Spent grain baking on a different schedule

When making spent grain bread I have usually begun at night, activating my stiff dough levain with water, bread flour and whole wheat flour following Dan Leader's recipe. In the morning I continued his recipe for an auvergne crown, except substituting one cup of spent grains (dried in the oven and ground in the food processor) for a cup of bread flour. He recommends adding the flour and water together, mixing to form a shaggy dough, and letting this sit in a covered container for 20 minutes to moisten the flour and begin the gluten formation process.

Next you add the levain and salt to the flour mixture and knead for 8 - 10 minutes. The dough then ferments for 3 - 4 hours, gets shaped and rises again, proofing, for another 1 to 1 1/2 hours and finally baked. I was never able to get a finished loaf until late in the afternoon because I am not a 4 am baker--retirement has its benefits. What to do?

I decided to alter the time schedule, activating the levain in the morning, mixing in the evening and fermenting overnight. (Peter Reinhart suggests that overnight fermenting improves the flavor development in the sourdough, resulting in a more flavorful bread.)

That leaves shaping and proofing to be done in the morning and then you are ready to bake. This would give me a finished loaf by late morning or early afternoon for gifting or eating.

Dan Leader's recipe is available here. If you want to bake bread, I highly recommend his book, Local Breads. I use this recipe even when I am not shaping the bread in the round crown form. There is only room for one of those on my baking stone, guess I need a bigger stone since I usually make two loaves at a time.

Another site that is a beautiful read in addition to being informative is Weekend Loafer.

The loaf that resulted from this new schedule looks just like the loaves that spent the day fermenting and proofing. The flavor was wonderful. The inside was soft, yet firm enough to support a substantial sandwich. There was a beautiful crust. This one has a little porter spent grain and the rest of the cup of spent grain was from a golden beer.

Two slices are about to become the wrappings for a grilled cheddar cheese and tomato sandwich.

Spent grain is 70% fiber and 20% protein so I feel really good about eating it, besides, it really does taste good!

Stay tuned for more adventures in spent grain!