This was supposed to be my first post this morning but since I was not feeling so great, and went back to bed, my posts today are going to be out order. Not that the order matters but .. it will probably make me crazy (or crazier).
It was about 15 years ago that I ordered the grain mill . . I went back and looked and it was February, 2008 so it was 17 years ago! Time flies.
For anyone interested, this is a post I did in 2020 answering questions about milling your own wheat. That post was written in April, 2020 so a lot has changed since then. Some mills are almost impossible to get now. All grains are in short supply. There are exponentially more people milling their own flour now so there are more resources available for help and recipes. The most important thing to know, besides health benefits of whole grain, is that whole grains last way longer than does milled flour. I’m lucky to keep flour a year but whole grains, I have some of the first ones I bought 17 years ago and they’re fine. When grains are properly stored (air tight containers that mice and critters can’t get into it), with oxygen absorbers, in a cool, dark environment, I’m confident the grains are good for at least 25 years.
There’s a learning curve with any kind of bread making. It took me a while when I first started milling the flour to get a consistently good loaf of bread. I made whole wheat bread some in Texas but not much. Then I got on the sourdough kick and feel like I’ve pretty much mastered that.
I’ve been wanting to get back to whole wheat bread making so yesterday I got out three kinds of wheat to grind for bread. Left to right: Hard red, hard white, and spelt.
I didn’t weigh any of the grain, just individually dumped it in the mill.
There it is all milled. Looks like little paw prints in the flour but it’s actually from my fingers feeling the texture of the flour.
I had told Jeremy I’d make him a loaf of bread and I had sourdough ready to bake but then I figured . . I’ll have two loaves of whole wheat, I’ll give them one of those too.
Whole wheat flour, especially home milled, absorbs way more water than does regular white or storebought whole wheat flour so the dough has to be super wet or you’ll have a dry, crumbly bread. I can’t stand touching whole wheat dough so I use the mixer to do the kneading. It’s been so long since I made this kind of bread, I wasn’t sure exactly how wet to make the dough and I think it was a bit too wet and didn’t hold the shape very well. One loaf looked downright sad and one loaf looked like it needed help. I gave the better looking loaf to Jeremy, along with the sourdough loaf.
We’ve been eating on the really sad looking loaf and it tastes amazing. Jeremy and Angie won’t care that it’s ugly . . I hope!
I need to make more right away and keep making it til I get the feel for how wet this dough needs to be. I won’t be making any today . . maybe tomorrow.
Carolyn says
Both loaves look delicious to me! Hope you’re feeling better! ??
Nelle Coursey says
We have lots of mesquite beans around here if you need them for flour!!
judy.blog@gmail.com says
I should have collected some while I was there but every time I remembered to do it, they were full of bugs.
Joyce says
When my father retired he decided he wanted to bake bread, because his grandmother did that. Instead of starting with a basic bread, he decided to try rye bread. It came out like a rock. He even joked he had to use his table saw to slice it. Not long after that my parents bought a bread machine. He still made bread but made it in the bread machine, and it came out really good!