Beer Bread Experiment

The other day I decided to try a little short cut/experiment in making a loaf of bread. I wanted a sour dough flavour but I didn't want to make a standard starter, which is a fair bit of work. So instead I mixed one bottle of home made extra pale ale with as much whole wheat flour as it took to make it some what doughey; I left it more watery than I would have if making an actual loaf ready to knead. From there I put it in a covered glass bowl and left it in the oven with the light on (a trick I learned from Mattias, thanks!) for one day. The next day I took it out and kneaded it with some more flour so that it didn't stick to the table and also to give it a more doughey texture, from there I let it sit in the same bowl for another day.

Now the yeast had really had a hay day with it and there were lots of bubbles, so in the afternoon I took it out kneaded it some more with flour then placed in on a floured paper towel with another heavily floured paper town on top this time I put it on the pan I would be baking it in so it could form a nice shape out of the bowl. That evening I took it out formed it a little and heated up the oven to 350 Celsius and cooked it until it was firm and good, probably around 45 mins - 1 hr, should have kept track of the time but was doing a lot of other things as well.

The result was probably the best tasting sour dough I have had in memory, a very nice sour flavour with a distinct after taste of malty sweetness (possibly from the beer) and some notable hope taste and aroma as well. I highly recommend it if you like making bread, and especially if you make beer as it still has the yeast in the bottle, presuming you bottle and don't keg.

Enjoy!