Oberon Bread

For about a week and a half, I've been nursing a sourdough starter that I began with the dregs of a bottle of Bell's Oberon beer. I've wanted to harness yeast from beer to make bread for a long time, and this summer, I learned how to make that happen. Last night, it all came to fruition, and I baked a loaf of bread from my nascent starter. I couldn't have been more elated!

It was quite a long and drawn out process. I started the beginnings of the final bread dough two nights ago. I took the starter, added quite a bit of flour and water, and let it ferment overnight. Yesterday morning I made the final dough, essentially adding to the beefed up starter I made the night before. When the dough came together, the dough needed to rise for five hours in a warm place. Once that was finished, I was able to form the dough into its final shape. The shaped dough is then placed in a bowl, lined with a linen towel that is heavily dusted with flour to prevent sticking, and then allowed to proof, or rise, for an additional four hours.

Then it's bake time. I placed a pizza stone in the oven, preheated the oven for about a half hour, and then grabbed my risen dough. I turned it over onto a flat sheet pan, and then scored the bread with three slashes to relieve stress, and to add a bit of a decorative element to the bread.

When that was finished, I prepared the oven by spraying the walls and bottom with water, creating steam inside the oven. Steam is the ingredient that's needed to give crusts that nice, chewy, thick texture that we all like so much. To help with the steam production, I added a sheet pan filled with a cup of water on the lowest rack.

In went the bread, and the waiting game began. I really had no idea how the bread would turn out, but I hoped for the best. It has been an immensely satisfying process for me, to begin with my favorite beer, and then to slowly see the starter begin to take off. To harness yeast and to observe it cause the dough to rise was terrific fun and now I only hoped the bread would be tasty.



It turned out suprisingly well. It was pretty tasty stuff, and though it came out at 9:30 at night, I just had to share it with somebody. It's no fun experiencing a moment like this alone. I called up a guy at work, and brought the bread over to him and his wife and his mom, who lives with them. We all tried it, and it was declared a success.

I've got the bread baking bug now. I've read before that it's therapeutic to bake bread, and I've found that to be the case. I suspect I'll be a bread baking fiend for awhile. I've got a loaf of sage bread rising as we speak. I'll be forming the dough for that tonight, and then it rises through the night. First thing tomorrow morning, I'll be firing up the oven, and a new loaf will hopefully be on its way.

Who knows? I might be swinging by your house sometime with a freshly baked loaf of bread.