Celebration ale spent grain bread

Last weekend my husband brewed Oak Barrel Winecraft's seasonal Celebration Ale, which features 1 part barley to 2 parts crystal malt 40L. It also includes sugars and spices, but I'm not sure how much of those made their way into the grains.

So what the heck is crystal malt 40L? According to Brew365, it's a type of crystal/caramel malt produced from wheat rather than barley. "The process darkens the wheat malt (from 3L to 38-53L) and produces nonfermentable sugars. The roasting process produces a caramel, roast, moderately sweet flavor in addition to keeping the mouthfeel properties of the base wheat malt." It's used in dark beers. Judging from the range of 38-53L, it sounds like crystal malt 40L is one of the lighter dark wheat malts.

Barley and crystal malt 40L, after brewing

After brewing, the spent grain smelled much less sweet than the Hefeweizen leftovers. This spent grain did, however, make for some tasty, dark bread. I'll call it Celebration bread.

Dense crumb around the edges

I used the same recipe as before: Snappy Service Cafe's Homebrewed to Home Baked: Spent Grain Bread. The only difference from before was the different spent grain and the fact that I accidentally left the bread in the breadmaker for a few hours after baking. The extended time in the Zo didn't seem to harm the Celebration bread, but it might have contributed to the dense crumb along all the outside edges of the bread.

Although I made the same adjustments as before (search for "details" in my previous post), the Celebration bread had a very different texture, color, and flavor from the Hefeweizen bread. The texture wasn't as light, perhaps because of being trapped in the breadmaker. During the mixing cycle, I checked on the consistency, and it was more solid (in a good way) than the wetter Hefeweizen dough. The color of the Celebration bread was darker, more like a pumpernickel. Interestingly, the flavor was also more like pumpernickel—bittersweet, with molasses overtones. Each time I had the Celebration bread, the first bite seemed a little too bitter, but by the last bite I loved it.

I ate the Celebration bread both alone and with tuna fish. Delicious!

Next time I might try a different oil. I'll probably also reduce the recipe to produce something closer to a 1.5# loaf. This bread was ridiculously tall. Never before have I made a machine-baked loaf that barely fit into the breadbox.

Squeezed into the breadbox