The Fresh Loaf

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Mill for sprouted, dried grains?

pizza fool's picture
pizza fool

Mill for sprouted, dried grains?

Howdy! Thinking about milling my own wheat flour, and anticipating Peter Reinfeld's new book this fall on using flour made from sprouted grains.  Part of me feels like I should wait and see if he recommends something, and the other parts of me hate waiting. I can't imagine spending more than $300 on a device to help me bake slightly more delicious bread once a week. Any suggestions?

adri's picture
adri

I have to admit, I use a less than 10€ coffee grinder with steel blades for things like this.

It didn't seem to overheat the grains too much. But I use very little in my breads.

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

Or one of those tiny blenders that chops, powders, turns nuts into butters or does just about everything except wash the dishes.  Magic butler, bullet or whatever.  I picked up a cute one here, for $7 second hand.  Coffee grinder is for dry.  A blender will do both liquid and dry.  Use the pulse or tilt the machine so small amounts fall faster back into the blades.  :)

 

barryvabeach's picture
barryvabeach

I have used several different mills to mill sprouted grains and had no problems ( All Grain, no name, Lee Household )  The main thing is to make sure you have dehydrated them so they are completely dry. If they have too much moisture, they will clog the face of the stone, but you can always take the machine apart and use a metal brush to get off the residue - I would like to say I know that from reading about, not from personal experience, but I can't.    BTW,  the taste is pretty amazing - though so far i have played mostly with sprouted white wheat flour, and have only sprouted red berries once and wasn't all that thrilled, waiting to see what Peter suggests.

pizza fool's picture
pizza fool

Thanks! I'll try the coffee grinder first and see what happens.  I'll hold off on the mill for now.  I love the flavor of sprouted amaranth, so maybe I'll try to dehydrate and grind that first. Do y'all just spread them on a tray in a warm oven overnight or something?

barryvabeach's picture
barryvabeach

A warm  ( between 100 and 125 F oven) with convection is best, and if you have a perforated tray , that helps as well. 

adri's picture
adri

I would dry them at a lower temperature (32°C / 90F) for that the malt won't loose much enzymatic activity.

Adrian

ElPanadero's picture
ElPanadero

Personally, I wouldn't put anything remotely moist through a stone flour mill as moisture will simply lead to sticky residue somewhere which in turn will lead to mold growth. Dry materials no problem but to sprout grains you keep them damp of course so like Barryvabae says you would have to completely and thoroughly dry them before milling. Some grain mills are easy to take apart and clean (typically the ones with metal burrs rather than stones), others less so.

pizza fool's picture
pizza fool

Thanks, I just remembered my mother in law has a dehydrator she's never used. I have some amaranth sprouting now, I think I'll dehydrate that, use a coffee mill to grind it, and then incorporate it into a Tartine loaf. Any suggestions on ratio so I don't weaken the structure too much but can still taste it?  I was thinking probably 20:80 would work amaranth:bf/ww.

Dan001's picture
Dan001

I have done it several time. I sprout the grain, once done I de hydrate it in my Excalibur dehydrator and then mill it with a Lee household mill.

Really really worth the time and effort. Their is no way to explain the magic that this process does to the taste of wheat once sprouted.

Go for it

Happy baking

bikeprof's picture
bikeprof

The recommendation for grinding sprouted grains I got at SFBI was to toast the sprouted grain, then run through a meat grinder.  I haven't tried it, but that was the answer to the same basic question posed by another student.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

does kill off all the enzymes you just spent  day or two making sure were released by sprouting.  No need to toast if you want the benefits of sprouting   They mill up fine in a Nutrimill once air dried in the AZ sun. 

Cher504's picture
Cher504

My neighborhood market just started stocking this line of products

http://bio-kinetics.myshopify.com/collections/living-flours

I'm wondering if I could use this in place of malted barley? Does anybody have any experience with these flours?

thanks,

Cherie

pizza fool's picture
pizza fool

Well, I have Reinhart's new book, but he doesn't have recommendations for milling the grains, just for grinding them into a mash. Hoping to try my first loaf this weekend.