Recommended recipe to try w/flour from my new grain mill?
Hi, all!
I've just ordered my first grain mill (the Komo Classic). Very excited about its scheduled arrival on Friday. So, here's my question for you all....what would bread recipe would you recommend I start with? I've been making bread (the Cook's Illustrated Buttermilk Sandwich bread with some ww flour for the AP) and my original plan was to just try exchanging the store bought flour with my own milled flour. But I've been reading about problems people have had doing that so it got me thinking that I should see if the collective wisdom here has a better idea.
Thanks for any ideas and recommendations!
PS - as my login name suggests, I'm a working mom of 2. As I expect is the situation with many others, most of my baking time is done on the weekends and squeezed between other activities. Easy recipes are especially welcome! =)
Congrats on your new mill ... Hopefully it will bring you lots of great flour and bread.
I have the Komo XL and use it for just about all my baking.
A few questions first ...
What kind of grains will you be milling?
I take it your using commercial yeast?
If you do a search on the site for Laurels kitchen bread book and buttermilk bread ... Her buttermilk bread is a fantastic place to start. Here is a link to an adaption of it that looks nice:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/handbook/buttermilk-and-honey-wholewheat-sandwich-bread
Cheers,
Phil
Hi,
I also have a KoMo and the book that revolutionized my baking with my fresh whole gains was Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads. (Available on Amazon)
He describes all the nuances of using ww and has a Master formula that can be used for just about any loaf you want to make. His directions are straight forward and easy to follow. The breads are all wonderful.
His method reads like it is complicated but once you get the hang of it is really very easy and very versatile.....ie easy to fit into a busy schedule especially one that has kids of any age in it :-).
Have fun. You are going to LOVE your KoMo!
Take Care,
Janet
I also recommend PR's Whole Grain Breads. Start out with the whole wheat sandwich bread, it is great.
I purchased a grain mill in 2008 and I've really enjoyed using it. If I'm understanding you correctly you are saying that your bread is partly whole wheat and partly white flour and you are planning to sub you home milled flour for the store bought whole wheat.
That sounds like it would work just fine. My only suggestion would be that you start your bread by putting all the liquids of your recipe together and then add your whole wheat flour and make a batter...then let that soak for a couple of hours before adding your white flour and continuing with your recipe.
Soaking does two things...
1-It breaks down some enzymes in whole wheat flour that humans can't digest making them digestible.
2-It fully hydrates the grain particles which will soften them. The outer bran on the wheat grain is tough and when it's ground it has sharp edges that will cut the gluten like little knives while it's being kneaded which will prevent the gluten from fully forming. Soaking it will soften the bran and also help develop the flavor.
This is my honey whole wheat bread. It uses 3 cups of home ground whole wheat flour that I soak for 2 hours and 3 cups of AP flour. I live in a rural area and I can't get bread flour so I order vital wheat gluten online and add 3 tablespoons to this recipe to make up for it only being AP flour.
HONEY WHEAT BREAD
Thanks for all the responses and info! The Whole Grain Bread book was already on my list so thanks for the additional votes for it.
To answer some of the questions...
I live near Wheat Montana so I went out there on Thursday and bought Prairie Gold wheat berries (hard white wheat), soft wheat berries, spelt berries, and kamut. I was planning to use the Prairie Gold for bread, the soft wheat as a replacement for AP flour, and spelt/kamut in small amounts for other baked goods (I've used spelt and kamut flours before so I would use it in the same way). Thoughts?
The yeast I use is Red Star active dry yeast - is that considered commerical yeast? If it isn't, what's the difference?
For those of you that have the KoMo, do you use it to grind oat groats? The woman I spoke w/at Pleasant Grain Hill suggested soaking the oat groats, drying them, and then grinding them. Is the soaking step necessary?
I've also read conflicting info about grinding beans...do you use your KoMo to do that? I'm specifically interested in grinding chickpeas. I think it isn't an oily bean so it should be okay. Is that your experience?
Finally, I've been reading different things about aging flour after you grind it. My plan had been to grind what I needed and use it right away. But it seems that some people age theirs for a few days. Is that personal preference? Or is there something more to it?
It turns out the Komo will be here on Wednesday (rather than last Friday). Even more time to overthink all of this before I start baking and playing!
MT,
If I miss one of your questions in this reply let me know....but here are some of my responses.
Yes, I grind oat grouts. I do not soak. If I am making steel cut oat I grind as far open as I can without the whole grain coming ot the shoot.
If I am grinding them to make flour I mix them with hard grains as they are very soft and can gum up the stones....which isn't a big deal and easy to clean out. You just don't get any flour out of the shoot.
I use brown rice to clean the stones and then use the resulting flour on my brotforms.
I grind dried beans - even garbanzos. The only thing they told me NOT to grind were the oily seeds as you mentioned and popcorn. I do not grind any nuts or seeds in it at all. Dried beans and grains - yes. (I also grind millet and barley)
The other grains you mention should present no problems.
One word about Kamut. It makes a very elastic dough so when I use it exclusively for a loaf of bread I shape and bake it in a loaf pan. As a free standing loaf it simply spreads too much unless combined with a hard flour. Do some experimenting and you will see what I mean. (I use it a lot with my white whole wheat. My kids love that combination.) (I also get some of my grains from W.Montana from a woman who distributes there grains here in CO.)
The thing I love the most about this mill is that I can mill small amounts of flour and use it right away when I do my daily leaven builds. I have never aged any of my flour. I grind fresh for everything I bake.
You will get a bit of flour dust out of the shoot when grinding. If it bothers you - simply toss a towel over the whole mill and the 'problem' will be taken care of.
For creating AP flour with my whole grains I use a 60/40 percentage between soft wheat and hard wheat; soft wheat being 60% of the mixture.
I store all of my grains in my basement where it is cool in restaurant type food safe plastic containers. I use different colored Gamma Lids on each so I have color coded grain containers. Red = red winter wheat; yellow = Kamut; green = spelt etc.....
Here is a site that sells the Gamma lids at a very reasonable price:
http://www.bayteccontainers.com/gamma-seal-lids.html?gclid=CPin7fGu3a4CFQfCKgodxRzraw
Hope this helps. Once you start using the mill all of your questions will be answered. It is a very easy to operate and clean mill.
Enjoy :-)
Janet
MT,
Soaking oat groats is not needed for grinding, but it is beneficial for rolling (flaking). In tempering, a small amount of water is added and given time to soak in. Rolling tempered groats generates larger flakes and much less flour.
I generally grind as I need it -- but if I know that I'll need more within 48 hours, I'll grind extra.
Awesome info! Janet - thank you for all those detailed responses to my questions. I did buy a few gamma lids but didn't think to get them in different colors to make it easy to sort through. May have to make another trip out to Wheat MT to make some changes! I'm also going to try a kamut-white whole wheat bread when I get the mill on Wednesday. Can you tell I'm super excited about the new Komo?!?! It's great to hear that all the things I wanted to do, it sounds like I'll be able to.
Have a good day!