Home Baked Spent Grain Bread

I have been playing around making home made bread using beer and spent grain. Still a work in progress because I love to tinker with any cooking/baking recipe to 'make it better'
Been turning out some nice bread to go along with my home made beer. It doesn't take much grain (depending on how grainy you like your bread), usually a cup or a cup and a half per loaf. So obviously whether using steeping grains or mashing grains you are going to have way more than you need for a loaf or two. No need to throw the rest out especially if your beer brewing is infrequent or sporadic. You may have occasion to need more before the next scheduled brew day. I have found that you can freeze the grain in ziplocks quite nicely. My preferred method is to put a cup and a half of grain into fold style sandwich baggies securing the opening by folding and then rolling the loose section of the baggie over the used portion. I take several of these and put them in a Gallon size ziplock, squeeze out the air and put in the freezer. When needed it is an easy task to pull out a single package and reseal the rest. I find no need to dry the grains before freezing. I just freeze them after they self drain in a strainer a bit. When I unthaw the packages I usually spread them out on a dinner plate letting them dry out over night. I have also dried them out in the microwave. You can use them wet although depending on the amount of water present in the grain you may want to reduce/adjust the water used in the bread recipe. I have done this in both a bread machine and also baked in the oven. Both work out great.

A nice home brew and a couple slices of beer grain bread.......Mmmmm

Sounds good! How about a recipe?

Recipe please

We make dog treats with our spent grain but would love a recipe for bread!

This is the recipe that i have used: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Treberbrot
The spent grain bread has been good but i would recommend the bread flour. I have been substituting it and i think thats why my bread has been off a little.

There are some recipes on this board I believe. Saw them somewhere thought it mite have been here.

The quick and simple is just add the grains to your favorite 'standard' recipe and see how it turns out. I found one recipe for 'beer-bread' which was basicly just a standard bread recipe with some or all of the water replaced with beer.....in my case some of my homebrew. I have used the standard bread machine recipe that came with my bread machine and added a cup or so of grain to the mix and it came out great. I have also substituted some malt syrup for the sugar it called for. I have also run the machine till the last rise and then plopped the dough into a pan and let it finish rising and baked it in the oven. Dark specialty steeping grains make for a nice darker loaf. Its all good. I haven't had one of the above that didn't work out or that I didn't like.

captainkirk83 said:

Recipe please

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A buddy a work just made some spent grain bread. He is a former pastry chef so i would have to assume his was better then anything i could muster up. What else can be made from spent grains?

Lots of things:

http://brooklynbrewshop.com/themash/category/spentgrainchef/

I've made the pizza dough on that site and it was delicious with home-made mozzarella and tomatoes from the garden

We dehydrate the spent grains. We have a dehydrator, but you can also use an oven set very low and with the door cracked for airflow.

Whole grain goes into my homemade granola, substituting for some of the oats. We also grind it into flour and can do up to ~20% substitution for wheat flour without much impact.

On a related note, my wife is using some of my excess wort to make a malted ice cream for the Superbowl!

2 cups spent grain

2 tablespoons honey
2 cups wheat flour
4 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoon butter
1 package bakers yeast
2 1/2 cup beer (or water, but you are making 'beer' bread) at 120* F
2 Tspn salt

Knead, let rise, split into two loafs, follow your dreams

Jbear said:

Lots of things:

http://brooklynbrewshop.com/themash/category/spentgrainchef/

I've made the pizza dough on that site and it was delicious with home-made mozzarella and tomatoes from the garden

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Holy crap, that's awesome.

That site is a keeper. Do I bookmark it under my 'Recipe' folder or 'Beer' folder?

I like to add spent grain to my chocolate chip cookies. They also make amazing breakfast/energy bars. Just add some honey and peanut butter.

Many thanks for that link. I have a ton of saved beer related sites but that one escaped me and it will be very useful to me. I have enjoyed baking/cooking for many many years and more recently beer homebrewing. To be able to combine the two where one compliments the other..........well it just don't get much better than that.

Thanks again.......

That was easy.......I actually bookmarked under both beer and under cooking recipes

Good recipe. I have also substituted LME for the sugar usually found in beer recipes. I see no reason why DME couldn't also be a substitute. Also keep in mind that there is still some sugar left in the grain. I would think probably more with steeping grains than with mashed but that is just a guess. I actually made a loaf in the bread machine today and reduced the amount of sugar called for figuring it would be accountef for with the cup or so of grain I added. The bread turned out wonderful.

I have dried the grains in a microwave quite easily or if I dont need them rite away they will dry just spread out on a dinner plate stirring them occasionally to dry all sides. I have used them wet but the extra water content can change the recipe around in ways I may not want so I prefer to dry them out somewhat if not completely.

I agree that site is awesome. Glad you all like it.

I've been quite pleased with the results of adding a little sweet wort to dough as well. It was a neat twist on "beer bread."

I have some recipes for vegan spent grain burgers as well, if anyone's interested, let me know.

I'm glad to see others making bread with their spent grain. I used to work at a pizza shop whose owner makes artisan breads for the farmers market. I end up giving him most of my spent grain to be turned into beautiful loaves of all types. It's neat to go to the farmers market and hear people say, "wow. Made with beer grains." Ya foo. My beer grains. Ha.

http://chrisgillisonline.com/homebrew/spent-homebrew-grain-bread/

There's my recipe - I want to try it with the no knead method next

samuryan said:

2 cups spent grain

2 tablespoons honey
2 cups wheat flour
4 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoon butter
1 package bakers yeast
2 1/2 cup beer (or water, but you are making 'beer' bread) at 120* F
2 Tspn salt

Knead, let rise, split into two loafs, follow your dreams

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What do you mean at 120F? is that the temp the beer needs to be?

Also, how do you guys store your spent grain, and how long will it last?

I assume that it means to heat the beer to 120 degrees. 10-20 seconds in the microwave should do the trick. It's just like making beer - they yeast need a warm environment to be comfortable. Bread yeast just needs a warmer climate than ale yeast. I find that 110-115 is usually the sweet spot. Just be sure, like brewing, to take the temperature and if you overshoot it, wait for it to come down or you could shock or kill the yeast.

When following bread recipes I usually heat the liquid first, then sprinkle the yeast over the warm liquid to let it rehydrate, and then sprinkle in a tiny portion of the dry goods (e.g., flour; exact measurements depend on the recipe). I let it sit in a warm spot for a bit to let it proof and get the yeast going. It's the same concept as a yeast starter. Scratch that, it IS a yeast starter. Then I continue with the recipe and let it do it's regular rise, which will be helped by the proofing. Healthier yeast makes for a more airy loaf.

Baking and brewing share a history for a reason. Although the part that amuses me is that, traditionally, the men did the baking and the women did the brewing. Bread was considered a man's job, and beer was considered a feminine responsibility

I was wondering why everybody is using bread yeast? I used beer yeast in my last bread and it worked out very nicely. Historically bread makers got their yeast from brewers.

The method that use for making the bread is the following:

125g - wheat flour
125g - bread flour
125g - spent grain
160ml - part of the yeast from the starter and some beer
1/4tsp - salt

Then follow all of the other directions.

I have been using the same strain of sourdough for close to 10 years, Now that i have gotten back in to brewing i have been using the spent grains and it is a step up! i'll have to work on a good storage solution so i'm never short, for some reason i was only saving enough for my next baking session, duh