bread in the mash

[rewster452]

I've been searching about brewing with bread, and there are a lot of threads on the subject, but I still have a couple unanswered questions.

When you put it in the mash, do you crumble it up, add whole slices, maybe the whole uncut loaf? I'm going to use home-made bread, so I'm sure it'll be different from store bread, but does anyone know how to figure out how much gravity it will add? Should I make the bread without salt (not sure if salt is necessary for bread to bake)? Also, does the bread dissolve and gum up the sparge? Does it need a protein rest?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Amity]

Just out of curiosity, what do you want bread to add to your beer?

I wouldn't put the loaf in whole... it wouldn't do much in the mash that way. Perhaps use a food processor or blender to chop it up...

 

[rewster452]

Beer and bread are closely related, historically. I'm exploring that relationship in a series of beers. That's the why of it.

 

[Tall_Yotie]

I would crumble it up good, and bake it normally. The amount of salt you add to make bread should not be enough to hurt the brew. I don't think it would gum things up any more than the grain; I am assuming you are adding bread to the grain bill, not just making it from bread.

I just baked bread with my spent grains, and it was awesome, as a side note.

 

[rewster452]

Thanks Tall.

I am just adding it to a more or less standard mash. I'm also going to use some wheat, so I'll be doing a protein rest either way. I think I'll throw some rice hulls in too, in case it does try to gum stuff up, but I think after my last fly sparge fiasco I'll be batch sparging anyway.

FYI, I'm also fermenting this with yeast cultivated from my bread leaven, which I've been using for three weeks now for baking. I'll start a new threading this process tomorrow.