Recipes / Bread
Beer bread in a potjie on the coals
A no-yeast beer bread baked in a flat-bottomed cast-iron pot with a few coals underneath and more on the lid, with an optional bacon wrap.
- Prep
- 15 min
- On the fire
- 1 hr
- Plan ahead
- 10 minutes resting in the pot
- Serves
- 1 round loaf, about 10 wedges
- Done at
- 200°F (93°C)
Ingredients
Bacon wrap, optional
Method
Cooking on gas?
- Use the closed gas grill as an oven, so you do not need coals on the lid.
- Set up for indirect heat at 180 to 200°C (350 to 400°F): light the outside burners and leave the one under the pot off.
- Put the potjie, lid on, over the unlit burner, close the grill and bake for the same time, turning the pot a quarter turn every 15 minutes. Check it at 45 minutes, as in the recipe.
- Let the fire burn down to low coals. You need a few for under the pot and about 15 for the lid, with more ready to swap in.
- Butter the inside of a flat-bottomed potjie or cast-iron Dutch oven of about 25 cm (10 inches) across, and the inside of the lid.
- If you are using bacon, line the base and sides of the pot with the strips and let the ends hang over the rim.
- Mix the flour, sugar and salt in a bowl. Add the beer, water and egg and stir until just combined, then fold in the cheese.
- Scrape the dough into the pot and fold any bacon ends over the top. Put the lid on.
- Rake a thin ring of 5 or 6 low coals a little wider than the base of the pot. Set the pot on its legs or on three stones over the ring so the base does not sit on the coals.
- Spread about 15 coals evenly over the lid and bake for 55 to 65 minutes.
- Give the pot a quarter turn every 15 minutes and replace the lid coals as they burn down.
- After 45 minutes, brush the ash off the lid and check the bread. Rest it in the pot for 10 minutes off the heat before you turn it out.
Done when: the top is golden, the loaf sounds hollow when you tap it, a skewer in the middle comes out clean, and the centre reads about 93°C (200°F). With bacon, the bacon should be crisp and brown.
Tips
- The base burns long before the top is done. If the bottom smells scorched at the 45-minute check, take away the coals underneath and finish with heat from the lid only.
- A round of baking paper on the base makes the loaf easy to lift out if you are not using bacon.
- Add a handful of chopped spring onion or a chopped green chilli with the cheese for a savoury loaf.
This is beer bread baked the old way, in a cast-iron pot on the coals. It takes the method of potbrood but needs no yeast and no waiting for the dough to rise, so it suits camping trips and braais where the fire is the only oven. The heat comes mostly from the lid, the same idea set out in potjie basics.
Source
Adapted from Recipe: Beer bread with bacon at News24.