I know there are a number of excellent mills for different applications, so I hope I get this detailed enough to really pinpoint which will work best for me. Thanks in advance for your advice!

I'm looking for a mill that can accomplish the following;

can mill coarse or very fine flours (dry grains) for baking, pasta, hot cereal, pastries, gravies, cakes, breads, etc.

does not heat the flour (over 120 farenheit)

can sift the milled flour to make white cake flours (meaning that it's capable of not crushing the outer layer into the flour making it too difficult to sift out to get a white flour)

can mill for a large family (meaning does not heat up or mess up with heavy use)

does not need to be cleaned

does not throw flour dust everywhere

has electrical and hand mill capability

lasts for 30 years+

does not need to be babysat (won't catch on fire or break with a distracted operator)

does not have quarks with getting odd sized or shaped grains stuck and cracks, or constantly needing to be taken apart to fix

low maintenance

less than $1000

can be purchased in or shipped to the U.S. without incredible waits, fees, or bribes, and with the knowledge that defective or damaged products will be fully replaced in a timely manner without uneccesary inconvenience

Any thoughts?

A while ago I posted a question about the possibility of baking with wine - whether it could be done, what the tricks might be, and general anybody-know...  I received so much helpful tips about procedures, and recommendations of the Vinafera wine flour, and links and ideas.  User yozzause had the excellent idea of adding wine to a recipe I was familiar with, and using a starter, so I finally, finally worked up the guts to try that...  

I took a very basic formula for a honey wheat germ bread I'm quite familiar with.  I didn't want to use up all the resources in our pantry, so I made it in a very small proportion.  Essentially, I went with white flour, active dry yeast, a bit of vital wheat gluten and a little bit of wheat germ, honey, butter, and moisture – I replaced half the water with red wine. 

I had been advised that the alcohol present in the wine could inhibit yeast development, so I attempted to burn away the alcohol on the stovetop; simple enough.  It’s quite a basic recipe of mix, knead, rise, shape, proof, and bake, and it went normally – a good rise on the dough and the loaf, and a fine oven spring. 

Argh! But I was so disappointed!  Usually, this bread has a nice, wholesome, slightly sweet taste with the flavor of some wheat without the heaviness, and I’d hoped to contribute a bit of the red wine flavor.  Best part: purple dough!  I loved the crimson touch.  Worst part: bitterness!  Though the crumb was soft and quite normal, the taste, once rested, was pretty harsh to me.  I skipped that one.  Inexplicably, my husband liked the bitterness!

But I’m wondering whether the bitterness is an inevitable product of adding alcohol to a recipe, or whether I did something wrong, or if this was simply the wrong recipe – anybody have any thoughts?  Suggestions?  Again, thank you all, for everything!

p.s.  I did find this recipe for an ancient Roman bread made with must, the early juices of fermenting wine, and I think perhaps I’ll try that, and I thought others might be interested too!  The site has a number of ancient and medieval breads:  http://www.celtnet.org.uk/recipes/roman/fetch-recipe.php?rid=roman-mustacei

Hello, everybody!

So, here in Hungary, it seems like everybody's got a farm, and coextensively a vineyard.  My husband David and I don't, but we do have an incredibly kind old neighbor who's teaching us to make our own red wine. It's so much fun - picking our own grapes, grinding them, removing stems...  Like so:

Naturally, in gratitude I've baked him lots of bread.  We're not quite done, but in approximately two weeks we will have (for $50) 150 litres of red wine!  Which leads me to my question:

I've seen and read a number of beer bread recipes.  But obviously, we've got plentiful wine...  Are there any breads which call for a splash of wine in the dough?  It seems like it would be possible, but I've never seen any; I'm still a student baker, so I don't know if there are any chemical or taste-related reason for this.  Does anybody know, and if wine bread exists, any ideas?  

Thanks!  

Erzsebet

Also, if anybody is interested in other pictures and a diary of our winemaking process, it's on my blog -http://erzsebetgilbert.blogspot.com

Hello, everybody!

So, here in Hungary, it seems like everybody's got a farm, and coextensively a vineyard.  My husband David and I don't, but we do have an incredibly kind old neighbor who's teaching us to make our own red wine. It's so much fun - picking our own grapes, grinding them, removing stems...  Like so:

Naturally, in gratitude I've baked him lots of bread.  We're not quite done, but in approximately two weeks we will have (for $50) 150 litres of red wine!  Which leads me to my question:

I've seen and read a number of beer bread recipes.  But obviously, we've got plentiful wine...  Are there any breads which call for a splash of wine in the dough?  It seems like it would be possible, but I've never seen any; I'm still a student baker, so I don't know if there are any chemical or taste-related reason for this.  Does anybody know, and if wine bread exists, any ideas?  

Thanks!  

Erzsebet

Also, if anybody is interested in other pictures and a diary of our winemaking process, it's on my blog - http://erzsebetgilbert.blogspot.com

Hello everyone!

I'm rather a novice at baking and I love experimenting, but I would like other people's opinions before I try out the following recipe. Truth be told, I made it up myself. I'm going for a white bread loaf with a relatively moist inside and a crispy outside. So please give me some advice and any critique is welcome!

500 grams white bread flour
80 ml milk
180 ml water (about)
1 egg
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons white sugar
1/2 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon instant yeast (please tell me whether this should be heaped or not)

So, we mix everything together, knead it and leave it to rise, until it has doubled in size. Then we take it out of the bowl,  form it and leave it to rise a second time (Do you think I should do this? I know that if I let the the bread over-ferment it will acquire a beery taste, but I want it to have the best flavour possible. Should I maybe put less sugar in?). We glaze the loaf/loaves/rolls and bake them for 45 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius.

Does this sound sane?

I am an enthusiast who has been baking for a bit over a year now, mostly with sourdough. I started because the bread I tasted in France was so amazing and different to what I am used to in South Africa. I will be visiting New York City for a few days soon and I would like to visit any artisanal bakeries that would be willing to let me spend some time there to observe. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

This might seem like a weird place to vent a bit, but I'm going to give it a go.  I feel stuck.  I'm a 26 year old man who feels as though any opportunity has passed him by.  I've been working steady as a painter for the last 5 years, all the while growing more and more passionate about baking.  i bake as much as my schedule, and my budget, allows me to - and I love it.  My question is what do I do?  I went to almost every bakery in my hometown (Omaha,NE) and one of the managers (Wheatfields) actually said that I was too old to teach, the others either weren't interested or weren't hiring.  I never felt more worthless in my life.  Even though I knew the man at Wheatfields was wrong, it left me feeling very despondent, and extremely skeptical as to whether or not a career in baking was really for me.  Maybe the cards were just dealt differently.  

What's your advice?  For those of you that are bakers out there, or who own bakeries, what are you looking for?  Is a four-year degree what makes or breaks it?  Is it passion?  Is it trainability? Perception? Personality? I feel as though I'm trying as hard as I possibly can to really make a go at learning more and more about the art of bread, but I'm doing it alone.  A no one will take a chance on me.  

Again, this really does sound like a confessional, I apologize.  I figure who better to ask than people who are as passionate about bread as I!  Really, any advice at all would be appreciated.  The main question, really, is would spending $20,000 on an education just to have a degree in baking be worth it?  

 Thanks everyone

 Localfruitandveg 

I would appreciate any advice on the following bread recipe. With a moderate amount of baking experience over the past few years, I have begun a quest to develop an efficient method for baking four loaves of bread per week. I have three kids and a full-time job so my time is limited, but my family all enjoys home baked bread and when possible helping with the process. The recipe I have been using for the past few months was pieced together from a couple of recipies that I found in books.