Beer cheese yeast bread

Most of the beer bread recipes I've come across are quick breads. I prefer yeast bread because of the unique flavor of yeast. Finally I found a Granville Island beer bread recipe that seemed like exactly what I'd wanted. So I tried it out as a half loaf, adapting it for my old yeast. 

Recipe: Beer cheese bread (1/2 loaf)


Ingredients:
Starter:
- 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon (TB) all-purpose flour
- 3/4 teaspoon (tp) dried yeast
- 1/4 cup water
Dough:
- 3 oz lukewarm guinness
- 1 TB oil
- 1 TB onion flakes
- 1 tp dried yeast
- 1/8 tp ground pepper
- 1/4 tp salt
- 1 TB sugar
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/4 cup finely chopped ham

- 3/4 cup shredded blend of low-moisture part-skim mozzarella, provolone, parmesan, asiago, fontina and romano cheese

Procedure:

1. To prepare the starter: Mix starter ingredients in a small bowl to form a fluid paste. Set in a lukewarm water bath with lid for about 2-3 hours or until the mixture doubles in volume.
2. To prepare the dough: Mix the dry ingredients (flour, yeast, onion flake, salt, pepper, sugar) in a large bowl. Add in oil, beer, and the starter mixture. Stir well to form a dough. Then knead the dough until well formed. With the ratio of dough ingredients in this recipe, the dough might be a little more sticky. Add a little (1-2TB) flour if needed. When dough is well-formed, place it in a bowl coated with oil. Cover with a damp cloth. Set in an enclosed space for 30 minutes to 1 hour, until dough doubles in size.
3. When the damp cloth is being removed, dough should be moist and not stuck to the cloth. Roll out dough into a 1/2" sheet on a flat surface dusted with flour. Sprinkle ham and most of the cheese (saving about 3 TB for later). Fold up the sheet and knead dough for about 5 minutes or until the ham and cheese are well incorporated into dough. Then set dough on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Cover with a warm damp cloth and place in enclosed space. Allow dough to rest for at least 30 minutes. Warm up the damp cloth periodically during the resting time. While resting, dough will continue to rise, but not doubled in volume.
4. Remove damp cloth. Use a sharp knife to score dough about 1/2" deep. Sprinkle top with remaining shredded cheese. Bake in oven at 350F for 15 minutes. When done, a knife stuck into the center of the loaf should come out clean.
5. Allow to cool on a rake for at least 30 minutes before serving.

This experiment provides some insight into a few things that I've never known:

1. With such a huge amount of dried yeast and the warm water bath, the starter and the dough rises very decently throughout the whole preparation time. The loaf also rises substantially while in the oven.
2. After baking, the loaf does not have a thick hard crust. I think it's because of the baking temperature, which is 350F throughout the baking time. At this temperature, the shredded cheeses on top of the loaf melt very nicely with no burning.3. When the loaf cools, it shrinks only a little. The crust toughens up a little, but remains very soft. After allowing the loaf to cool for 30 minutes, I cover it with a dry cloth to keep warm.
3. The texture of the cheese bread is really soft and spongy. However, the interior, especially the area under the scored top is very dense. It might be because scoring the dough after it rests actually destroy some of the air holes until the scored area. I will score the dough before allowing it to rest next time.
4. The center of the dough is slightly undercooked. In the next experiment, I will bake the dough for 18-20 minutes.
5. The taste of the bread is excellent. This is a very worth-keeping recipe.