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bloviatrix

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  • 1 month later...
On 3/29/2024 at 12:56 PM, StephanieL said:

A woman who used to run a brewery with her husband outside of Boston until the pandemic put them out of business is now based in the Bay Area and running classes on how to make bread using brewers' spent grains.  N and I went to a class at Almanac Brewery in Alameda a couple of days ago and had a lot of fun.  I made chocolate-cherry and she made rosemary & sea salt.  You first tour the brewery and learn about the breadmaking process, and then make the dough, which gets its first rise in the car on the way home and at home while you're getting your oven and such set up.  Then you knead the dough, give it its 2nd rise, and bake it in a Dutch oven.  The breads are huge, but they came out quite well.  We took more spent grains home and froze them for later use (they go moldy very quickly, so you have to freeze them right away).

Grainbakers Breadmaking Classes at California Breweries

I finally got around to making the first of the loaves with the frozen spent grain.  It's a little wonky looking, and I think some of our yeast is out of date, but it rose fine and it smells great.  We'll see what it taste like.

20250111_131042_resized.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...

I think I'd be aiming for somewhere between 68 - 70% hydration.

Not knowing what the hydration % of your starter is, I'd venture a guess that you could definitely up the hydration level of the overall dough.

In their (King Arthur's) main baking book, their sourdough has a hydration level of 69%.  Their starters tend to be 50%.

 

Edited by MitchW
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38 minutes ago, Anthony Bonner said:

50% is a pretty dry starter. I bet they spec 100% hydration - which gets you a total hydration of 63% which is about right.  Especially given the overnight ferment. 

ETA: yeah the starter they spec is 100%

Truth - I was looking at something totally different when thinking I was looking at the starter info. 

However, their classic sourdough recipe (at least as it existed when this book was published over 20 years ago) still seems to be like 69% hydration.

IMG_3652.thumb.jpeg.0d2daf6cc3ac62caee0f63a2f5babdf6.jpeg

My sourdoughs tended to look like this...

SourdoughBreadCut11-20-07.thumb.jpg.f8ab4ec3141944641bba7b7308c97364.jpg

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Not gonna show anyone the whole loaves, because I want to preserve the illusion that I know how to bake, so here's a picture of an egg & cheese sandwich made with dense-as-a-black-hole bread that a knife can barely cut through, and also it takes a month to toast.

image.thumb.webp.2e6c2a50785feef597513680e3f7d64f.webp

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