In addition to baking a ton of bread, I also brew a lot of beer. Not one to let things go to waste, I like to take some of the spent grain from the mashing process of beer making, dry it in the oven and then blend it into a flour and use it in bread and pizza crusts.

Schedule: I based this loaf off of my bakers yeast schedule.

This is pretty much a standard bakers yeast loaf but I had some excess starter so I decided to throw it into the bread.

I was rushed to get this loaf in the oven so I didn’t perform an autolyse. That’s why the water temperature is lower than I would normally have it. If I used a warmer water, the dough would have been far above the ideal 78’F when fermenting.

Ingredients:

Dough

• 410g King Arthur bread flour
• 50g home made spent grain flour (see my ‘How to Make Spent Grain Flour‘ tutorial)
• 359g filtered water @ 82’F
• 80g starter
• 11g sea salt
• 2g bakers yeast

Method:

After mixing the dough, I performed 3 stretch and folds within the first 90 minutes.

Before proofing, I added some oatmeal to the banneton and then put the loaf on top to proof. Doing this helps the topping adhere to the loaf so it doesn’t just fall off. I proofed for 45 minutes in the banneton.

I baked the loaf in a preheated dutch oven at 450’F for 38 minutes covered, then removed the lid of the dutch oven and baked for an additional 14 minutes.

Result:

Spent grain gives a flavor that I like to describe as nutty. I started using spent grain flour as 10% of the total flour as I found that’s the sweet spot of flavor vs dryness. Adding too much spent grain flour can cause the loaf to proof very oddly.

Speaking of proofing, I probably could have proofed this loaf a little longer but the crumb shot shows that it did rise pretty well. Autolysing might have helped with the oven spring a little more too.