Variations of a theme - yet another beer bread recipe

Beer bread fresh baked from the oven

, , , , ,beer bread,sourdough bread, natural yeast,

Robert Browning once said: “If thou tastest a crust of bread, thou tastest all the stars and all the heavens.” Looking a long way back I am contemplating on my artisan bread baking experience from my first humble beginnings to create a nourishing and rustic loaf with a bread maker up to my recent own artisan sourdough loafs a lifetime seems to have passed by. In the beginning I was baking homemade bread only because there was not a fresh and delicious loaf available in those regions that I dwell in. For a vivid illustration of this let me quote a Chinese proverb (authenticity of this proverb cannot be guaranteed at this stage) that goes like this: “If you have two loaves of bread, sell one and buy a lily."
With this, thee might be able to guess why these dwellings are depreciated from good organic bread. But recently this all got a new spiritual dimension. For up to this day I silently and secretly enjoyed my artisan bread on my own together only with the love of my live (and air that I breathe), occasionally also in the presence of my fellowship of brave companions. But now, I found two magic portals that help me to enjoy my bread together with a great realm of bread enthusiasts. For all you artisan bread bakers out there hence have been invited for a great exposition of the yeasty arts. For we are all called to display our oven magic in the realms of yeast spotting (find the details below) where the humble readers of this blog are assembling to awe in the splendor of the display of our fresh artisan products. On the other hand side we have been invited to celebrate the new realms of one of Germany’s elder blogs, which is solely consecrated for the art of food making. On Kochtopf.me the swayer of the Blog, Zorra, is summoning the followers to the regularly occurring bread baking day, which is coinciding with the induction ceremony of her new blog realms. For this festivity I planned a artisanal bread is shall be dignified to be among the manifold oblations for this festive occasion. Not only bread shall be broken among true friends, also rhytons of cold ale shall be shared.

But as I am a lazy guy, I combined both (again) and made (yet another) beer bread thanks to rejo with this great recipe from the Brotbackforum, AND because I REALLY am a lazy guy, I made two loafs of beer bread, one for the blog warming party and the other one for yeast spotting. But I tasted them already and I think the bread is worthy to be presented on both occasions, so here it goes, enjoy reading, watching and celebrating the occasions with all of us.

Ingredients:

• 250 g rye flour
• 235 g water
• 25 g rye sourdough starter

let it rest at a temperature about 25 – 30 degrees for about 14 – 16 hours

Main dough:

• Sourdough (see above)
• 333 g rye flour
• 116 g wheat flour
• 17 g salt
• 2 g fennel seeds and 2 g coriander seeds (finely ground the above seeds and the salt, if they are not grounded already)
• 8 g fresh yeast or 1 g dried yeast
• 260 g beer (preferably dark beer)
• 22 g barley malt sirup
• 6 g enzyme activated barley malt

If you do not have the last two items, don’t despair. Of course I also don’t have them. So I just replace them with a spoon full of honey for the sweetness and a sweet nothing for the rest cause I simply don’t know if and how I should replace it with something else.

Mix the flours, spices salt (and the barley malt) together and put aside. In a separate cup mix the yeast and the lukewarm beer and put aside for five minutes. Then add the beer yeast mix, the sourdough and the  barley malt sirup to the flour and mix everything with your kneading machine for about 5 – 10 minutes. Let everything rest for about 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes we now form the bread on the kitchen table into a roll form. If you are not sure how to form / shape bread, please follow my link on "bread baking basics + know how". As we are going to bake the bread in a form, we now butter out a bread form so everything is covered with butter. Then we put the dough roll bottom side down into the bread form and cover it up. I sprinkle now a good amount of flour over the top side of the each bread so it won’t stick to the bowl and later the bread will have a nice white floury looking kind of surface. Let the bread ferment another 120 minutes.

Once the breads have been fermented, I wet the top of the bread one more time and sprinkle some poppy seeds over the bread before it goes in the oven. You can also cut a pattern on top of the bread to make it look nicer if you want. In the meantime your oven should be pre heated on 250°C. Now I pop the bread in the form in the oven. I now pour a cup of hot water in the oven (if you do not have this inbuilt steaming program in your oven at home) and also place a cup of water on the floor of the oven to give some additional steam later on then I quickly close the door so the hot steam will be caught within the oven. Having all that steam in the oven is, like mentioned many times before, extremely important for a scrumptious crust and a great consistency of the bread. Now you close the oven and then you lower the heat immediately to 190°C. I then bake the bread for 10 minutes like this, then open up the door, let the steam out and continue to bake the bread for another 50 -60 minutes. Now switch off the heat, keep the door open and let the bread cool down slowly.

Consumption tips: This is a rye based self made bread. Rye based sourdough breads are best consumed one day after they are baked. I know it is hard to wait with all those fantastic smells around you when the bread is fresh from the oven, but be patient, wait for one day and you will be rewarded with an awesome tasting bread indeed.

The above mentioned events can be found here:
1.) I will try to post this bread to the yeast spotting webpage, As last time I really got posted there (Yipieh) - let’s see if I get posted over there with this new artisan fresh bread recipe…
2.) The Foodblog of Zorra ist having a blog warming party for her new blog and is inviting everybody, only condition, we have to bring a bread. So that is why I made the second loaf. You will be able to find the event over here.

My entries can be viewed here:
1. Yeast spotting page
2. Kotchopf.me