So bread making has been going well for the local brewery, Le Bec Jaune. We have made 6 various sourdough loaves for them over the past week to accompany their plat du jours – steak & kidney pie and pasta. Monday is St Patrick’s Day and Le Bec Jaune is putting on a lamb stew to celebrate and to accompany their tasty dark beers – currently an Extra Stout and Porter are on tap. We were given a little of their Extra Stout to experiment with in our bread making. Le Bec Jaune have also just received some fantastic take-away flagons. The above picture is of their one litre version, with not quite so much stout left in it…) The resulting sourdough was a deliciously complex darker bread, and will go perfectly with the stew. 3 loaves have been commissioned. We are using our original stout recipe for 2 of them (as per below – follow same recipe as per previous post: Sourdough in the Snow) and the third we are going all out with the stout (no water)…
Robboy’s Extra Stout Sourdough (makes one medium loaf)
Sponge
250g of strong white flour (we have been using a French T80* flour)
200mls extra stout (or similar dark beer)
125mls of warm water
150g or so of Frank (sourdough starter)
Dough
100g buckwheat flour (Sarrasin in France)
100g rye (Seigle in France)
100g white flour (T80)
15g salt
*After a little research I have found that the T type numbers for French flour refer to the ash content of them, which increases with the number, however after using several of them it is easier to think of the flour becoming coarser as the number increases: T45 pastry flour, T55 white, T80 more coarse white, T110 half white/brown, T150 wholemeal)
3 Stout loaves being rounded
The finished product and a glass of one of the main ingredients.
robboy and jules adventures 
Well Rob and Jules … one of two things will happen … Bec Jaune will not want you to go on your safari because there will be a run on the wonderful bread they are now serving … or they will be hanging out for you to leave because they will have run out of stout! 🙂
By the way there is significantly less snow on the roof tops in the background of the photo … is there still sufficient for good runs to be had??
Yes, it is very good stout… We have had a chat with them, and may leave them some Frank so they can continue. Still enough snow on the runs, but you don’t really want to go off piste at the moment for fear of putting rocks through your board.