The thing about Beer and Bread

There is an interesting relationship between beer and bread. First of all they both come from essentially the same source: grains, yeast, and water. The obvious difference is that they don't have the same consistency. Lets look at a basic bread recipe and a basic beer recipe and compare the similarities and the differences.

Bake some Bread:

Flour (grains milled and ground)

Yeast (a plant like microbe that consumes sugars found in flour to create carbon dioxide, which in turn causes the bread to rise - ahhemm: fermentation)

Sugar source (used to aid in fueling the yeast for rising)

Salt (more or less for flavoring, but also to help control the fermentation process. Salt can kill yeast)

Water (used to moisten the flour, yeast, sugar, and salt to create a spongy web used to collect the carbon dioxide and allow the bread to rise and stretch over time)

Brew some Beer:

Malted Grains (grains that have gone through the germination process and have then been dried)

Yeast (as in bread, they are used to ferment, they consume the sugars released from the grains to create alcohol as well as other waste products i.e. carbon dioxide)

Sugar source (when you steep the malted grains for beer, they release enzymes and sugar which are used to feed the yeast and create alcohol)

Water (beer is 90-95% water)

When either baking bread or brewing beer, you have to decide which kind you want to make. That generally starts with the type of grain you want to use, do you want wheat bread, rye bread, multi-grain, etc. With beer do you want to brew a pale ale, stout, wheat beer? Well you have to use the right type of grain to produce the type of bread or beer you want to make.

Then come the extra stuff that gives them a unique flavor. Do you want to have fruit in your bread or a fruity flavoring in your beer? Do you want to add any herbs or spices to either? This is probably the best part of both of these worlds; being able to make them your own. But remember, if you want to recreate what you have made, then you should keep track of what you have done.

Finally comes the presentation, how are you going to shape your bread? What kind of glass are you going to serve your beer in? Each style of bread is shaped for a specific reason, be it tradition, or for use, i.e. bagel, sliced loaf, baguette. Beer is very similar, it is served in specific glasses for presentation of color, aroma, and taste i.e. wheat beer glass, steins, snifters, pints. If you are going to spend the time and effort to create a beautiful loaf of bread or a mouth watering beer, you should display it with pride.

After all this talk of bread and beer, I think I'll bake some Bavarian pretzels and have a stein of Hefeweizen.

Cheers!