Let's talk wheat...

[bluegrassmom]

Grinding my own wheat is one of the things that I have put on the back shelf and not paid attention to in my own preps. Always thought I'd get around to it, but honestly also thought hubby might complain about food made from fresh ground wheat. (He has some funny food issues.) But now he is very serious about wanting us to get a grinder and start this process. So.....where is a good starting point? Red wheat, white wheat....buying a grinder - where to start? I know he wants a hand powered one. I want to use a wheat that will give us the lightest results with food (not too dense or heavy) while we are making this transition. My ears are wide open to any and all advice.

[Ambergris]

For the lightest results, get spring wheat. Grind twice.

[Vic303]

A good FAST hand grinder will cost several hundred $$ (Diamante or Country Living). A good slower hand grinder is the Lehman's Own best grinder for about $170. I have Lehman's, and it does fine on a single pass with hard white wheat. However for speed sake I also have an old Magic Mill Plus III electric which is fast, noisy and fine.

 

A good way to integrate home ground flour into your recipes is slowly--start with say, 50% storebought white flour, 50% home ground. Gradually increase the amount of home ground until it is 100%. Then just use home ground for all your baking. You will want to buy Vital gluten, and Dough Enhancer to get the best results.

[Deerslayer]

GREAT POST!!!!! i just (finally) put a wheat grinder in the budget in the next few months--they are very pricey!!! i also, wonder about what to get--and where to get it--i have been watching those videos over on dehydrate 2 store and she does a couple of bread videos that look wonderful--this will be a very big deal for my family as we are super big time bread eaters!! I am also looking for any and all info--thanks:sEm_blush:

[LindaLou]

I have a Country Living Grain Mill. I love it. We bought the handcrank one but you can get the electric attachment. We just look at grinding as an upper body workout. The nice thing about this mill is that you can get other auger attachments to grind corn and larger stuff. We dehydrate corn and make our own cornmeal. They are a little pricey but very well made. I think it was a very good investment.

 

As far as which wheat I use...I use both hard red wheat and hard white wheat. Red makes a very heavy, dense loaf while the white makes a much lighter loaf. We play around with combining the wheats too. We use a bread machine to bake. We always use dough enhancer which contains Vital Gluten. (There are a lot of recipes on the Internet). Prior to using dough enhancer we didn't get good rises in our loaves and they were very dense.

 

The dough enhancer recipe we use is:

 

1 cup wheat gluten (Vital gluten)

2 tablespoons lecithin granules (available at health food store)

1 teaspoon ascorbic acid crystals (available at health food store)

2 tablespoons powdered pectin

2 tablespoons unflavored gelatin

1/2 cup nonfat dry milk

1 teaspoon powdered ginger

 

Use 4 tablespoons per loaf

 

We double or triple the recipe and store it in the refrigerator in a Ziplock bag.

 

We buy our hard red wheat and hard white white and vital wheat gluten in bulk from Rainy Day foods. We also add some 9 grain cracked cereal which we also get from Rainy Day for fiber. One more thing we do is use dried eggs and not real eggs to make our loaves.

 

Hope this helps.

[CeeGee]

Here is a link to a blog post about dough enhancers..

 

Dough Enhancer

 

Also, if you poke around her blog there is a lot of info and videos about wheat and bread baking.

[bluegrassmom]

Thanks everyone for the responses so far. I'm paying attention to each and every one. If anyone else has anything to chime in with, go for it!

[Darlene]

I've been storing and grinding whole grains for more years that I can count. I also flake my own oatmeal from the whole oat groat. There's such a completely different taste and texture to the fresh ground oatmeal...it's a much fuller flavor and is absolutely awesome. The best part is that like the other grains, oat groats will keep forever if properly stored. I've heard too many people that have talked about how their oatmeal has gone bad over a period of time.

 

Anyway, LindaLou is right. The hard wheats are what you are going to want to use in your bread making. The hard white has a milder taste than the hard red, but the hard red wheat has more vitamins and nutrients. Mixing grains is a good suggestion too. Also, the hard red what does healthy things that the hard white doesn't. I've heard many people talk about how warts will disappear when they eat only homemade ground hard red wheat bread over a couple of months, etc.

 

The soft wheats are what you use for making cookies, cakes, desserts, etc. They have a lower gluten level and are not usually recommended for breads.

 

When I got into the whole grains, it was a transition for my family but I was surprised at how fast my family preferred the fresh ground grains over the storebought. The nutrition factor attracted them, the taste and texture sold them and they much prefer the things I make with the grains. When Mt Rider was here visiting I made up a batch of Cowboy Cookies...I ground my soft white wheat, flaked some fresh oatmeal, organic coconut and then the rest of the ingredients and we sat here night after night putting a fresh batch of cookies in the oven to bake and would then sit at the dining room table and eat almost the whole pan. There's something positive psychologically that kicks in when we eat things like cookies and such that are made from whole grains. It's as if we know that while we're splurging, we're also feeding our bodies with healthy nutrients not found in storebought products and the journey is enjoyable.

 

Anyway, I store hard red, hard white, soft white, oat groats and a bucket of semolina. I also have smaller amounts of Kamut and Spelt grains (old, Biblical grains).

 

Here's where I get some of my grains from. They have some very good articles on whole grains that you and your husband might enjoy reading. Since he's completely on board, he might enjoy getting more educated. It's as if the more we learn, the more we want to learn:

 

http://info.breadbeckers.com/articles/

 

Here's a link to some of the recipes they have online:

 

http://info.breadbeckers.com/recipes/

 

Also, for years I thought that alot of ingredients were needed to go into a dough enhancer recipe. Dough enhancer is an important addition when making bread from whole grains because of the weight and density of all the ingredients that are ground from the whole grain...bran, etc. I have learned over the years however that all that is really needed is Lethicin and Vital Wheat Gluten. For me, simple is better when preparing for an unknown future.

[Deerslayer]

are there places you could buy the wheat locally?? without having to order it--also--on the web sites is always listed corn, dent corn and popcorn--what do you use to make cornmeal?? what are the differences???

[CeeGee]

The best price on wheat locally that I have found is at the LDS cannery. Red wheat for under $7 for 25#s. I am not LDS, but at the Denver (Aurora) cannery I am able to purchase from them. Just call your local cannery and ask.

[Deerslayer]

woohoo:woohoo: thanks for the idea ceegee:bouquet:--i live way far away from any lds cannery so i don't even think of it--well--i just so happen to be 8 hours from home this week in the big city to see my dh and ds while they are working--the cannery is less than 1/2 a mile from me--i will go wed--i am soooo excited:happy0203:

[LindaLou]

Deerslayer, you can order from LDS online and they ship for free. I am not LDS but I have never had a problem ordering, that is where I originally ordered all my wheat. Here is the website:

 

https://www.ldscatalog.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10151&langId=-1&storeId=10151&krypto=1uSEhjcmQDusd5Cn9kbBQgu8ChFvq1tWNK6FIV8mLmFdFR3yam08q2l%2Fx0S02pE4P0a%2FsZgvVpHt%0AHNSxqGZTQ%2FZsIB2xn%2BV%2FOmnZEamqAnlc7FpslYerMqw%2F%2FzpDmS0K&ddkey=http:ClickInfo

 

I have gone to my local cannery too and bought lots of stuff and also volunteered. I must say that in any of my food dealings with the LDS have they ever tried to convert me. They are just a bunch of nice, caring people.

 

On another note...another grain thought that Darlene mentioned is Kamut. It is very, very full of nutrients and it is the grain of choice for European old world bread making. Although I have cooked Kamut, I haven't made bread with it yet. Of course...that is one of my next projects.