Isand66's blog

My wife recently bought me a Traeger pellet smoker for my birthday and I decided to smoke a brisket for its maiden voyage. I needed a nice deli rye to make a killer smoked brisket sandwich and this bake didn’t disappoint!

It's been a while since I made a bread using eggs. I wanted to make something using fresh milled durum as well and included some freshly milled Stardust whole wheat from Barton Springs Mill.

I love cherries so I added some dried cherries that I soaked in water to rehydrate them and used the water in the main dough. I've recently read on a Facebook post that using freeze-dried fruit is actually the best way to go. I will definitely have to try that soon. In any case I should have doubled the amount of cherries as it wasn't nearly enough.

I am loving the newest grain from Barton Springs Mill called Stardust. It’s a hard white winter wheat variety grown in Oklahoma with a slightly malty and mild wheat flavor. I used some a few weeks ago in a bake and wanted to try upping the amount in the bake.

I ended up using 69% of the total flour with Stardust which I milled using my my Mockmill 200. I sifted and milled twice with a #30 sieve, and then sifted with a #40.

I have not made a bread in a long time using this technique which extracts as much flavor as possible from the flour.  I wanted to try it using almost 100% fresh milled flour.  Their is a tiny little bit in the seed starter but other than that it’s a combination of Barton Springs Mill Danko Rye, Yecora Gold Whole Wheat, Spelt and another companies Durum berries.

I’ve been wanting to make a bread with spent grains for a long time. My good friend Mike has become quite the home brewer and he graciously gave me some spent grains from his latest brew. He’s making a dark Stout type beer and the spent grains were a rich mahogany color full of flavor. They really ended up turning the dough a dark brown color reminicient of a pumpernickel style bread.

I just received my new shipment of grains from my favorite place Barton Springs Mill and was dying to try their new grain called Stardust. Its a hard white winter wheat grown in Alva, Oklahoma and it’s certified organic. It is supposed to have a slightly malty, mild wheat flavor and after using it I would agree.

I milled the berries with my Mockmill 200 and was sifted and milled twice with a #30 sieve, and then sifted with a #40. I save the bran to add to my levains which I find give them a nice boost.

I have not made a bread with coffee in a long time so I figured it was time to try one again. 

I used one of my favorite whole wheat berries from Barton Springs Mill Quanah along with some spelt berries and milled fresh flour. The Quanah was sifted and milled twice and the Spelt was sifted once and milled twice both with my MockMill 200. I milled the whole grains in my MockMill200, sifted with a #30 sieve, re-milled and then sifted with a #40. I save the bran to add to my levains which I find give them a nice boost.

  I call these “Italian” style pretzel rolls.  These are made with a 2 build durum starter and with over 50% total fresh milled durum.  I also used some fresh milled whole wheat and just a little bit of KAF bread flour to add a little gluten strength but you could probably leave it out and sub more durum or whole wheat.

The durum and whole wheat flour was sifted twice and milled twice with my Mockmill 200.

This was a nice flavorful bread made with fresh milled Durum, Rye and Rouge de Bordeaux whole wheat. I used some baked potatoes that were mashed up but still chunky so you end up with a rustic bread with pieces of potato throughout. 

The buttermilk was originally going to be used in my English Muffins but I forgot so I pivoted and used it in this bake instead. It adds a little extra tang to the final bread.

These were the other batch of rolls I made to bring to Thanksgiving dinner. You can’t go wrong combining cranberries with pecans, walnuts and potatoes.  Well at least in my opinion :).

I soaked the dried cranberries in water for several hours and after draining the cranberries I used the remaining water as indicated in the main dough.  I also added some cherry juice to the levain but if you have cranberry juice you can use that instead or just omit it and use all water.