“Two of the more dubious achievements of American culture are white bread and light beer.”
– Bruce Aidells and Denis Kelly (Real Beer and Good Eats)

Of all the cooking up of things my family does, one of the guys’ favorite activities is making homebrew. Hardly a weekend goes by when they’re not mashing, sparging and fermenting some sort of grains.  (Of course, one of their other favorite things to do is drink the beer they make, thus setting up this constant effort to keep the fridge full.)

Each batch of beer begins with around 11 pounds of malted grain … all in completely different levels of maltedness. From a light, toasty pale malt to a dark, chocolate-colored malt these grains are used to provide the sugar that the beer needs to ferment. After that, the beer makers discard the spent grain to either the birds or the garbage.

Naturally, as a bread maker I was saddened by the loss of all that lovely grain, spent or otherwise. I knew I could use it for bread, but the recipes I found on the internet really weren’t all that appealing to me. Most were developed by beer makers and seemed a little on the heavy side.

It took me awhile, but I finally developed a recipe that is light and chewy at the same time. I like the texture of the grain, but it’s not overpowering. This is a good bread for toast, since the grains get crunchy and the toast stays tender. It’s a good loaf of hearty bread with just the right amount of sweetness. After all, man cannot live by beer alone.