Another Way To Use Barley!

I've always wanted to do this. I had seen posts in many other places about using the leftover grain from brewing as an ingredient in bread. I love to bake, I love to brew. It just seemed like a natural fit. I don't know why it took so long to actually do it.

Drying the grain took longer than I thought it would, probably because I kept the oven door closed (My wife hates the smell.) I spread about 2lbs out into the largest pan we had; about 14"x18". I set the oven on warm, and stirred it every couple of hours. It took a couple of days. If I had left the door open, I think it would have gone much faster.

When it was completely dry, I ran it though my food processor. I wasn't quite flour, but was it wasn't just dried husks, either.

What to use for a recipe, I wondered? I did some searching, and everything I found looked WAY too complicated. In almost everything I do, I try to stick with the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid). So, I took a simple white bread recipe, and tried modifying it.

My first attempt went, uh, not well. I essentially made a hockey puck; small, black,hard. I increased the flour, decreased the barley, and got what you see above. It's dark, rather dense, and really yummy.

Here's the recipe I came up with. I used my bread machine, but it should work fine as a manual recipe, as well.

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SPENT GRAIN BREAD

2 cups flour
1/2 cup (or less) spent grain, dried
2/3 cup water or milk
2 tbs sugar
2 tbs oil (or softened margarine/butter)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp yeast (or 1 pkt)
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I plan to try this again with 1/4 cup of grain. I think that might result in a somewhat lighter loaf. I really like the taste, though. I also like the idea that you would make a slightly different bread after every brewing session.