Tweaking the spent grain recipe

Using spent grain in a sourdough recipe gives you a wonderful taste and texture. The latest one was a chocolate porter spent grain from Natty Green's. Recent loaves of spent grain had begun to split while baking, resulting in a large ragged tear in the finished loaf. What to do?

Over Thanksgiving, I got advice from a baker from Baltimore (who just happens to be my youngest son's girlfriend) and we decided to add more water to the flour mixture than the original sourdough recipe called for, increasing the amount of liquid from 1 and 1/2 cups to 1 and 3/4 + 1/8. That is a strange way to measure it, but my measuring cup doesn't measure eighths. Anyway, that seemed to be the right amount of liquid and has given consistent results for several batches of bread.

The amount of flour is as follows:
2 1/2 cups of bread flour
1/2 cup of dried and ground spent grain*
1/4 cup of whole wheat flour

*I have had good results grinding the dried spent grain in the blender. Putting more rather than less grain at one time allows the blender to grind the grain to a finer texture. Seems odd, but with more grain in the blender, the grain that has been ground pushes up the sides and then falls towards the center where the blades are and the grinding proceeds.

Add the dry ingredients to the water and mix well. Cover and let the flour hydrate for 20-30 minutes. This is advice from Dan Leader's recipes in Local Breads. Then mix in 1/2 cup of stiff dough levain and 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of fine sea salt. Mix well and knead by hand or in a mixer for 8-9 minutes. If mixing in a mixer (i.e. Kitchen Aid), knead 1-2 minutes by hand. With this addition of 3/8 cup more water, the dough will be very wet and sticky. Use flour on the kneading surface and dust the surface of the flour lightly as kneading, using only as much flour as absolutely necessary. Use a bench scraper to help you knead. Soon the dough will firm up and just be tacky, not sticky.

Place the dough in a lightly greased 2 quart container and cover. Allow it to rest 1 hour. Remove the dough to the floured surface and fold and turn. This adds the same effect as more kneading.

Cover the dough in the 2 quart container again and allow to ferment for 2-3 hours in a warm place.

Remove the dough, divide and shape and bake at 450 degrees, for 20 - 45 minutes depending on the shape and size of the bread pieces.

A great way to safely add steam to your oven is to use a metal pan with sides that contains 2 feet of very heavy chain and a bunch of smooth river rocks.  Scroll down to the first picture on this previous link to see an example. Putting 1 and 1/2 cup of water in the pan with the rocks and chain creates a lot of steam. It is necessary to preheat the oven with the pan of rocks and chain for 1 hour at 450 prior to baking. I have found it easier to put the loaves of bread into the oven, then grab a mitt to pull the hot pan out and pour in the water. This will produce LOTS of steam! Quickly shut the oven door to trap the steam, resulting in a crusty bread.