Toast want everyone to get involved in reusing bread waste, so if you regularly have leftover bread at home and you’re an avid brewer, why not brew your own Toast Ale. Alternatively, pop into your local bakery, cafe or market and see if they’re happy to give you their surplus at the end of the day. Most will be glad for you to take it off their hands.

If you’re a commercial brewery, Toast would love to hear from you to discuss a potential collaboration. The team are always open to working together to raise funds for Feedback. Drop them an email and get your brew on.

How To Make It…

1. SLICE, DRY AND CRUSH THE BREAD

Dry the bread in an oven at 90°C for about 1h. Time and temperature will vary depending on your oven, but generally the lower the temperature the better. Slicing the bread will speed up drying.

Once the bread is dry, coarsely crush to the size of large croutons (not to powder otherwise you will get a stuck mash).

2. MASH

Steep your grains in 15.7L of water at 67°C and mix. Cover and leave for 60 minutes.

The naturally occurring enzymes in the malt convert the starches in the grain into simple sugars. Toast ale is special because we’ve replaced some of the barley malt with bread, but malt is still required for the enzymes.

3. SPARGE AND LAUTER

Drain the liquid from the bottom of the mash tun (lautering) whilst rinsing the grains with 78°C water from the top to extract additional sugars (sparging). Sparge until you’ve reached 25L – you’ll use about 20L of water.

Ideally, you should sparge using a watering can or colander so that the water is distributed in a spray rather than the continuous gush of a hose. The back of a spoon also works. While sparging, don’t be tempted to push the wort through the wet grains. Grains in the wort may create unwanted tanin tastes.

4. BOIL AND ADD HOPS

Bring the wort to a boil. Add 5g of German Hallertau Tradition hops immediately at 90 minutes. These are the ‘bittering’ hops that give Toast its lip-smacking bitter taste. They balance out the caramel notes from the bread and the papaya and mango notes from the aroma hops that you’ll add later.

At 15 minutes (i.e. 75 minutes of boiling), add 1 tsp Protofloc, also called Irish Moss, which makes a brighter tasting wort.

At 5 minutes (i.e. after 85 minutes), add 12g Cascade hops and 10g Centennial hops. As you take the wort off the boil (i.e. after 90 minutes), add the final hops – 25g Cascade, 10g Centennial and 25g Bramling Cross. These are the aromatic hops that add a fruity, refreshing punch to Toast.

5. COOL, FERMENT AND CONDITION

Cool the wort to 20°C. You can use an ice bucket, but don’t mix unboiled water with your wort, which has been sterilised by the boiling. Add a 11.5g sachet of Safale US-05 rehydrated yeast to the cooled wort.

Let the yeast get to work fermenting. Try to keep your wort at around 18°C for 7 days. After five days, add another 60g Cascade hops and 35g Bramling Cross hops. This reinforces the fresh mango, passion fruit, and kiwi flavours.

Siphon the beer into sterile bottles, primed for carbonation. You should never pour the beer as this adds oxygen that will spoil the beer. Seal the bottles and leave in a cool, dark place (at around 12°C) for two weeks. This is a secondary fermentation stage that allows the beer to get some fizz and condition nicely.

Finally, drink and enjoy while raising a toast to the end of bread waste!

For more technical details head to the Toast Ale recipe page and be sure to download the fact sheet.