March 20, 2014 - 4:02pm
Cleaning wheat.
There are loads of articles online about home flour mills, comparing designs. Etc. However; there seems to be a lack of information about cleaning wheat on a small scale, beyond a few tinkers, and machines that clean tons of grain per hour.
Is there a small, inexpensive, UN-labour intensive device for cleaning grain, specifically wheat, at home?
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http://www.countrysidemag.com/90-5/jerri_cook/
Nice find Mini - thanks...,
Wild-Yeast
Clipper makes a "small" fanning mill, but they're kinda pricey...
https://www.seedburo.com/productDetail.asp_Q_catID_E_541_A_subCatID_E_2739_A_productID_E_3455_A_Clipper_office_tester_E_Clipper_office_tester
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnANYXOm4N0
I assume that by "cleaning" you refer to removing ergot? (if not, skip reading ;) )
Usually wheat isn't as contaminated as rye. (And I have no idea why.)Is it really too much work to sift it and then do the screening by eye?
I don't think there are machines for home use to clean wheat from ergot. Even though visual pattern recognition is something well under research, I've never seen such a machine in a smaller scale outside of a university.
A view years ago, even small mills couldn't afford such a machine and had to use traditional unreliable methods and check the result manually.
Maybe you'll find a smaller mill, that cleans your wheat for you? I'm lazy and buy my grains after they passed the screening step in a mill.
I'd like to be working with rye, but not having found a bulk supplier (farmer) here I kinda assume that the stuff I get in sacks from a food coop is ok.
The contaminants I usually run into when getting wheat from a farmer's grain bin are chaff (easy enough to sift out after milling, extra fiber if it really get's ground in).
Canola (Not really something I want the whole seed in my bread, but there usually isn't much).
Weed seeds.
But the big problem is wild oats, the dark husk splits when milling into a hair like strand, after baking it puffs up and looks like facial hair. I thought there was a lapse in my hygiene practices when I first saw it in baked bread.
Also there can be a bit of general dust and dirt.
I tend to make batches of 8 loaves at a time, with work and school I don't really have time to sift by hand anymore.
Just for reference what are signs of ergot contamination in rye? I keep my grain in a cool dry place and it isn't so much of a problem in this climate, but I should still be wary.
The contamination happens on the field, not at storage.I have to admit, I haven't seen ergot in over a decade. Back then, my mother bought some grains directly from an organic farm.
The mushroom looks like dark grains, usually a bit longer and thinner.
Here you can see a picture: http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0703.htm#ergot
Thanks. I'd watched a documentary on ergot once, but never looked further into it. On the upside, if I ever did see that stuff in a bag of rye, I'd assume it was mouse droppings and scrap it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVcOOJXKjYw
If there was an easy way to make something like the above more compact, but I'd rather just buy something.