September 27, 2023 - 9:54am
Uses for underfermented bread?
I was in a bit of a rush the other day and didn't pay enough attention, so made a mistake of baking some white bread way too early. It turned out severely underfermented - i.e. with some areas of the loaf "stodgy" with no aeration at all.
Is there any way to use this type of failed bread for anything useful?
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You could use it as "old bread" in a future batch.
Thank you, good idea!
Ilya, while weather is still warm, you can slice it and toast it and make kvass with it. Or chop it into crumbs in a food processor, freeze them, and little by little use them as part of the feed for your starter or as part of the flour in your breads.
Essentially what you've got now is scalded flour, a specie of tangzhong, a stiff zavarka. Small amounts of it would be very beneficial to your starter and breads. Just beware of the crusts, they are ok in a kvass but not so much in freshly made breads. Cut them off before chopping the loaf.
Of course, you could simply dry them slices in the oven and make fine bread crumbs to use in cooking, like breaded schnitzels, fried chicken, meatballs, or desserts such as bread puddings.
Thanks a lot mariana, great ideas! Can you suggest a recipe for kvass with white bread? I am curious, don't think I've ever tried it.
Very easy! Just find a recipe, many out there, and it'll be ready in a two to three days. Traditionally it's rye bread but can't see why white bread won't work.
I made it once. Delicious. This looks like a sound recipe.
Bread pudding also is a good idea.
Thanks Abe! I've seen a bunch of recipes - I don't think I've seen straining before adding yeast though! I think you add the yeast to the water with bread in it... Indeed traditionally it's rye bread, so I was just wondering whether for white (wheat) bread there is some idea how to flavour it perhaps, or whether it ferments a bit differently.
My memory of the steps is a bit hazy. Probably got a bit mixed up and confused it with beer making (similar process) where it is strained. Think I need a refresher.
I think it's a nice thing to try your hand at Ilya. The rye bread toast is just for flavour. What ferments is the sugar you add. You can try adding in a slice or two of rye as well. Or a bit of malt syrup as part of the sugar.
P.s. Just thinking about it... why rye? Because the drink is from Russia and Ukraine and rye is their traditional bread. Wouldn't mean no other bread can be used and why it shouldn't be as tasty. Different, but tasty!
Ilya, kvass can be white, or pale yellow, or golden yellow, or brown and dark brown, like black coffee brown.
Bread can be fresh or dry or toasted lightly or more thoroughly. The only difference is that fresh bread when soaked or scalded will not release as much water as dried or toasted bread when you filter your kvass or kvass wort, so in the end you will have a diminished liquid kvass or wort output.
For color and aroma, you can use burnt sugar syrup, or malt extract, or fermented rye malt, a.k.a. solod. Solod must be first scalded and held warm for an hour to extract flavors and color from it.
The simplest version of kvass is made with baker's yeast.
Kvass with yeast
Per each liter of kvass
100-250g bread, any bread from any grain or mix of grains, preferably toast or at least air dry it
1 L water, 100C
1 tbsp sugar (15-35g) to taste, or malt exract, or honey, even sugar substitute is ok, to sweeten it to taste
5 g of raisins or prunes (dried plums)
2.5g of compressed yeast or 1/4 - 1/3 tsp (1g) of dry yeast
Toast sliced or cubed bread at 180C in the oven. Add 1 spoon of solod if you wish its color and aroma to be present in your kvass, and boiling water. Keep scalded bread soaking for 3-4 hours at room temperature.
Once it cools down to 65C, you can saccharify that scald with 1 tsp of diastatic malt if you wish and only then ferment it.
3-4 hours later filter it to obtain kvass wort. Add water to it to obtain one liter of wort. You can filter it later, before or even after the refrigeration step, I do.
Then sweeten it, add yeast, and cover with cloth, let it fetment for 5-6hrs.
Once you see it beginning to foam, bottle it, add raisins or chopped prunes and refrigerate. Once chilled, sweeten it to taste again if you wish, just beware of its gassiness, stirring it will be akin to sweetening champaigne or pop, and it is ready.
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I no longer make my kvass with baker's yeast. I usually rely on SD starters, even yeasless lactic acid SD starters will work if you do not want your kvass to accidentaly become too boozy and or gassy, it will be then a flat kvass, or combine lactic acid starter with yeast.
The proportions would be the same as above, only the method differs.
Kvass with SD starter
100-250 g bread, any bread from any grain or mix of grains, preferably toast or at least air dry it
1 L water, 100C
1 tbsp sugar (20-25g), or malt exract, or honey, even sugar substitute is ok, to sweeten it to taste. You can also use diastatic malt flour or cracked diastatic malt grains to your scald or your kvass instead of all those sugars.
5 g of raisins or prunes (dried plums)
1tsp to 1tbsp of starter depending on its activity, refreshed or not, dry or moist, kvass per se refreshes and reactivates the starter.
Scald bread cubes, slices, or crumbs, or toasts and after 3-4 hours measure its temperature. If it is lower than 45C, warm it up to 40-45C in microwave.
Add starter and sugar/sweeteners/diastatic malt/ colorants/solod extract to it. Cover it to preserve warmth or place it in the warmest place, 27-33C is ideal, and leave it to be acidified by the SD microorganisms.
After two or three hours at 35-42C, taste it. If it tastes mildly sour, as my kvass usually does, it is time for the second step. If not sour yet, leave it for a longer period of time at warm room temperature, for up to 24-48 hours until it tastes at least mildly sour.
Then refrigerate it for 24 hours to accumulate acidity, dissolved CO2, and 0.7 - 2.6% alcohol content, and it is ready.
You can filter it, bottle it with raisins or chopped prunes, or drink it, or use it in soups, any cold or hot soup that has a pleasantly sour base, from bortsch to okroshka or a beatutiful svekolnik.
to make kvass and it worked really well. Yes, the bread isn't the prime fermentable, unlike the sprouted grain in beer, and its main purpose is flavour. I think rye is just more traditional because of the region.
A cold kvass on a hot day is really refreshing. Easy to make to-boot.
Thanks a lot mariana for the detailed instructions! I think I will try to make it with SD starter, solod and malt extract. Just need to find some space in the fridge :)
Just straining the kvass now!
Would you keep the fermented bread as a starter for next time? Or unnecessary, since I have a regular rye SD starter?Never mind, I threw it away, can't be bothered to keep another thing...Ilya,
👍👍👍
Well done!
Unless at the same moment I am making bread where I can use that fermented bread puree as a bread improver a la tangzhong (in essence, a fermented scald), I just discard it or add it to meatballs/meatloaf raw mass which requires some soaked bread or breadcrumbs for tenderness anyways..
You can use the last half a cup of kvass as a starter for the next kvass or the sediment near the bottom of the ptcher or bottles where you keep you matured kvass. These two guys will also be rich in living sourdough microorganisms.
I was actually planning to start some kind of preferment for tomorrow, could have used some I guess... Well, doesn't matter. Thanks! Makes sense.
Let's see how I like this kvass. I am getting some nice flavours from it, but not mind blowing so far. Perhaps after some time in the fridge it'll improve. I added a little honey for a bit of sweetness and a few raisins also, to help with carbonation. I'll report back.
OK, it's been close to 24 hrs in the fridge. There was a bit of pressure in the bottle for sure, but not particularly fizzy. Just a little bite of CO2 on the tongue, not really any noticeable bubbles when pouring. But the flavour is much better today, I quite like it! Just a little sweet, sour, and of course bread-y - refreshing! I guess with rye bread instead of completely white wheat bread it would be even better.
I added a few more raisins now, perhaps it'll help it get some more gas tomorrow.
Well done! You utilized your bread and made your first kvass, Ilya. Nice. 🎉🥇🎶
Of course, a lot depends on the grain base and on your starter's microflora and bouquet. Some starters are too floral or too fruity in kvass, some starters make it smell and taste like kefir!
And it depends on your taste and aroma preferences, of course. If you want it to be close to some specific kvasses from your memories, then your path might lead you in many interesting directions.
I like pale yellow homemade kvass made with toasted white bread cubes, for example. I use wheat malt extract with it for authenticity. And I like classic dark barley-rye street kvass of my childhood, of course. It has both barley malt and rye malt in it. So I use liquid rye malt extract in it, because it is actually a blend of rye and barley malt extracts. Pure barley malt extract gives pure barley kvass.
It's the same with bread. Some people want one specific bread on their table and nothing else while others are more adventurous.
I am happy to hear about your success, Ilya. Way to go! ❤️
P.S. Whole raisins are for the long term cold storage when people make like 10L of kvass or more and bottle them to last for a while, refrigerated. Try chopped ones in your kvass to make raisin sugars and vitamins more accessible to yeasts.
Bald kvasses with little to no foam on top as they ferment and when poured depend a lot on raw flour added to wort along with the starter. It is more of a kvass design issue, of its desired looks. Maybe there was too little raw flour added with your starter if your starter is liquid, not stiff as Italian masa madre. I usually add a heaping tablespoon of whole rye flour per pitcher of dark kvass (per 2L of kwass wort) and white rye or white wheat flour per pitcher of light kvass.
Thanks a lot mariana, very kind words and instruction from you!
For the record, this time I used a bunch of toasted white bread, scalded some solod from the bottom of a bag (so not fresh, I think it has lost some aromatic quality by now), a spoonful of barley malt extract, a handful of raisins, and a tablespoon of rye starter (it is rather new, which I made recently with rye flour, malt powder, solod, raisins). Roughly followed your instructions: kept it warm at around 30C for a few hours in the evening, then reduced the temperature a bit for 24 hrs or so, then bottled with a little honey, a few raisins and just a pinch of sugar.
And yes, the starter was rather liquid, so there wasn't much flour, that makes sense. I thought the bubbles were more determined by adding some fermentable sugars to the bottle, where the gas is actually trapped then?
Funny, my girlfriend actually said I should chop the raisins, and I haven't heard of that, so just thought it doesn't matter and dismissed her (apparently good) advice!
I am overall definitely quite adventurous with bread and almost never bake the same thing twice, except for some classics. With kvass - let's see. I think I would prefer it fizzy though :) But anyway, now I have a way to utilize bread that didn't quite go to plan, which sometimes happens when I through things together and it doesn't work out that well, or if I aim impatient with my starter or the fermentation... which also happens sometimes, like this time.
Have you tried flavouring the kvass with some other ingredients? I was thinking ginger might go very well with it...
Ilya, you made me crave ginger honey cake again! :)
I think ginger (spice, scalded) or raw ginger juice might work if you want to stop or slow down microbial activity in your kvass. Added early on it might interfere with souring or carbonation and reaching proper alcohol content.
For example, I only know of ginger ale as a carbonated pop from a grocery store, never had "real" ginger beer. I do not know how it is made. Maybe beermeisters among us on this forum or some beermaking forum could advise us about ginger flavoring? After all, kvass is in the same family with beers and ales (bragas).
Well, bald kvasses that have no thick or practically any foams on top as they ferment, might still foam when poured, but the foam will be like glass bread pores :) and very unstable.
Glass like foam
Foaming kvass's surface as it ferments looks like fermenting beers
My kvass:
Brown is bran particles from wholegrain flour on the surface of the foam. The foam itself is snow white.
Thick and spongy foam, as in beerlike thick and stable foam which I showed in the pictures above, depends on kvass's density I think. At least in my experience a simple spoonful of scalded flour or a bunch of soaked bread in wort (which is another form of scalded flour) do not always produce a richly foaming kvass. But a spoonful of raw flour in kvass never fails. Of course, it also continues to reintroduce new SD species into the mix which are always welcome!
I have never tried it, but apparently one can make a "starter" called ginger bug, but adding chopped or grated ginger to water with some sugar, and letting it spontaneously ferment. At least that's what some youtube videos lead us to believe. E.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqPko6a3Wh4 or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbgd-RS_tJ0
It is of course possible, that this procedure selects for the microbes unaffected by ginger's antimicrobial properties... And simply adding some ginger to kvass wouldn't work so well and it will inhibit the fermentation.
Ah I remember as a child trying some homemade kvass with horseradish. That was a tough one! Super strong horseradish heat, not my favourite! And horseradish also has some antibacterial properties... Different from ginger of course.
I had another taste of the kvass, and I like it more and more. It's been a very long time since I've had any real kvass, and not just fizzy sweet drink from the shop. It's nice, even not very fizzy.
Thanks for the pictures and explanation!
Ah do you mean пряники by the ginger-honey cake? Or something else? I am curious whether it something I should also be craving and don't know about it! :)
😊 I meant honig lekaсh, Lebkuchen, or Pfefferkuchen and Pfeffernüsse (пряники), Ilya. They are all available here, in our area of the city, in Jewish and German bakeries, and imported around New Year season.
Russian-Ukranian-Belarussian ginger cookies (имбирные пряники) are not like Pfeffernüsse, they are like gingersnaps (thin chewy or dry cookies cut out in different shapes baked to celebrate Xmas).
At home, I usually bake the American version of lekach, cutting ginger in the recipe at least in half, otherwise it's too spicy for my palate. But otherwise, it's a winner. And Marcy Goldman's honey cake to which I add a bit of ginger, because I love it. Traditionally, it's part of pryaniki's and kovrizhki's bouquets of dry spices
Oh lekach, I see! I baked it just the other week for Rosh Hashanah, although I didn't actually include ginger this time... I love how easy yet delicious it is :) thanks for all the links, they look good!
a low tech use for sourdough "failures" is French Toast!
Eggs, cream or half & half, sugar, vanilla, pinch of salt.
Best wishes. Dave