This was awesome! I had no idea that red wheat has tannins. I love learning new stuff. So, what do you know about home mills like the Mockmill? I have a Mockmill attachment for my KitchenAid and mill smaller amounts of flour -- usually about 100g for each loaf. That way I can mix up the whole grain contents to include some rye, Barley, Emmer or Triticale. I love Triticale! I ordered it from Moon Family Farm (https://www.moonfamilyfarm.com/product-page/triticale). I started the habit of doing a separate Autolyze with the freshly milled flour since it's not quite as fine. I don't sift, because I want all the good stuff in my bread! When I do the one hour autolyze with the bread flour component separately, it seems to develop the gluten better than if I mix it all together. But that's just my guess. Do you have any experience with that?
I have noticed though, that the breads with more than 100g mockmilled flours are definitely not open crumb, but they taste awesome. My bread flour I get from Cairnspring Mills in Burlington, WA. It's a road-trip two or three times each year, because I pick up the 50lbs bag to stick in my freezer. Their Expresso Breadflour is awesome! https://cairnspring.com/collections/all/products/organic-expresso-t85-artisan-bread-flour?variant=35203552411813
What an enthusiastic response Sabine! I believe an autolyze works well to develop gluten minus salt, regardless of the bran in the flour. However, I think it's really very helpful to use for whole grains because of the bran.
There's a lot of different approaches to assembling dough, and I've seen recipes that add everything but the salt to let the sourdough/yeast get boogieing without salt interfering with the leavening activity.
What I generally do is mix my flour with liquids & starter/yeast and let sit for at least 20 minutes before adding salt. Sometimes I forget and that's okay.
If you'd like more of an open crumb, higher hydration works helps.
I'm not looking for an overly open crumb (I eat my bread for breakfast with stuff on it, so the holes would kinda interfer) but a bit more rise would be nice. I haven't been able to achieve that with more than 75g of my mockmilled flour, though. If I make a French type bread with just bread flour, I can get there. I think the home-milled flour (at least from my cheaper attachment version) is a bit coarser (completely whole grain, no extraction whatsoever!) must be interfering with that goal. My guess is that it's just heavier. But my starter really loves the fresher flour. Sir Bobby Farts-Alot is a happy dude! ;) Thanks for your answer!
This "primer" is great. Your work has inspired my wife and I since we caught the "grain chain" bug last year. She is the baker and I am the supporter :) We've also started our own web resource for finding non-commodity small grain growers and mills across the US: https://www.dailygrains.co/map_explorer
This was awesome! I had no idea that red wheat has tannins. I love learning new stuff. So, what do you know about home mills like the Mockmill? I have a Mockmill attachment for my KitchenAid and mill smaller amounts of flour -- usually about 100g for each loaf. That way I can mix up the whole grain contents to include some rye, Barley, Emmer or Triticale. I love Triticale! I ordered it from Moon Family Farm (https://www.moonfamilyfarm.com/product-page/triticale). I started the habit of doing a separate Autolyze with the freshly milled flour since it's not quite as fine. I don't sift, because I want all the good stuff in my bread! When I do the one hour autolyze with the bread flour component separately, it seems to develop the gluten better than if I mix it all together. But that's just my guess. Do you have any experience with that?
I have noticed though, that the breads with more than 100g mockmilled flours are definitely not open crumb, but they taste awesome. My bread flour I get from Cairnspring Mills in Burlington, WA. It's a road-trip two or three times each year, because I pick up the 50lbs bag to stick in my freezer. Their Expresso Breadflour is awesome! https://cairnspring.com/collections/all/products/organic-expresso-t85-artisan-bread-flour?variant=35203552411813
What an enthusiastic response Sabine! I believe an autolyze works well to develop gluten minus salt, regardless of the bran in the flour. However, I think it's really very helpful to use for whole grains because of the bran.
There's a lot of different approaches to assembling dough, and I've seen recipes that add everything but the salt to let the sourdough/yeast get boogieing without salt interfering with the leavening activity.
What I generally do is mix my flour with liquids & starter/yeast and let sit for at least 20 minutes before adding salt. Sometimes I forget and that's okay.
If you'd like more of an open crumb, higher hydration works helps.
And yes, Cairn Springs is great!
I'm not looking for an overly open crumb (I eat my bread for breakfast with stuff on it, so the holes would kinda interfer) but a bit more rise would be nice. I haven't been able to achieve that with more than 75g of my mockmilled flour, though. If I make a French type bread with just bread flour, I can get there. I think the home-milled flour (at least from my cheaper attachment version) is a bit coarser (completely whole grain, no extraction whatsoever!) must be interfering with that goal. My guess is that it's just heavier. But my starter really loves the fresher flour. Sir Bobby Farts-Alot is a happy dude! ;) Thanks for your answer!
This "primer" is great. Your work has inspired my wife and I since we caught the "grain chain" bug last year. She is the baker and I am the supporter :) We've also started our own web resource for finding non-commodity small grain growers and mills across the US: https://www.dailygrains.co/map_explorer
Keep up the great work!
Yes, thanks. Owlpeakfarm.com
Thank you! This is a very useful guide for customers of our small mill flours.
Terrific -- are you Owl Peak? I'll add you to my list.