Skip to main content

Grinding Your Own Whole Wheat Flour

I finally bought a grain mill after thinking about it for several years. This move isn't quite as extreme as it may seem. Whole wheat berries last for thousands of years. But once you grind them, the oils start to decay immediately. After a couple of days, the oils that give the flour both its nutrition and taste are in pretty sad shape. Since I bake all my own bread and it's all whole wheat (minus the occasional baguette), I decided that grinding my own whole wheat flour made sense.

Here are some wheat berries in the grinder. (Note that I didn't buy a hand-crank mill. I may be eccentric but I'm not crazy.) The mill grinds 12 ounces of grain in 2 or 3 minutes. It makes a high-pitched whine a little like a dentist's drill. The flour that comes out is extremely fine. The first time I ran the grinder, I didn't seal everything correctly and my kitchen started to look like a woodshop with all the flour dust flying around. Even when you use the mill properly, a little flour tends to escape. The ground flour smells like cereal.

Here is the first loaf...

And here is a slice. The fine flour gives the bread a very fine texture that one usually doesn't associate with whole wheat. I think it also tastes a little richer than bread made from older flour. It's a subtle difference but I think it's there.

This procedure isn't for the faint of heart nor for neat freaks. But I've baked two loaves now and the second one tasted even better than the first. I think I will be able to keep this up; grinding the flour takes a few more minutes, not bad for the one or two loaves per week that I bake. I look forward to giving my copy of King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking a workout.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Eating Around Georgia Tech: Ecco

Our Texas Instruments colleague Cathy Wicks was gracious enough to host several of us at Ecco tonight. This is one of those restaurants that has been on my list for a long time. Even though it is within easy walking distance of Georgia Tech, I hadn't made it there until tonight. The menu is a combination of Italian, Spanish, and French that make use of some local Georgia ingredients. The combination of those three countries is sometimes a little forced, although the georgia ingredients (fruit, cheese) were all great and perfectly appropriate. We started out with a meat and cheese board. This actually reverses the French tradition, where cheese usually follows the main course. Everything was excellent. The Georgia cheese was a big hit, as was the French cow/goat cheese. I thought the sauscisson was very subtle and very good. The waitress said that the roast pork pasta was their signature dish, so I had to try it. It had traditional broad pasta (fresh, of course) ...
Post a Comment
Read more

DCA: Cava Mezze Grill

Cava is a DC area chain with light Mediterranean food. Saibal encouraged me to try lunch at their airport location and I was very happy with the experience. I ordered falafel on SuperSalad with assorted other toppings. The falafel was tasty. The SuperSalad was light, flavorful, and very easy to eat. Overall, a healthy and enjoyable lunch, something you can't always say about airport eating.
Post a Comment
Read more

Pressure Cooker Candied Ginger

I made candied ginger a few years ago. It's not something I would do every day but I had a lot of fun doing it. I recently acquired a pressure cooker and it inspired an interesting idea to me: why not make candied ginger in the pressure cooker? It should be very soft and flavorful. Here is the result. I peeled two large ginger roots, cut them into small cubes, and put them in the pressure cooker with heavily sugared water. The traditional method first boils the ginger in plain water to soften it and then again in sugar water to candy it. The resulting candy was very tender but still with the characteristic ginger texture. It was also sweet without being overpowering. The traditional method leaves a lot of sugar crystallized around the ginger. The pressure cooker gives a much more subtle result. The ginger stays moist even after it cools but you can dry it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. That inspired me to dip it in chocolate. While I was in the b...
2 comments
Read more