for soaking in the bread, ie. unspent grain. I've got some spelt and some rye malts- I reckon can spare a couple of hundred grams. Might try doing the same with crystal malt. Has anybody tried this already?
On another matter, I see that most recipes for pizza dough recommend strong flour when (so called authentic) Italian recipes use type 00 flour, which, as far as I can see is ordinary plain cake flour (type 45 in France). Any ideas on this?

 

[terrym]

On another matter, I see that most recipes for pizza dough recommend strong flour when (so called authentic) Italian recipes use type 00 flour, which, as far as I can see is ordinary plain cake flour (type 45 in France). Any ideas on this?

In our house we use a Panasonic machine for our everyday wholemeal bread and Mrs terrym also makes dough by hand for pizza bases and sourdough bread amongst other types of dough . The Panasonic is by far the best breadmaker we have ever had, which will knock out consistent loaves every time, but it is however susceptible to quality of ingredients and apart from getting a few duff loaves rectified by opening a new packet of dried yeast or even replacing a yeast from a new packet which is clearly off there is only one way to get good bread using the machine and that is to use a base of Very Strong Flour which in our case is Canadian. Ordinary Strong flour doesn't seem to work as well, even the stuff you buy from artisan shops milled in the traditional way by wind or water mills. Hand made dough does, however, appear to be more forgiving of the quality of flour used. And as far as grading flour I wasn't aware that there was numbering system. There doesn't appear to be a big home bread baking thing in the UK, and so supermarkets will just sell bags of flour labelled up for a particular use as far as I can see. Whereas, in my limited experience of the other side of the English Channel they seem to be much more demanding of bread quality than the typical UK consumer and so that may well extend into home bread baking.

 

[Gulpitdarn]

The Panasonic is by far the best breadmaker we have ever had,

I totally agree, brilliant machine that makes alsorts of very nice bread.

 

[An Ankoù]

I've used the Canadian Extra Strong, both white and wholemeal from Waitrose and it makes a lovely loaf.
It seems lots of countries have lots of different systems (see attached) and by far the most common flour here is type 45 which corresponds to "patent flour" which I've never heard of. The cheapest, budget flour is type 55 and that's what people make their bread with unless it's some kind of farmhouse or country bread. French bread's ok, but it goes hard very quickly (Spanish is even worse for that). But I prefer to make my own when I've got time, and judging by the rate the pile of cubes of bakers' yeast goes down, so do quite a number of folk.
I was really wondering what the Italian Pizza-makers use in their dough, though.

Kneading is the best way to get your nails clean after gardening or tinkering with the lawn-mower, by the way.

 

[An Ankoù]

I totally agree, brilliant machine that makes alsorts of very nice bread.

Mine only plays CDs. Doesn't seem to be a lot of room for the dough!

 

[Gulpitdarn]

Mine only plays CDs. Doesn't seem to be a lot of room for the dough!

Hahahaha Doh! (or is that Dough?) you don't have the latest model then.