Marbled rye and whole wheat spent grain

Marbled rye made with a sourdough starter is a light savory sandwich bread. It makes a great grilled cheese sandwich. It is made with  a rye sourdough starter, and bread flour. Two batches are made and coco powder is added to one batch to get the dark color. Caraway seeds and orange extract add to the aroma. It has the wonderful rye flavor due to the starter, but is light like a sandwich bread because it is made with bread flour. Layers of light and dark dough are rolled up and placed into a 5 x 9 loaf pan. The top is brushed with an egg white wash. The recipe can be foundd in Peter Reinhart's book artisan breads every day. 

The whole wheat spent grain again used the whole wheat starter plus bread flour, whole wheat flour and spent grain. It is a dense loaf, but very flavorful. I began with the sourdough starter I have been feeding since September 2014 and added whole wheat flour to make a whole wheat starter. Again, the directions are in Reinhart's book, see above. This starter ferments at room temperature for 6 to 8 hours, then goes in the refrigerator overnight. The next day the rest of the ingredients are added, the dough goes through a series of stretch and folds and then goes into the refrigerator overnight or for up to 5 days. The slow fermentation simply adds flavor.

 This is the marbled rye. Thanks to my neighbor for this great picture of the loaf he sampled. 

 This is the whole wheat spent grain bread. It is one of my 'experiments'. Of the 454g of flour, 254g of unbleached flour, 100g of whole wheat flour, 100g of spent grain flour. The spent grain was half barley and half wheat, from the brewing of  Slam Dunkel Weizen beer from Natty Greene's Brewery.

The nice thing about using the starter is that you can divide the bread-making process up into a couple of days and not feel tied to the dough over a whole day. Of course this does require patience to wait for the finish product, but it is well worth it. 

If you haven't seen Reinhart's class on artisan breads on Craftsy.com, it is well worth the time. He is a great teacher!