Fermented grains

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albacore on 15 Apr 2022 at 11:56

Does anyone have any experience of fermented grains? I was watching "The Great British Menu" on BBC (a professional cheffing competition) and one of the chefs, Nathan Davies, used fermented grains in his starter dish.

He said he fermented the grains in yoghurt whey for a month and then cooked them in a Punk IPA beer reduction. I couldn't find any more details. I did find a couple of references to fermented grains on the Interweb, but they only seemed to ferment for a couple of days, with diluted yoghurt whey.

I guess you don't want the grains to sprout too much, if they're in there for a month. Maybe 100% yoghurt whey will stop or reduce sprouting, or maybe the grains are blanched first?

Anyway, for my first stab, I took a cup (not like me to use cups!) of mixed grains - 2 types of heritage wheat/emmer/rye and covered them in pretty acidic yoghurt whey. Lets see what happens.....

 

Lance

 

 

I have seen people ferment flaked grains (oats most often, used as a base for starters or in things like overnight oats) but not whole grains. I'm not sure there would be a lot for the wee beasties to eat unless the grain access to the endosperm, via flaking vs cracking vs milling to some degree. It will be interesting to see how your experiment progresses. 

Thanks for your thoughts, Mary. I'm thinking that the fermentation will come from the lactic acid bacteria in the whey.

On the other hand, the lactics in yoghurt are thermophilic, so I don't know how much activity there will be at our 18C ambient.

We will see!

 

Lance

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justkeepswimming on 27 Apr 2022 at 16:32

Curious how this experiment finished up and what you decided to do with the fermented grain? 

Mary

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albacore on 1 May 2022 at 13:39

Hi Mary, it went something like this:

  • the bubbles stopped after 6 days at ambient, so I put the whole mix in the fridge, as I didn't want it going mouldy. pH was 3.88
  • after another 5 days I drained the grains and cooked them in some beer. I chose a moderately strong, slightly sweet and mild beer. Experience has taught me not to use hoppy bitter beers for cooking as the bitter flavour is not pleasant in this context. Cooking took about 2 hours - I kept topping up with more beer as it boiled down.
  • eventually I ended up with a thick mixture of grains. The flavor was nutty, chewy, sl sour.
  • I served them warm with onions halved and coated with miso butter and griddle cooked. Plus some wild garlic Schupfnudeln.
  • The whole thing worked pretty well and I may make the grains again sometime.

 

After fermentation:

 

Beer used:

 

After cooking:

 

On the plate:

 

The final dish:

 

Lance