Timeline 4:40

Beer like bread share common ingredients: water, yeast and grain. This recipe is a lean bread with a pre-ferment of the yeast with some flour and water to give the yeast time to break down the flour. Most of the taste is derived though from the beer. The recipe is designed to use a standard 12 ounce bottle of beer. The beer should be room temperature to not slow down the yeast.

This loaf was made with a bottle of 3 Rocks beer from The Second Wedge Brewery. Second Wedge is a local Uxbridge craft brewer.

This is a high hydration (sticky wet) dough. It is a challenge for newbies to making bread. Sparingly use flour when working on the dough to shape. I bake in a pie plate to give it some structure.

Beer Bread Recipe

 

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Active time

35 mins

Bake/Wait time

4 hours 5 mins

Total time

4 hours 40 mins

 

Author: Baker Rich of OnBreadAlone.com

Serves: 1.5 pound loaf

Ingredients

• Bread Flour - 5 cups/650 grams
• Instant Yeast - 1.5 tsp/5 grams
• Warm Water - 0.5 cup/115 grams
• Warm Beer - 1.5 cup/355 grams
• Fine Salt - 1.5 tsp/9 grams

Instructions

1. Measure out flour.
2. Stir together yeast, ½ cup flour and warm water (~95°F, 35°C) in the mixer bowl.
3. Cling wrap and ferment 30 minutes
   
   
4. Add salt to remaining flour and mix.
5. Add beer and remaining flour/salt into the bowl. I go back in forth with some beer then some flour.
6. Knead 8 minutes.
7. Cling wrap and ferment 2 hours
   
   
8. Punch down, form. Place on parchment paper on cookie sheet or pie plate.
9. Proof 30 minutes
   
   
10. Place a pizza stone on a low shelf in the oven and frying pan on a high shelf.
11. Set oven to 425°F/220°C/Gas 7
12. Preheat for 30 minutes
    
    
13. Dust peel with corn meal
14. When oven preheated:
15. Score dough
16. Place in oven
17. Add ¼ cup hot water to the frying pan up top
18. Bake 35 minutes
    
    
19. Cool on wire rack

Variations

I usually use 1 cup (130 grams) of whole wheat with 4 cups (520 grams) bread flour. If you are using a pan you can use all purpose flour.

3.5.3229

Using All Purpose Flour Instead

I did an interesting variation on this recipe. All purpose flour is much cheaper than bread flour. I live in Canada where most of our wheat is hard wheat. This makes our all purpose flour stronger. When you use all purpose flour, the boule (dough ball) does not retain its shape as well. The gluten is just not as strong. To counter this I use a 9 inch pie pan to support the sides. I coat the skin with olive oil the score. With the olive oil coating it is not necessary to produce steam with the frying pan and water. Tips on finishing the crust.