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Mary Chris
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Ok, pulling my thoughts from the artisian bread thread 
Where do you buy your grain? What kind do you buy?
I usually buy from Breadbeckers. I usually buy hard red, soft red and soft white.
Really this is my most pressing question.....What do I use to make cookies? 
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nissag
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Mary Chris,
I have a NutriMill for making flour. I get my grains wholesale through our shop, but also make them available at near wholesale through my online co-op. I love oat and quinoa and rice flours. I discovered that I need a binder such as tapioca, guar, or xanthan for rice flour recipes... Sheesh. Trial and lots of error.
I'm eyeing chestnut flour for making sweet treats. Apparently it doesn't need to be combined with any other flour, is naturally sweeter, and produces a creamy texture. Sounds like heaven to me.
You might be able to pick up a small amount of chestnut flour at a local Whole Foods or similar market. You can also order online at Gluten Free Mall.
Blessings,
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JodieLyn
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your "soft" wheat has less gluten and is what you want for most things.
your "hard" wheat is what you want for anything with yeast.
That's the easiest way for me to remember.. hard wheat for anything you use yeast and soft wheat for everything else.
You might want to look into hard white wheat.. it has a higher gluten content than hard red wheat.. and makes a lighter bread. It's great by itself, especially if your family is resisting the change to whole wheat breads. I mix it half and half with hard red for the nutty taste the hard red has and get a lovely loaf of bread with it.
I buy wheat through http://www.waltonfeed.com though I have been looking at http://www.bobsredmill.com The big thing to remember when purchasing bulk grains is that your shipping is going to be a good half of the cost. So be sure and figure shipping into the price for comparison. And shipping changes depending on distance, though I did have a friend out in Texas find that bobs red mill was cheaper for her because of the way they charge shipping. That's one reason I'm investigating it. Bobs red mill is in Oregon and Walton Feed in Idaho.
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Jodie, wife to Dave
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Mackfam
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I bought from Bread Beckers, but I'm getting low on wheat berries and after Christmas I plan on hopping over to Nissa's place to check them out!!!  I've got Walton's and Bob's Red Mill bookmarked for final consideration as well. And then...there's the local option I hope we can find because as Jodie rightly points out - shipping will be over half the cost!
I prefer the golden wheat berries for all baking - it has the high gluten content and makes a very nice cookie. I grind super fine (pastry flour setting) on a Whisper Mill which is also helpful because the nature of whole wheat is to offer more texture to a cookie or anything delicate.
I've never heard of some of the flours Nissa talks about, and the Chestnut Flour sounds just lovely for baking! I think I'd like to try that one!
It really is a whole lot of trial and error with wheat, moisture content, sugars, gluten, eggs/binder and all the proportions. I did find after what seems like a thousand bricks of bread that a teaspoon of lemon juice in the mix helps the rise and tenderness if you have really hard water - and I do!
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Jen Mackintosh
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dawn2006
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If you have a local store that sells in bulk they may order a large bag for you and then you won't have to pay shipping. It's been so long since I've done that and I don't remember the weight of the bags. 25#, maybe? We have Sun Harvests here and that's where I ordered the berries through. Just picked it up at the store!
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JodieLyn
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oh yes, if you have local options, realize that they'll be rolling their shipping cost into the price.. so the price will look a lot different than say Walton Feed.. until you add in the shipping to Walton Feed orders. I had to look hard at the end cost of everything to find the best option for me.. plus I was having to decide if we could afford it so I was trying to equal or beat the price I was paying for all purpose flour at the grocery store. I also checked co-ops but the closest one was a 2.5 hr round trip so I also included my cost of getting there and back to that one.
And many of the options will depend on how much you order at once. I have gotten Walton Feed because it's the cheapest option for BUT in order to get it that cheap I have to put in a 500lb order.. I have storage buckets and I get all my grains there.. rice, beans, wheat, oats.. sometimes other things if I can beat the local price that way. That's teh amount that gets the lowest shipping rate.
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KackyK
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Mary Chris I have switched from Bread Beckers to Quail Cove. They are on the Eastern Shore. They have co-op drop off locations. But they deliver every month, so it's easier to buy when you need and you don't have to do some much predicting. My pickup is in Manassas, but I bet there is something even closer to you. Check out their website. Quail Cove Farms
Oh and I have gotten wheat from Frankferd Farms too, they are PA. At one point their prices were cheaper than Quail Cove, but I think they have gone up to even. So I buy from the VA supplier instead now. You can get a lot of other great things from Quail Cove too.
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Mary Chris
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Thanks everyone! Kacky, I have a Quail Cove drop right around the corner from my house.  I have ordered wheat berries from them before, but if I remember correctly they only have a hard red. I'll need to check the flyer.
Breadbeckers comes to the state homeschool conference here, so I sometimes pick up what I need for the year then. I did not make any bread while dh was gone, so I have plenty of wheat berries.
Sounds like I need to experiment more.
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JodieLyn
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oh on the cookies.. I'm at an elevation that needs adjusting too.. but I tend to add an extra quarter cup flour per cup listed in the recipe when using whole wheat flour. I figure the bran is like adding nuts.. they don't really make the dough.. so adding a bit more will give the right consistency to the dough. Otherwise they tend to spread out too much.
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KackyK
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Found it...grains
Prairie Gold is the hard white, the Bronze Chief is the hard red and then you can see they have Natural soft. I thought I had ordered all three varieties from there before.
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KackyK
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cornomama4
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Here's a little math question....how do you find the price compares (generally) to flour in the store, good quality flour. Anyone figured this out? Also, can you buy Organic wheat to grind without taking out a second mortage?? Thanks!
cm4
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hsmom
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I buy from the Breadbeckers also. I usually buy hard red and hard white for yeast breads. For other baking I use soft white and oats. My favorite flour for baking sweet breads and cookies is just oats ground in the vitamix. I would have to get oat groats to grind them in the mill. Before I had a vitamix I just ground up oats in the blender, a little grittier but still worked. Oats can be used by themselves for cookies but in the sweet breads I find a little (1/2 cup or so) soft white makes the cakes or muffins lighter. HTH
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nissag
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cornomama4 wrote:
Here's a little math question....how do you find the price compares (generally) to flour in the store, good quality flour. Anyone figured this out? Also, can you buy Organic wheat to grind without taking out a second mortage?? Thanks!
cm4 |
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Yes, you can find organic grains for a good price. I don't find any comparison as far as organic grains v. good quality flour. The reason is that I have no idea how long the flour has been sitting there. Once the grains are broken and ground, the oils begin to break down and can go rancid before you even get the flour home. Most people don't know that they are consuming rancid oils in their flours. With grind-your-own and organic you know that the oils are stable, and that there are no funky chemicals used in the growing of the grain. Check this out.
Buying whole grains from a local or online co-operative makes buying organic grains (and lots of other organic things) much more affordable. You can get grains sent quite economically if you are buying 5+lb at a time. In fact, you can get up to 20lb shipped for the same price as 2lb. if your online co-op or store uses flat-rate boxes.
You can store bulk grains, beans, and nuts for grinding in rubbermaid or other airtight containers if you have the space. Also great to use a spare fridge if you have one - in which case, just keep them in the sacks they come in.
HTH!
Blessings,
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JodieLyn
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Well, I don't know exactly what it compares to now.. but..
I figured out that I could get my wheat for the same cost as the regular price of all purpose flour at my local stores. Which is what I had been buying so I needed the cost to be roughly equvilent rather than spending more.
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Jodie, wife to Dave
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cornomama4
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Thanks Nissa and Jodie!
I always think fresher is better, but sometimes the cost is expontential and I figure I'll just buy premade bread. Of course, if one could grow their own wheat....
cm4
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JodieLyn
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it's possible to buy bread cheaper than you can make it.. but you can't buy as good of bread as you can make for what you spend.. actually making my own even undercuts the cheap stuff I can get I think. I'd have to really check.
But I got a great deal on a large amount of honey a while back and that helps greatly in keeping the cost down.
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Jodie, wife to Dave
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CrunchyMom
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I have another question for the experienced wheat grinders. I'm a recent convert myself, and I discovered that the flour does not measure the same in measuring cups it is so loosely packed. I just bought a kitchen scale to use while baking. How do you ladies convert recipes that call for "cups" into ounces or grams?
I don't mind tweaking a little which I would do anyway, but having to add 1 1/2 extra cups is a lot! I need a rule of thumb to start out with!
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Mackfam
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I don't convert, Lindsay. After grinding and mixing, I sort of learned my own hand with the measuring cup. I prefer freshly ground flour because it is so much healthier, so after grinding I scoop and measure. I don't like to pack my flour because as I was baking my learning loaves, those just came out more dense if I leveled the measuring scoop or tamped down the fresh flour in any way.
I think after experimenting I just learned what a dough ball should look like and how it should feel and how slightly rounded my scoop should look as I measured it in order to get that dough ball consistently. I rarely have to add flour any more, but if I do it's only about a tablespoon.
I know that's not really helpful, and I do really see the benefit of weighing the flour especially for those times I have someone else baking bread for me. But...I'm usually baking a loaf quickly and I know my measurements and my loaf and my slightly rounded fluffy air filled cups of flour.
I can't recommend enough Laurel's Bread Book and spending plenty of time with your loaf for learning...and expecting to wade through lots of bricks as you learn. Make notes as you go. I started an index card for every loaf for learning I made writing down measurements, different ingredients I added or subtracted, kneading times, baking times, etc. I ended up making 18 bricks and in the end we ended up going back to brick #13 which seemed to be the best rise and lightest loaf. It's still the loaf we go to for our everyday loaf. After you get your everyday loaf recipe down, you can set up a bake center so that your wheat berries, honey, olive oil, etc. is all right at hand. It's very convenient that way and much easier to be faithful to baking the daily bread if your loaf recipe is fool-proof and tested and a bake center is set up.
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Jen Mackintosh
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nissag
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Weighing is a much better method of measuring. I'd see if you could pick up a British cookbook. You can also look up British recipes online. We lived in England for 3 years and wound up buying a food scale so that I could follow cookery shows.
The tricky bit are the temps, though many British recipes also include F temps as well as "gas mark" temps.
Not terribly helpful...
Blessings,
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Nissa
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CrunchyMom
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My current bread book has the weight measurements, too, but it was making Christmas cookies that made me realize the discrepancy. Fortunately, I've made these cookies enough that I could guess how much extra flour to add, but I'm worried about things like pancakes--especially since my husband is often the breakfast chef and not so inclined to wing it as I am! He follows instructions well, though!
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4Real Forums : Our Lady's Loom, Larder, and Laundry
Topic: Wheat grinders
