It’s finally cooling off enough to the point where I feel comfortable running the oven for a couple hours. I’ve been craving some home made bread and figured I’d jump back in with some spent grain bread. I love the flavors and aromas the spent grain gives to the bread. I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s like putting whole wheat on steroids.

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

Ingredients:

Dough

I made a double batch of this bread so I could save some in the freezer for later. If you just want one loaf, simply cut all the ingredients in half.

• 900g bread flour
• 100g spent grain flour (tutorial here)
• 780g filtered water
• 22g sea salt
• 4g bakers yeast

Method:

I started with a 30 minute autolyse with all of the flours and the water.

After mixing the dough, I performed 4 stretch and folds within the first 90 minutes, separated by 20 minutes. Since it was a little warmer in the kitchen, I only needed a 4 hour total bulk fermentation vs my usual 5.

I proofed for 45 minutes in bannetons before placing it in a dutch oven.

I baked the loaves 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 15 minutes.

Result:

The spent grain flour always makes the dough a little tougher and less stretchy than usual, so the stretch and folds can’t be too intense or you’ll rip the gluten strands. Fermentation went great though and it doubled in size in 4 hours at about 74’F ambient temperature.

Once I started baking the loaves, the smell of the spent grain filled the entire house. The best way to describe it is a buttery whole wheat aroma. The loaves rose just fine and it was a test of patience letting them cool on a wire rack for a couple hours.

The flavor is spot on with tons of whole grain flavor. This is one type of bread that I don’t mind simply eating without anything added on it. It does make excellent toast and sandwiches though.

My Baking Notes

• Ambient Temperature: 75’F
• Started autolyse @ 12:40pm
• Water temp: 91’F
• Dough was 87’F at autolyse
• Mixed @ 1:10pm
• Dough was 83’F after mixing
• 4 stretch and folds over first 90 minutes
• Started proof @ 5:25pm
• Into oven @ 6:13pm