Here is a detailed list of all of the things that I wish I had known starting out as a beginner in Fresh-Milled flour.

1. When purchasing your wheat berries, a lot of people get hard red wheat berries as their first one and don’t like the bread it produces. Honestly, I never make breads with 100% hard red. It can produce a more dense, heavy bread. The wheat berry that we go through the most in our household is by far hard white. I use it in a lot of my blends. So, if you could only get one wheat berry I would opt for hard white. However, keep in mind that some people think it can be a little bland on its own; therefore, I would suggest a blend of 70% hard white and 30% Khorasan or spelt.
2. You don’t need to disregard all of your old recipes and only make fresh-milled flour recipes. Experiment with recipes you love! Of course, I have recipes on this site that I have tested and proven to be successful. If experimenting scares you, try some of ours!
3. Fresh-milled flour needs more hydration than store bought flour. An autolyse is something I never did prior to starting fresh-milled flour, but now I feel it is absolutely necessary. What is an autolyse? It’s a period of time at the beginning of your recipe where you let the flour and water hydrate before adding the yeast/sourdough and salt. It initiates gluten development and helps your overall bread structure.
4. If you want to use your existing bread recipes, you may have to increase the hydration percentage. For example, I went from 75% with store flour to 80-85% with FMF.
5. When I was doing sourdough with store bought flour, I was mixing by hand and doing all of my stretch and folds by hand. I found transitioning to fresh-milled flour, that the mixer was my friend and just made it easier. I believe that fresh-milled flour recipes not only need additional hydration and a longer time to absorb the water, but additional up front gluten development helps greatly.
6. If you join fresh-milled flour Facebook groups, you will quickly see that so many people use the Bosch Universal Plus or Ankarsrum mixers rather than a Kitchen Aid. I have had a Kitchen aid for 30+ years and never imagined getting another mixer. With my Kitchen aid getting old and needing some work, I was on the look out for a new one. I happened to get a deal on a Bosch Universal Plus Mixer figuring that if I hated it I could just sell it. Well, it made me realize that my Kitchen Aid SUCKS at bread doughs. It use to take my Kitchen Aid 25+ minutes to knead bread dough to somewhat of a windowpane. Then I got the Bosch and it could produce a beautiful windowpane in just 7-8 minutes. That windowpane was no where near comparable to what my Kitchen Aid produced. The first loaf of sandwich bread I made with the Bosch was no longer crumbly. Which made me conclude that the gluten development was one of the keys in making Fresh-Milled Flour loaves. So, if you are in the market for a mixer with Fresh-Milled Flour breads the Bosch Universal Plus is a beast! I still regularly use my Kitchen Aid for other things though.
7. It might be tempting to ease in by using 25-50% fresh-milled flour in your recipes. Feel free to do that. I in fact did, but quickly realized that I should just jump right in. This is completely up to you. I would highly recommend that you make your breads with 100% fresh-milled flour to get all of the benefits though. Don’t be scared! You’ll get it down.
8. If you already do sourdough, don’t be afraid to continue to feed your starter store bought flour to use it up, but make all of your bread items with 100% fresh-milled flour.
9. When making cookies or muffins, a short time in the refrigerator or even putting cookie dough balls in the freezer is helpful. This allows the flour a little additional time to absorb the liquids.
10. It may sound crazy, but you will probably find yourself snubbing your nose at store bought flour items within a short period of time and just not find them appealing anymore.

The post 10 Things I wish I had known starting Fresh-Milled Flour appeared first on Our Rooted Mess.

Milling your own flour you retain a great deal of vitamins that are just not in store bought flour. The only down side is that once the grains are milled with the bran and germ in tact, it has a limited shelf life. That’s why home millers like myself typically just mill what they need when they need it. It sounds like it would be terribly inconvenient; however, it’s really not as bad as it sounds.

When we started milling our own flour, the increase in fiber was so much that when I made chocolate chip cookies with 100% fresh milled flour, we had a considerable amount of gas. 😂. So much so that our household has since called chocolate chip cookies “Fart Cookies”. 😂😂😂

If milling your own flour is something you are considering, here are a few basics that will help you start your journey.

Buying a Mill:

There are two types of mills to consider: Impact mills or stone mills.

Impact mills – These type of mills have two stainless steel plates that rub together to mill the flour. They are typically less expensive but will only mill your flour very finely. That can be a great thing starting out; however, it can be limiting. Popular impact mills include Wondermill and the Nutrimill Classic.

Stone mills – These type of mills have two stone plates that grind together to create the flour. With this type of mill you control by a knob or setting how fine or coarse your flour is. This gives you a wide variety of options which is the reason I chose to go this route. This is how flour was milled by hand in old times so I guess I decided to go back in time but with electric doing the work. Popular stone mills include Nutrimill Harvest, Komo, and the Mockmill.

What mill I have:

I have Nutrimill Harvest which is a a stone mill. It gives me control over how fine or coarse the flour is plus it’s beautiful sitting on my counter.

Once you have purchased your grain mill, next you will need to purchase wheat berries. If you thought selecting a grain mill was difficult, the options in wheat berries can be more overwhelming in my opinion.

Here are the basics you need to know about wheat berries:

Hard wheat:

These are what you will need to bake bread items that need to develop gluten.

Hard Red – These wheat berries are more what you think of when you think of wheat bread. They produce a hardy bread that tends to more dense than store bought bread.

Hard White – These wheat berries are more mild than Hard Red and produce a milder flavored bread. These tend to produce lighter colored baked goods. I tend to make bread with these wheat berries and a quarter or one third of an ancient grain.

Soft Wheat:

Soft white – These are the wheat berries you can use in cookies & muffins that do not require gluten development. However, I tend to mix these with other wheat berries.

Ancient Grains: From my understanding these tend to be easier on the tummy especially for people who are slightly gluten sensitive.

Khorasan/Kamut – These ancient grains are a large, healthy, and versatile grain from Mesopotamia. They have a buttery almost nutty flavor. I make my sandwich bread with a portion of Khorasan. You will often see people call these Kamut; however, that is just a brand of Khorasan which is slightly more expensive.

Spelt – These ancient grains are the ancient wheat of the Romans. It is also known as Farro Grande although I hadn’t heard it called that. I love spelt in a lot of things!

Einkorn – This ancient grain is probably the most primitive wheat available and contains a different type of gluten than modern wheat. I haven’t experimented a great deal with Einkorn yet. I do have some and have used them for pancakes. A lot of people use this as their “soft wheat” in muffins, pancakes, and cookies and claim it is easier on their gut.

Emmer – This is the one that I do not have yet. This ancient grain is also known as Farro or Farro Medio, and is the ancient ancestor of modern wheat and a cousin to einkorn.

Other Wheat Berries:

Durum – These wheat berries are ground into what you probably know as semolina flour. This is commonly used in pasta.

Rye – This ancient grain is from grass, used as a cereal for centuries in Central and Eastern Europe, brings unique flavors and colors to foods. I’m sure you have seen rye bread which has a very dark brown appearance. Sourdough starters love rye flour and are often used to start a starter.

Where to buy wheat berries:

Ancient Grains

I buy most of my wheat berries from Ancient Grains. There are only a few that they do not carry and I will list where I buy those next. Ancient Grains offers free shipping and excellent quality. You can buy smaller portions all the way up to large buckets. They do offer free shipping with the buckets or a certain order with the smaller bags.

Breadtopia

I buy my soft wheat berries as well as my durum wheat berries from Breadtopia since I can’t get those at Ancient Grains. I do pay shipping when I order from them.

Here are a few addition options:

Azure standard

This is an organic food company that you place your order on line and they ship the orders in a refrigerated semi. Everyone picks up their orders at a drop ship location near them. I have not ordered wheat berries from them, but they do offer them. The timing of when I needed them has never been right with my monthly Azure orders.

Breadbeckers

This is Sue Becker’s retail shop located in Woodstock GA. They also have a co-op and ship online.

Wheat Berry Storage:

You will want to store your wheat berries so that bugs and moisture can’t get into them.

Long term storage:

I use Mylar bags with oxygen absorbing packets to store wheat berries for a longer period of time. I store these in my basement food pantry/cellar which we call T-Mart (Thornburg Mart😜).

Larger quantities I want to access:

For the wheat berries I use a lot of, I have 5-7 gallon buckets with gamma lids so that I can unscrew the lid easily for access. For the wheat berries I don’t use as much, I currently have small 2 gallon buckets with gamma lids.

What I’m using from:

When I started milling my own flour, I would go to my buckets to get what I needed. But that meant taking my scale down as well and it wasn’t ideal for me. I ended up keeping smaller glass Weck jars of each wheat berry in my pantry for convenience and seems to really work for me. When I get low, I just go down and fill them up.

I hope this starter guide was helpful. If you have any questions, you can send me an email or find us on social media.

Happy milling!

The post Getting Started with Milling Your Own Flour appeared first on Our Rooted Mess.