Fidibus sifter
Hello,
Today I received in the mail, the Fidibus Sifting module which plugs into my existing Fidibus Medium milling device. It came with 3 different mesh filters. It is the coolest (and fun) thing! (no this is not a paid advertisement for Fidibus...).
A week ago I milled a bunch of hard red wheat at the finest setting on the mill machine, been aging the flour thus far.. and today I sifted it. I used the finest mesh for the sifter.
From what I could tell, because I initially milled the berries at the finest setting there was still a lot of bran that fell through the Sifter's mesh. No fault of the manufacturers, next time I won't mill the berries quite so fine. The remaining bran is like tiny particulates, but you can tell because of the color.
But I still got a decent amount of bran removed. What will I do with it? I may try rolling some shaped loaves in it for the crust, inspired by the recent poster who took a trip to Italy and showed those pics of the bran crust. (If I am remembering properly).
Here's the aftermath:
Bran! :)
Hi, Gvz.
Looks like you have finally divided bran left in the flour that cannot be sifted out. Furthermore, the bran in the glass bowl most certauinly contains some tiny edosperm particles that have not been milled into powder. What is your goal here? do you want to completely separate the endosperm from the bran.. thus home making white flour? or do you want to make high extraction flour? or is it for fun only.. :)
Tempering your wheat berries with some water.. (barely dampening them), resting them for 24 hours at least, then milling them, increases the chance of bran/endosperm separation, as the bran slides away more easily.
Care to show us that fancy sifter (drooling :)
about tempering wheat from what proth5 and other users wrote on this website.
I did a little research on this sifter today. The English-language portion of the KoMo website didn't have any mention of the sifter, but I found on the German side of things it had all the specs for the sifter on page 23 of their downloadable 2011 brochure.
I also found a couple of vids on Youtube, one that showed the sifter working!
The brochure says the the three screens have a mesh of 1.25mm, .80mm and .63mm. Googling for an easy conversion this chart puts their mesh around a #15, #20 and between a #25 to a #30 mesh for the finest screen.
I sieve my flour most of the time by hand (twenty to thirty minute process) and I use a #30 and a #50 mesh screen classifier. Refined flour comes through the #50, the bran is left behind in the #30 and what's left behind in the #50 are wheat middlings which I run through the mill again and the results really make a positive difference in my baking.
The video showing exchanging a sieve screen in the Komo sifter indicates that the screen assemblies are somewhat simple. Only the hub in the middle may be a custom fitting. So you could perhaps get a #50 screen and make your own sieve screen or maybe a machine shop could do it for a reasonable price. Maybe Komo themselves would make a sieve screen or sell you just the hub.
Crider, that's the one. So far it worked nice for me, only used it once though.
Mebake, I have no particular goal except.. When I had milled a bunch of various grains and things together for my 'jungle' flour (including corn), there was a lot of flakey bran, shells in it... I thought I'd try it again but sift out the larger chunks, see if I could make a lighter version of it. Maybe that is a flawed idea. Not trying to manufacturer my own white flour.
Thanks both for the references about tempering. I will read about it.
Edited to add: The Sifter came with instructions entirely in German. Fortunately for me (not knowing German), there were also step-by-step pictures. But, it's not too difficult to figure out even without any instructions.
That is so cool.. the closest i ever got to a 50# mesh screen is a splatter screen used for cooking utensils.. i have one and i'am using it.. i get substantially branless flour this way, but my screen is small, and it takes ages to get 1 Kg of Flour through.
Nice gadget, gvz...
I took a quick look at the mesh filters that come with the sifter. Looks like it would be easy to make your own. The meshes are cut into round discs, appx 3 - 3.5 inches diameter, with an inner hole at the center, appx 1/2-inch in diameter that a plastic connector piece just sits in. The plastic center connector is not glued or fastened to the mesh, it is a tight enough fit by itself that holds the two together. I popped one out and reattached it with a little pressure. The disc then attaches at the bottom of the main sifting chamber. If one has a small sheet of 50# fine filter mesh, or any grade, as long as you cut it to the correct dimensions, you could make your own. (Or replace an old one).
Hi Sam,
Did you tried cutting the 50th mesh disc for the komo sifting module? If so, did it worked? I have just received mine and I'm curious to know if it's possible.