Myr Øl

5 gallons

Malt:

Pale 2-row - 11 lbs

Dark Munich - 6 lbs

Barley Flakes - 2 lbs

Roasted Barley - 4 oz

Smoked Malt - 4 oz

Herbs:

Myrica Gale - Plenty of branches and leaves, boiled with wort. Drupes placed in secondary.

Yarrow - Leaves boiled with wort. Flowering tops placed in secondary or added at flame out.

Labrador Tea - Small amount of leaves added toward end of boil.

Juniper - 6 berries added at the end of the boil.

Spent Grain Bread

Here’s my recipe for Spent Grain Bread, using crushed barley grains left over from brewing quite a thick, dark porter.

I don’t measure when I’m making bread, so therefore measurements listed herein are estimations. This makes one loaf.

Ingredients:

Boiling water

Yeast - about a tablespoon and a half

Sugar (or honey) - 1/3 cup

Lukewarm water - 1 cup (should be around ~40 celcius)

All purpose flour, unbleached

Cultured Buttermilk (or probiotic yoghurt, homo milk, whatever) - 1/5 cup or less

Spent grains - 1/3 cup

Dark Rye flour - 1/3 cup

Whole Wheat flour - 1/3 cup

Dried Rosemary - 1/6 cup? crushed

Butter - I use lots. melted

Salt

Method

1. Boil some water (a cup or two). Get a big ceramic mixing bowl and pour the boiling water in. Cover with a plate, and let the bowl heat up for a few minutes. Discard water.

2. Dissolve sugar or honey in the lukewarm water. Add 1 1/3 cups all purpose flour and mix - get some air in there for the yeast. Mix in the yeast. Cover and let it stand for about 15 minutes somewhere warm. It will get kind of bubbly, rise a bit, and take on a strange, snot-like consistency.

3. Uncover, and add cultured buttermilk, melted butter, crushed rosemary, whole wheat flour, rye flour and spent grains. I sprinkled a pinch or two of sugar over the grains before mixing. Then a pinch of salt or two.

4. Add a cup or two of all-purpose flour, mix. keep mixing until it’s not so sticky. Flour a clean, dry surface.

5. Take dough out of bowl and knead on clean, dry, floured surface. Knead hard until it feels like an earlobe when pinched, and it is still sticky to the touch, but no longer sticks to surface.

6. Clean out the ceramic bowl and coat it with a little bit of oil or butter. Put your ball of dough in the bowl and rotate it around to coat it with oil. Put in a warm place to rise (I use the oven with the light on - I turn on the oven to about 200F for about a minute, then turn it off, and put the bowl in. The oven stays around 40 degrees celcius, probably.) you can cover it or not - I don’t.

7. Let the dough rise until it has doubled.

8. Lightly coat the inside of a bread pan with oil or butter.

9. Punch down the dough (yeah! punch it!) and smush it into the pan (don’t rip the dough!)

10. Dough should be pretty moist at this point, so go ahead and sprinkle a little coarse salt and more rosemary on top.

11. Let rise again. (Put back in the warm oven)

12. This is where timing is key. I often screw this part up. Let the dough rise about 2cm above the pan, then take it out of the oven (if that’s where you put it) and heat the oven to 350F. As soon as the oven is heated, throw the bread in there asap.

If you let the dough rise too much, it will collapse when it’s baking. This is no good! So don’t let it rise too much.

13. Leave the bread in the oven for 30minutes or so. Don’t open it! When you take it out, it should be golden on the top, and the bread should be 1inch to 1 1/2 inches above the pan.  Give the top a light knock with your knuckle. It should sound hollow.

Take it out of the pan and let it cool a bit on a wire rack. Coat the top with a little butter if you like.