Sourdough bread…à la bière

Boulangeries (bread baking store) in Paris always offer you the varieties of breads : from something very traditional like French baguettes or croissants to many others like bread with raisins, bread with chocolate, even with curry…There is one bread that I’d love to create at home, in my kitchen – bread…à la bière, i.e bread made with beer. First I thought it could be a kind of bread made with fermented beer but actually the canned beer has been used instead of water during the production. Hope I’m right!

Anyway today I’m trying to make a no-knead-sourdough bread with beer, based on my “traditional” recipe and the only change – water will be replaced by a can of beer that I still have in the fridge after the party with friends last week. If you love what you see, you also can give it a try! It’s very good!

013 — Here you go – my sourdough bread made with beer

Step 1 Preparation for the Poolish (the sponge)

Sourdough starter 100 gr.
White bread flour 100 gr.
Filtered or bottled water 100 gr.

Mix all together at least 10 hours before bread-making or overnight in the room temperature.

008 — The mixture of sourdough starter, water and bread flour night before

009 — How the sponge looks like after overnight at the room temperature

Step 2 Preparation for sourdough bread

The Sponge / Poolish 300 gr (that was prepared earlier)
White bread flour 460 gr.
Beer 230 gr.
Vegetable oil 10 gr.
Kosher salt 8-10 gr.

The first 45 minutes: Mix all ingredients together in a big bowl, with a scraper, then cover the bowl with cloth, leave it at the room temperature for the first 45 minutes.

014 — Using scraper to mix all ingredients

015 — The dough will look like this but don’t worry! Leave it to rest for the first 45′

The second 45 minutes: To stretch the dough, gently take one edge of the dough and stretch and fold it onto the top of the dough. Turn your bowl to the opposite side and do the same thing. Continue with the other two edges in the same way. After that flip your dough so the bottom is now the top, cover it for the second 45 minutes.

The third and last 45 minutes: do exactly the same thing as the second and let it sit for the third and the last 45 minutes. After 45 minutes the dough looks more fluffy, nice to touch as it’s soft so we need to handle it gently. After 3 times of 45 minutes, i.e 3 hours to ferment the dough, now time to leave the sourdough bread in the basket and overnight in the fridge.

005 — when folding the dough don’t forget to oil or make your hands wet…

010 — and time to put upside down into the basket overnight in the fridge

Next morning, take the dough out from the fridge, flip into the Dutch oven and leave it for about 15 minutes and bake it at 250ºC for at least 35 minutes in the Dutch oven with lid. I’m using Le Creuset. Baking in an iron bakeware like Le Creuset or other brands of Dutch oven is the best!