Beer bread

[Mumathomebrew]

It's been bothering my brain, and indeed my stomach, that beer drinkers don't seem to mind unclear beers and sediment. Yet coming to beer making from a wine angle, winemakers wouldn't dream of drinking wine sediment or unclear wines.

Is the yeast actually dead? So does it matter?

I decided to put this to the test and poured the sediment from three beers into a glass jug, fed it some flour and left it overnight. Sure enough there were bubbles the next morning, so I fed it some more flat beer and more flour.

As you can see, it was very much alive. It made the smoothest and loveliest bread dough that felt just like velvet. The beer in question had been made from S05 yeast.

Haven't tasted it yet... too hot.

 

[Miraculix]

Of course the yeast is not dead, why should it be?

I'm impressed that the beer yeast was able to digest starch. I always thought that it had to be diastetic to be able to do so.

Now you got me thinking, I might bake a stout bread soon

Not necessarily because of the yeast in the stout, but because of the stout flavour.

 

[Mumathomebrew]

It's really yummy. Just had a slice and then toasted a bit to see.

It is possible my kitchen is full of yeasts as I bake bread anyway but this beer yeast sample was covered with clingfilm and grew to strongly useable in 24 hrs. Saying that, it did grow more slowly than bakers yeast. The crumb is more compact, it felt different and that rate of growth is probably too fast for a wild sourdough starter.

evening - dregs of 3 beers to flour (approx 50 mls/50g bread flour) - left overnight
morning - bubbles, added more flour and more flat beer (250g/250ml)
evening - threw into bread machine on dough setting (+50g flour, 1 tsp salt, olive oil slug)
1.5 hrs later - Oiled a mat and gave it a knockdown then placed in cake tin.
Overnight - proved in a cake tin on a rack resting over a tray of boiling water, a fly brolly over the top with two tea towels over that like a proving steam cupboard.
Morning - threw into oven with a tray of water below it for 35 mins

Scraped the bread machine tin into a jam jar last night, added 20g flour and 20g water to see if the yeast will stay alive and thrive. Just looked and yes, bubbles. It's tough stuff.

 

[bucketnative]

The flour will also have native yeast.

 

[Miraculix]

The flour will also have native yeast.

It takes quite some time to get a starter going based on the native yeasts (did that multiple times), so I highly doubt that these played a role within this bread. After all, most baking yeasts are actually ale yeasts.

 

[bernardsmith]

Of course the yeast is not dead, why should it be?

I'm impressed that the beer yeast was able to digest starch. I always thought that it had to be diastetic to be able to do so.

Now you got me thinking, I might bake a stout bread soon

Not necessarily because of the yeast in the stout, but because of the stout flavour.

So your point has bothered me for the longest time. When I make a sour dough bread (and I recognize that the rising is not just from the yeast but from lactic bacteria) I don't add any sugar to the dough but still the yeast actively ferments the sugars in the flour. Are there enough simple sugars in flour for the yeast to ferment to produce as much CO2 as it does or can yeast in fact break down carbohydrates and ferment the resulting sugars? And if the yeast can what is all this business about needing grains with enough diastolic power to break down the carbs?

 

[bernardsmith]

I decided to put this to the test and poured the sediment from three beers into a glass jug, fed it some flour and left it overnight. Sure enough there were bubbles the next morning, so I fed it some more flat beer and more flour.

As you can see, it was very much alive. It made the smoothest and loveliest bread dough that felt just like velvet. The beer in question had been made from S05 yeast.

Haven't tasted it yet... too hot.

View attachment 651172

From the details you present, it looks like you are refering to craft beer or beer you yourself made and not a store bought bottle where I think - with some exceptions - there are no yeasts in the bottle - which is why with store bought beer you can pour every last drop but with home brew the last cm or so is full of yeast and perhaps trub.

 

[Mumathomebrew]

Yes, this was from own beer dregs. The yeast was S05 from two of the beers (cream of the crop) and possibly some Muntons gold from the third (Coopers kit bitter).

It was definitely too fast for a wild yeast ferment. I had some ordinary bakers yeast starter nearby but both were covered. The rise and feel were very different from the bakers yeast so we have to assume this bread worked from the ale yeast/s. I have been wondering if beer yeasts could access the sugars from starch more easily when the grain is finely floured, but have yet to make a flour beer to test this theory in reverse. That experiment will come when more of my demis are freed from their summer glut of fruits. I could do a control loaf with beer and bakers yeast if I can be bothered to have three starters on the go. Maybe later.

My son said this was our best bread so far, so we've fed the starter with more flour and beer and will try again. It had the best consistency and tasted less 'thin' than previous efforts. We unearthed the old bread maker a short while ago and are only using the dough cycle (as cooked loaves get too stuck in there). This was Mary Berrys' base recipe for black olive bread (without the olives this time) using beer instead of water. Our only criticism was the crust was weedy so maybe some brushing with something would help. The beer bread developed a fast, thin, dried up coating that ordinary bread dough didn't. Oil might help stop that.

 

[Mumathomebrew]

Double testing... The daughter loaf has just come out of the oven and it is the same type of loaf exactly. So probably not a wild chancing yeast nor is it bakers yeast. The brewers and the bakers yeasts are behaving very differently in the starter jars. All in the name of science, and very tasty.

 

[bernardsmith]

Looks quite lovely but technically bread yeast and wine and beer yeast are identical - both are Saccharomyces cerevisiae, but with the one difference that the yeast cells cultivated for wine making (and beer brewing) are selected (by labs) or self selected by nature because of their tolerance to alcohol and because of their tolerance to low pH and (with labs) because of their propensity to produce esters and other compounds we enjoy as flavors in our drinks..

 

[Mumathomebrew]

Now the failure....

I made dog biscuits last time out of the spent grain and the dog adored them. However this time we had accidentally put the hops in the mash. Luckily I had forgotten the biscuit recipe so looked it up and found that hops are very poisonous to dogs. Good job as I was about to do him in with nice treats.

So in the light of recent success, decided to use the flour in a tastier bread loaf for us. I used half and half white bread flour to spent grain flour. Very funny. What a flop, so decided to do a whole loaf again and blend it in so the spent grain was a quarter and not a half. It did rise, but was like flat cake with no elasticity at all. Tastes pretty disgusting whilst warm, so maybe spent grain and hops aren't such a great idea. Spent grain flour is heavy for other flour to carry.

Just dry crackers or cheese biscuits next time - or leave the hops out of it and stick to dog biccies.

This first dough was definitely leaving out the middle man. Very funny.

 

[bernardsmith]

You may have far greater knowledge of bread making than I do but you might need to allow the bread longer to rise given its greater mass. Also, the relationship of water to flour is fairly critical and so you may want to be sure that there is enough liquid for the amount of flour (or grain) in the dough. AND barley (assuming that your beer was brewed from barley and not other grains) is not really gluten rich so its ability to trap CO2 is poor.

 

[Miraculix]

Now the failure....

I made dog biscuits last time out of the spent grain and the dog adored them. However this time we had accidentally put the hops in the mash. Luckily I had forgotten the biscuit recipe so looked it up and found that hops are very poisonous to dogs. Good job as I was about to do him in with nice treats.

So in the light of recent success, decided to use the flour in a tastier bread loaf for us. I used half and half white bread flour to spent grain flour. Very funny. What a flop, so decided to do a whole loaf again and blend it in so the spent grain was a quarter and not a half. It did rise, but was like flat cake with no elasticity at all. Tastes pretty disgusting whilst warm, so maybe spent grain and hops aren't such a great idea. Spent grain flour is heavy for other flour to carry.

Just dry crackers or cheese biscuits next time - or leave the hops out of it and stick to dog biccies.

This first dough was definitely leaving out the middle man. Very funny.

View attachment 651922
View attachment 651921

Mate you nearly killed your dog, you both were very lucky!

Unfortunately, we have some threads here popping up now and then written by dog owners sharing the story about how his friend died because he ate hops. Once in, there cannot be much done for the dog.

 

[Mumathomebrew]

You may have far greater knowledge of bread making than I do but you might need to allow the bread longer to rise given its greater mass. Also, the relationship of water to flour is fairly critical and so you may want to be sure that there is enough liquid for the amount of flour (or grain) in the dough. AND barley (assuming that your beer was brewed from barley and not other grains) is not really gluten rich so its ability to trap CO2 is poor.

The first batch of half and half flours was proved overnight. The second addition making the barley content only a quarter, was proved from the morning till the evening. The mistake was to assume the normal 'strong' bread flour could carry the barley flour. The barley flour itself would would probably be no gluten at all, because the mash would have converted the starches to sugars. There may be a small amount left but obviously not enough to be anything other than treated as cake flour. This sort of loaf may rise if given egg and baking soda.

Mate you nearly killed your dog, you both were very lucky!

Beyond lucky... I had no idea. I'm so glad I'm the sort to post failure as well as success, if it can save even one more persons dog or cat as well as mine. I may even remove the small amount from our compost heap in case squirrels suffer too. Luckily I'm not yet producing much hop waste but shall be so careful with it now. I might well dry it and burn it. Perhaps a warning might be worth being a sticky for new brewers.

 

[bernardsmith]

But it is not starch that forms the basis for gluten. It is the protein and barley may have enough protein to "worry" brewers (and so they boil their mash - To kill lurking bacteria the temperature used to develop the mash and the time at that temperature is enough to pasteurize the wort, while the need to boil the wort is really only because of the use of bittering hops) but barley has so little protein that gluten is all but impossible to produce in a way to allow the bread to rise. By volume, for every 3 cups of flour I might use in a loaf, 1/4 cup of that voume might be barley flour (so about 9-10% of the flour bill)

 

[Mumathomebrew]

Aha.... I am now the wiser. Thank you. I will only use it at a low rate like a flavouring in future for breads and stick to the doggo bics for the bulk (sans the hops). Maybe I can slice up and 'melba toast' these odd flat breads into dry crackers if the taste is any good...

I have got quite a nice recipe for spent flour dry crackers to use for cheese. I'll report in when I make those.

 

[Imhoppy]

Aha.... I am now the wiser. Thank you. I will only use it at a low rate like a flavouring in future for breads and stick to the doggo bics for the bulk (sans the hops). Maybe I can slice up and 'melba toast' these odd flat breads into dry crackers if the taste is any good...

I have got quite a nice recipe for spent flour dry crackers to use for cheese. I'll report in when I make those.

Interesting use for spent grain flour. Always a good idea to learn about new recipes to try. Gonna add this to my growing list for SGF recipes and make some to enjoy while drinking a homebrew. Thanks!

 

[Mumathomebrew]

I haven't tried these spent grain beer crackers yet but these are next on the cooking trials for reusing spent grains. Luckily I don't make many beers (yet)...