The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Have rye berries...can I mill my own rye flour?

icantbakeatall's picture
icantbakeatall

Have rye berries...can I mill my own rye flour?

The only rye flour I can find locally is white/light rye. I can, however, easily find rye berries. Can I mill those using my mill and just use that instead? Thanks!

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Absolutely!  I do it all the time. Yours breads will love it. But be careful about how much you use. A little bit goes a long way.

Rye is like steroids for starters.

IMO, the nice thing about grain berries is the fact that they keep for years. Not so with store bought whole grain flour.

Danny

Mike Wurlitzer's picture
Mike Wurlitzer

Have found a recipe I really like for Deli Rye which uses a good portion of White Rye flour. 

In my area, White Rye is extremely difficult to find with even the local "bakery supply" outfits rarely having it in stock. Shipping from most suppliers, outside of KAF, is ridiculous. Even KAF's prices make it rather expensive.

I do, however, have a reliable outlet about 30 miles away for Rye Berries however, and as I have wanted to get into home milling anyway, if I can do it myself, why not.

Any tips for milling to White Rye would be appreciated.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

I think you would mill white rye much like you would any other wheat grain.

Do you own a mill? If not what mill(s) are you considering?

Danny

Mike Wurlitzer's picture
Mike Wurlitzer

Don't own a mill but that Deli Rye bread is making a great case for one.

The NutriMill Harvest Mill is in the running and is reasonably priced but being highly ignorant of the subject I'm willing to listen to those who know more about this than myself.

As White Rye has much of the Bran and Germ removed, I'm unsure how that would be done in a home mill environment.

The First Clear Flour has more Bran and Germ than a white flour or so I am led to believe.

As I said, my ignorance abounds on this subject.

Anne_dawa's picture
Anne_dawa

I own a Komo mill and I absolutely love it. It doesn't overheat the grains, and can mill very finely. It is on the more expensive side though, but I think is definitely worth the price. Especially since you can mill pretty much any grain with it, and when you first taste bread made with freshly-milled flour, you won't want to go back to store-bought flours. I'm sure there are other mills that are good too.

hanseata's picture
hanseata

Your breads will taste better with freshly milled flour. And you can also make coarser grinds for different European kinds of rye breads that call for it.

Karin

bigcrusty's picture
bigcrusty

I've been milling my own rye flour for 5 years now and it has worked great.   I use it for my rye starter which goes to make my Jewish Sour Rye.   I get my berries from Honeyville in 50lb. sacks and store it in my basement in plastic buckets inside a Mylar bag with a dessicant pouch. 

Enjoy your baking.  Fresh milled is great.

 

Big Crusty

rff000's picture
rff000

I grind rye by first getting a coarse grind on a Marga mill (that can also be used as schrot), then grinding fine in a Vitamix machine. I don't touch the supermarket bags since getting two bags with insect infestation several months ago.

bigcrusty's picture
bigcrusty

Dear I can't bake at all,

I've been milling rye berries for 4 years since I bought my mill and love the results.   As a matter of fact I have to mill some tonight.  I live in Wisconsin and also just attended our Farmshed Open House and found a farmer who grows organic rye, wheat and ancient grains. If you need a source you can contact him at 920-418-2676 or meuerfarm@gmail.com or www.meuerfarm.com.  They also mill all their berries if you want flour.  You can buy in 1, 2, 5 25 an 50# bags retail and wholesale.

 

Good luck!  You love the fresh milled rye. It makes really delicious bread.

 

Regards,

Big Crusty

Anne_dawa's picture
Anne_dawa

And I highly recommend it. There's nothing like freshly milled flour. You'll want to buy other grains to mill as well instead of buying store-bought flours. I usually use 20-30% of fresh milled flour (from ancient grains like spelt, kamut, einkorn, etc) in my breads and the taste is out of this world.