In pane veritas
Sicilia is the land of Cerere (Ceres/Demeter) the goddess of wheat; the island has also been called the "granaio di Italia" (largest wheat producing region in Italy). Historical references aside, I can tell you from personal experience, Sicilians eat tons of bread! Food in Sicily could be called in general “conpanatico” (con panis - that goes with bread). I still remember my grandmother serving us "cotolette" (schnitzel or milanese di pollo) in a sandwich (I guess the breadcrumbs around the chicken fillets were not bready enough).
I have seen bread been used with any type of food. I still remember my friends coming from the USA looking at me with awe when I offered them a "Brioche con gelato". - do you even eat ice cream with bread? They exclaimed, surprised. We do.
You can imagine my surprise when I learnt that you could even make beer with bread. In fact, beer and bread seem to be the same thing just in different formats (solid vs. liquid). As I learn more and more about mother yeast and fermentation, I find it a natural evolution to go from eating bread to baking my own with mother yeast, to using the left over bread (plus a bit of yeast) to make my own beer.
What then?
(Lithuanian home made recipe that takes approx. 7 days to be ready)
Day 1. Boil 6l of water (we like to enjoy the beer with lots of friends) and poor in a clay container. Take 1kg of rye bread and let it dry in the microwave for a few minutes (you need the bread to provide fermentation nutrients but any water in the bread will not pass into your final beer so it is not needed). Let the bread soak in the boiling water clay pot where you also add resins and sugar (when I witness this it truly reminded me of my first trials at making mother yeast). Let it all rest for a couple of days.
Day 3. Add approx. 15g of fresh yeast to the clay pot and steer. You will notice the bread sunk to the bottom of the pot.
Day 5. The bread should have surfaced again together with the resins. You beer is almost ready but not very carbonated. Filter the liquid removing all solids. Fill a few plastic bottles remembering to leave space for the gas to fill the bottle (don't fill up to the top as the friendly bacteria will keep on producing that CO2 that you want to taste). Leave 1 day at room temperature and 2 days in the fridge. Enjoy your homemade beer.
This is a recipe that I learnt while in Lithuania. It can be made much more "sophisticated" twicking a few elements:
1) yeast - use mother yeast of yeast made for beer / wine fermentation
2) add flavours to your infusion (boiled water) such as malt, honey, coffee, chocolate
3) experiment with different bread types (you will have a very hard time finding rye bread in Sicily - unfortunately)
Also check the following websites:
https://munchies.vice.com/en/articles/these-belgian-brewers-are-turning-wasted-bread-into-tasty-beer