Some friends are doing a big pre-holiday dark beer sharing party and I wanted to bring some bread to help keep everyone sitting upright throughout the night. There wasn’t much notice about the party so I used the overnight baking schedule to whip up these flavorful loaves.

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

Since this bread got an overnight bulk fermentation, I only needed to use a scant 1/4 tsp (~0.8g) of bakers yeast. I had to make sure to mix it extremely well in the beginning to make sure the yeast got thoroughly incorporated.

30 minutes before mixing the bakers yeast and salt into the dough, I performed an autolyse by mixing the water and flours together.

Ingredients:

Dough

• 925g bread flour
• 60g whole wheat flour
• 15g spent grain flour
• 780g filtered water @ 90-95’F
• 22g sea salt
• 1/4 tsp yeast

Method:

After mixing in the salt and yeast, I performed 3 stretch and folds within the first 90 minutes. The dough stretched extremely well and was already rising by the time I went to bed that evening.

By the time I woke up the dough had nearly reached the top of my bucket and was ready to divide, shape and start proofing! I proofed each loaf in a banneton with some oats sprinkled in them.

I started preheating the oven right after I started proofing the loaves. I baked the loaves in preheated dutch ovens at 450’F for 38 minutes covered, then removed the lid of the dutch oven and baked for an additional 17 minutes.

Result:

The loaves both rose very well in the oven and developed a beautiful caramelized crust. The crumb is nice and airy without having too big of holes. Using a really small amount of spent grain flour in combination with the whole wheat gives it a great color and awesome grainy taste. The longer bulk fermentation also adds some complexity to the flavor that you don’t get in a normal 5 hour fermentation.

Thoughts for next time:

I’m really digging this combination. Unfortunately I used up the very last of my spent grain flour so I’ll have to make some more the next time I brew. I’ll probably try this same recipe but sub rye flour in place of the spent grain.

My Baking Notes

• Ambient temperature: 71’F
• Started autolyse @ 5:20pm
• Water temp: 92’F
• Dough was 88’F at autolyse
• Mixed @ 5:50pm
• Dough was 78’F after mixing
• 3 stretch and folds in first 90 minutes, w/ overnight bulk fermentation at room temp
• Started proof & oven preheat @ 6:30am the next morning
• Into oven @ 7:30am