Craft Beer Bread with Smuttynose Old Brown Dog Ale [Recipes]
With the holidays fast approaching many people will be cooking for their families and friends. Nothing says love and caring more than a fresh baked loaf of bread. So, with that in mind, I thought I’d put a craft beer twist on the loaf of fresh bread. In baking you need to add water to turn the flour into dough. My thought was, “What will happen if I used craft beer?” I know that there are restaurants, like the Armsby Abbey in Worcester, MA, who have very popular beer breads. But how can you do that at home? First, the ingredients (recipe adapted from and based on The Master Recipe from the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François):
Note: Recipe makes 4 peasant loaves.
- 2 twelve oz bottles of lukewarm Smuttynose Brewing Co. Old Brown Dog Ale
- 1.5 tablespoons granulated yeast (about 1.5 packets...estimate here)
- 1.5 tablespoons kosher or other coarse salt
- 6.5 cups unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose white flour
- Cornmeal
1) Warm the beer to 100º-110ºF.
2) Combine the yeast and salt in a big (at least 5 quart) bowl, then add the warm water. This bowl will need to accommodate the entire batch of raised dough.
3) Add the flour. Don’t mix as you go, just add it all then stir it with a big spoon. It’s going to take a while, but you’ll get it all incorporated. You might have to break apart the big pieces to get all the dough mixed together. You can use a dough mixer or food processor with the appropriate attachments, if you have them, but I just do it with a spoon. The dough should be a bit wet and form to the bowl.
4) Allow the dough to rise with a loose lid. I use two pieces of overlapping tinfoil (much like when I brew beer) as you want the CO₂ that the yeast creates to be able to escape. Let it rise until you see a flat top on the dough. The book says this will take about two hours, but in my experience it usually takes up to 12. You can refrigerate it after it finishes rising, and I recommend you do this the first couple times as it’s much easier to work with the dough when it’s cold.
5) Lightly dust the top of the dough with flour so your hands don’t stick and pull off about ¼ of the dough. Form the dough into a ball, stretching the sides towards the bottom and rotating as you go. The goal is to stretch the top and bring it all to the bottom. This should only take 30-60 seconds. This is called the “gluten cloak” and will help with a nice crust.
6) Let the loaf rest for 40 minutes on a sheet covered lightly with cornmeal. It will rise during this time. Cold dough won’t rise as much, but don’t worry, it will rise in the oven.
7) 20 minutes before baking preheat the oven to 450ºF. If you have a baking stone, preheat it with the oven. Also, add a broiler tray to the bottom rack and let it preheat.
8) Lightly coat the top of the loaf or loaves that you’ve formed with flour. Take a serrated knife and run it under water, then slash the loaves as you see in the picture (run it under water between loaves). I usually go with a tic-tac-toe pattern but you can be creative.
9) After the 20 minute preheat transfer the loaves (I bake two at a time) onto the hot baking stone. To get a nice, crackly crust add about a cup of water to the broiler tray. The steam will help with the crust. Bake the bread for about 30 minutes, but oven times will vary. Wait until you see a nice, deep brown crust.
10) Let the bread cool on a baking rack. You can either use all of your dough at once (in which case, start baking the next loaves you’ve already formed), or refrigerate it for up to fourteen days. It will start to taste a little more sourdough-like over time.
In my experience, the beer lent the bread a much more sourdough-like character with less time. This probably was because the sugar in the beer gave yeast (both added and wild) something to munch on. Either way the bread was delicious and my friends loved it. It’s great with some decent preserves, Nutella or just butter on it. Let us know if you make it and how it comes out for you. Cheers!
