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Molly Smith
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| Posted: March 01 2010 at 2:42pm | IP Logged
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Actually, I do already make some homemade bread--not sandwich bread, as I can never slice it thin enough. But, I would really like to start grinding our own.
What type of wheat should I start with?
Will my regular recipe still work or do you have to make adjustments for freshly ground?
I want to just start small so I don't want to buy co-op sized quantities. Any idea how much flour volume you get from a certain amount of wheat berries?
Thanks so much! Any other tips would be appreciated!!
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: March 01 2010 at 2:58pm | IP Logged
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you get the same amount of weight of flour as you start with with wheat berries.. I know that doesn't help much but.. then you can easily look up the conversion of pounds of flour to cups...
ah ha.. I do have that conversion
1lb = 3.78 cups
50lb = 189 cups
I could get wheat by the pound from the local health food store.. but honestly I would buy whole wheat flour first and use that.. the grinder is the most expensive part of the process.
We like the flavor of your typical whole wheat.. usually that's hard red wheat. But the hard white wheat has a higher gluten content and makes for a softer and higher rising bread.
So I use a 50/50 mix of the two.
Generally you use hard wheat for anything with yeast and soft wheat for anything else.
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Mackfam
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| Posted: March 01 2010 at 5:51pm | IP Logged
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Molly,
Do you have a grinder already? Jodie's right. That's a serious investment, but an important one! I've found that my baking works better, particularly when it comes to sandwich breads and more delicate breads when I grind my wheat into a pastry flour (very fine).
Molly Smith wrote:
| What type of wheat should I start with? |
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I started with Montana Wheat Prairie Gold and I'm glad I did. It's still our preference. It has a very mild flavor and lends itself well to baked goods. It's a good all purpose wheat. I do find we like the Red Wheat as well, it has a much nuttier, fuller flavor. If you're moving from white bread or even half and half, a golden wheat (sometimes called white wheat) is a milder taste and easier for the transition.
Molly Smith wrote:
| Will my regular recipe still work or do you have to make adjustments for freshly ground? |
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Are you making a 100% whole wheat loaf right now, just not grinding? If so, you'll likely really enjoy the results and might even get a nicer rise. If you're not working with 100% whole wheat for your current recipe, it will need some tweaking. It won't behave the same way without white flour, and though you can get a nice rise, you shouldn't expect the same rise as you'd get from white or even half and half. Your geographic location will be a huge factor (general climate, altitude) or I'd just give you my recipe. Adding these things have helped me get a nice, tender loaf with a good rise:
** 1 egg
** 1 teaspoon lemon juice
** increase your knead and rise time (being careful not to overproof)
Another thing to consider would be the coarseness of the grind. The coarser you grind, the "toothier" the crumb will be, and the longer it takes for that wheat to absorb moisture in a dough ball.
Molly Smith wrote:
| Any idea how much flour volume you get from a certain amount of wheat berries? |
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Jodie gave you the weight/cup ratio which is helpful in looking at a bag and figuring out how far it will go. As you grind this is about what you can expect for wheat berry to wheat flour ratio:
1 cup of wheat berries = ~ 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour
If you have a grinder already and you just want to start small I'd get a couple of small bags of wheat berries from the health food store - all hard wheat! Get a little of the golden and a little red. Try them and see what you think...then purchasing in bulk is not expensive at all and wheat berries keep indefinitely as long as you keep them dry and relatively cool.
My favorite book to recommend for starting out with bread making is Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book. Laurel walks you through all the steps including the most valuable - a loaf for learning! See if your library has a copy.
HTH!!! Good luck!!
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Molly Smith
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| Posted: March 01 2010 at 6:27pm | IP Logged
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Thank you, Jodie and Jennifer, for the wonderful info! I sort of have a grinder. I have a vitamix--both the dry and wet blades. We love the vitamix, so I will try grinding in that before investing in anything else.
I used to make all white breads, but lately I've been mixing in wheat flour in a low ratio--one cup of wheat to maybe 4 cups of white. I will continue to combine the two, because we are just not ready for all wheat. I had no idea I could buy hard white wheat. So, will that make something that looks and acts like all-purpose? I will definitely try the white/golden wheat berries first, but I'll get some red wheat too.
How do you know how fine to grind? Is there any reason to not grind it all the way to fine flour? Why would you choose a coarser grind--does it make a different nutritionally?
Thanks again for all the help!!
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Molly Smith in VA
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: March 01 2010 at 6:35pm | IP Logged
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Oh yes, the white/golden makes a much lighter loaf in color and texture.
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juststartn
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Well, this is kind of an off topic/on topic kind of thing...
DH has started making Desem bread (it is a variety of sourdough--but it doesn't taste like sourdough). It is very tasty. We've made ours with whole wheat, and it is so incredibly tasty. It doesn't taste sourdoughy to me. It was light, and enjoyable.
We've been buying Nature's Own 100% whole wheat (doesn't use HFCS, etc), but DH wants to build our own wood fired brick oven (starting this summer), sooooo...lol
Oh--you can get 1 1/2 c of whole wheat flour from 1 c of wheat berries.
HTH!
Rachel
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stefoodie
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| Posted: March 02 2010 at 11:28am | IP Logged
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rachel, would your dh share his recipe for Desem bread?
jen, i *love* prairie gold!!! aren't those the best wheat berries ever??? and once had my brother drive 1 1/2 hours just to pick some up for us at the farm that was nearer him than us. i can only get it now if i mail-order so it's been a while since i've had some  .... maybe next month i'll place an order.
the only thing with vitamix grinding flour i've heard is that sometimes the wheat berries get heated, so people recommend getting a dedicated grain mill. but to be honest even in my grain mill (i have a nutrimill) i still see that the flour is warmish after grinding.
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: March 02 2010 at 11:45am | IP Logged
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prairie gold and golden 86 are from the same source.. just called different things by the different places that grow them.. I read about it on the Walton Feed site.. which has changed and now I can't figure out where that page is.. 
And they are a "hard white wheat" whatever name they go by.. so either of those names or just the hard white wheat should get you basically the same wheat.
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stefoodie
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i know the page you're talking about, jodie. i remember being fascinated with the history as well. wonder why they took that down.
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ElizLeone
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| Posted: March 02 2010 at 2:12pm | IP Logged
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Just popping in to quickly say that if you're grinding your own wheat and making your own bread, I highly recommend Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. The companion book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day is good too, but it has fewer whole-grain recipes. All my bread recipes come from these cookbooks these days. 
A little off-topic, but I couldn't resist passing along my favorite bread-baking resource.
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Molly Smith wrote:
| I have a vitamix--both the dry and wet blades. We love the vitamix, so I will try grinding in that before investing in anything else. |
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Molly,
This is exactly what my mom does!!! She grinds with the dry blade of her Vitamix. Now, the only thing is, you will have to grind in batches - I think mom does 2 cups of wheat berries at a time. But, it's super easy and do-able and she's been doing it this way for years! Stef is right that the wheat will be warm, but I've felt and mom's wheat flour coming out of the Vitamix is no warmer than the wheat flour coming out of my Whisper Mill, so I think it's ok (too much heat and you destroy the nutrition in the wheat.)
Molly Smith wrote:
| How do you know how fine to grind? Is there any reason to not grind it all the way to fine flour? Why would you choose a coarser grind--does it make a different nutritionally? |
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There's no difference in nutritional quality. You might enjoy it in a heavy bread. We like it in a bread I make to have with soup. It's just a preference thing really. For the most part I just grind my flour fine. On the Vitamix, the only way you'll be able to adjust that is the length of time you grind. My mom doesn't even bother - she just grinds it all up to a nice fine flour.
Molly Smith wrote:
| I had no idea I could buy hard white wheat. So, will that make something that looks and acts like all-purpose? |
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No, it won't act like all purpose, but being a hard wheat it has a higher gluten content and so it rises nicely and bakes nicely and I do use it as an all purpose flour - works great for pizza crust and in cookies (though I cut both with some white flour) as well as breads. And the white/golden thing means it doesn't taste quite as strong as a red wheat, which is good, but it can be hard to get used to if your family is not used to 100% whole wheat bread.
There's another book I just LOVE - Whole Grain Baking by King Arthur Flour. It's sorta off your topic or homemade bread baking, but if you use your freshly ground flour to do any other baking I found this book to be a fantastic help!!!
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: March 02 2010 at 5:57pm | IP Logged
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Jen, with cookies and whole wheat flour.. you can get a NICE cookie by increasing the flour in the recipe by 1/4 cup for every cup of AP flour used.. so if your recipe is 5 cups AP.. you'd use 6 1/4 c of WW.
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stefoodie
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| Posted: March 02 2010 at 6:06pm | IP Logged
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one more cookbook suggestion: Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads
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juststartn
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The book DH uses (and you need a book, sorry! His email on it was like 2 pages long, and that was "AFTER" you had started the starter, had it going, and it was growing for DAYS...).
The Bread Builders. That's the name of the book.
Like I said, he really really really wants to build a wood-fired brick oven outside (to go with the patio/pergola/grill/outdoor living area I am praying to have someday, lol).
Anyway, that's my suggestion. I simply HATE to add another book to your plate, lol. But this one really is needed. It is one of those things that once you do it, it will be easier each time, but you need a book to reference...if that makes *any* sense.
But it made the most incredibly light whole wheat bread you can imagine. And it didn't even seem "whole wheat" (we have a Nutrimill and a big bucket of wheat berries, soooo..lol).
Tomorrow, I get to pull the starter out of the fridge, feed it, and get it going for a Friday night baking...
Joy. Another critter to feed! 
Rachel
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Martha in VA
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juststartn wrote:
The Bread Builders. That's the name of the book.
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Ugh! I'm such a sucker for bread books! I desperately want to know how to bake a good loaf of crusty bread with my Prairie Gold!
Yep, Molly, start with Prairie Gold.
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juststartn wrote:
The book DH uses (and you need a book, sorry! His email on it was like 2 pages long, and that was "AFTER" you had started the starter, had it going, and it was growing for DAYS...).
The Bread Builders. That's the name of the book.
Like I said, he really really really wants to build a wood-fired brick oven outside (to go with the patio/pergola/grill/outdoor living area I am praying to have someday, lol).
Anyway, that's my suggestion. I simply HATE to add another book to your plate, lol. But this one really is needed. It is one of those things that once you do it, it will be easier each time, but you need a book to reference...if that makes *any* sense. |
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oh, LOL. no wonder that sounded familiar. i HAD that book. it was the most awesome book ever, and i still dream of flying daniel wing and alan scott here to our home to help us build a brick oven! i don't have $$$ to do that but we do have a friend who is also a big brick oven fan and he's been wanting to make one for years in his yard! i'm sure when it happens for them we're next... but it may be a while since he and dh work together and they are always B.U.S.Y. one day....
have you guys heard of forno bravo? seriously drooling here.
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Molly Smith
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Thank you all so much! In the first couple of posts, I put some books in my amazon shopping cart, but now I'm thinking I'd better hit the library since we're up to 6-7 book recommendations!!
I will definitely start with the golden wheat. Right now I only make pizza crusts and bread or rolls with dinner. I buy sandwich bread (Costco's 100% Organic Whole Wheat) because I just don't think I could make enough of it or slice it well enough. But ultimately it would be great to make sandwich bread.
I haven't made any sweet stuff--quick breads, cookies, cakes--since Lent began. What flour would I use in those? Can you seriously make chocolate chip cookies or cakes with wheat flour? What would be the homemade equivalent of store-bought all purpose? Even if it wasn't as wholesome as wheat, it would have to be better than processed flour.
Oooh, a wood-fired brick oven--very cool. What can you cook on it other than pizzas and breads? My dh would so love something like that. Forno Bravo...so, so cool.
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stefoodie
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| Posted: March 03 2010 at 9:44am | IP Logged
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you can use whole wheat pastry flour in your cookies/cakes/quick breads, molly. i just set my grinder to fine grind and use it there, except where the cookies weren't "well-received" in which case i do half all p-half whole wheat.
the way brick ovens work (or at least the way i understand it when i did research on it) it takes several hours to fire it up, so what people do is have several things ready to bake/roast.... first go in the quick cooking things like pizzas (at 800 degrees F they should bake in 5-8 minutes) and quick breads, then the longer cooking breads, then meats for roasting... after the fuel has been consumed people can still continue cooking for several hours because of residual heat so you have to factor in "carryover cooking time" (yup, that's an official culinary term, i just learned it from my culinary student  ).... this is also the reason why there was such a thing as "the village baker" back then -- he owned the brick oven and people came over to have their stuff baked. i've read of places (in the here and now) where people gather their friends in their yard for a day of baking and roasting. would so love to be a part of something like that.
and, it's also the reason one of our local brick oven bakeries doesn't do as much business as they would like -- the logistics of firing up the oven, baking, storing, selling get to be so labor-intensive that they only do it every few weeks. so in the home i can imagine it would take considerable planning to really put it to good use. but then homeschooling moms are very good at that, right?
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CrunchyMom
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I use Hard White Wheat for bread and Soft White Wheat for cookies/quickbreads.
I have been using the recipes from Artisan Bread for a few weeks, and I really like it a lot!
I also invested in a digital scale when I got my grain mill and do most of my measuring for baking by weight now. I really like it! It is also handy for other things as well.
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The hard wheats.. white or red because of the high gluten content that make them lovely for breads (any product with yeast) they can make the texture of cookies or cakes or such a bit off. The soft wheat on the other hand has a lower gluten content and can make quite nice baked goods.
hard wheat = yeast (or sourdough)
soft wheat = everything else
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4Real Forums : Our Lady's Loom, Larder, and Laundry
Topic: homemade bread question
