ovenminded: WGB # 34 Spent Grain Bread

This whole wheat bread uses a soaker, a biga, and incorporates spent grain from beer brewing. The grain has been mashed or boiled to remove sugars and starches and flavors for the yeast to feed on in the process of fermentation. The grains are then strained out and discarded or used as animal feed. There are still residual flavors and the mashed grains are an ideal medium for yeast growth and add fiber and a chewyness to the bread according to Peter Reinhart.
I am very fortunate to have a local brewery near by, NoDa Brewery ,Charlotte NC just opened the last October, Todd and Suzie Ford are the owners. I emailed Suzie and she saved spent grain from their pale ale brew, I made two loaves using this grain, one for us and one for Todd & Suzie.
I was very happy with this bread, it had a wheaty chewy slightly sweet taste, a great bread for soup or stews and chili. I am sure it would be just as delicious spread with butter, or cheese.
The bread is sweetened with honey ,agave nectar or brown sugar. I used 1/2 honey and 1/2 brown sugar, since I have a sweet tooth, I added an extra tbsp of brown sugar. It was not overly sweet, just right .
The soaker and starter were hydrated to the point of not needing to chop them, as they were quite soft. I simply put them into the mixer bowl with all the other ingredients and they blended fine.
I finished kneading by hand as instructed, it was necessary to add and additional 1 +1/2 cups of flour. Eventually it came together nicely, although the volume of dough was too large for an 8x4 pan. The dough was at the top of the pan., I switched to a 9x5 ,that was perfect.
The bread took almost 40 minutes to bake and never reached 200 degrees, only 190, but was sounding hollow when I thumped the bottom, so out it stayed to cool.
here are the photos: