August 28, 2014 - 11:27pm
Kitchenaid Mill extension
I've been browsing the web lately reading about the chemicals added to commercial white flour and how the industrial mills kill all nutritional values in wheats due to harsh milling and high temperature in metal rotators and so I came to a decision to mill my own wheats.
Since I have a Kitchenaid I was thinking of getting the mill extension, anyone has it and can give me advice?
Still one unclear thing, if I mill my own wheat, then I will only have whole wheat flour? Will my bread need any white flour? I do care for my health and lately am going natural all the way
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Can't help you on the attachment, though if you get serious about WW, you will probably end up with a separate mill at some point. When you mill your own wheat, you will have 100% whole wheat. You can modify the taste profile by buying both red spring whole wheat ( which has that classic "grassy" whole wheat flavor ) and white hard whole wheat - which is 100% whole wheat, but has a much more mild flavor like white flour, and can vary the ratios of WWW to RWW until you get what you like.
The flour that it produces is rather coarse; really more a fine meal. While that's fine for some uses, it isn't what you would want for general purpose baking. And no, you wouldn't be able to make a "white" flour with it.
Paul
I use a KA KGM weekly to mill 40% of the flour that goes into our current standard breadbasket miche (see here for little 750 gr version -- 2kg is normal). That ~450 gr of grain is just the capacity of the KGM (after the first [crack] pass -- it takes up more room in hopper when milled than as raw grain).
As Paul said, the KGM produces notoriously coarse output. I get around this by, (1) hacking the KGM to bring the plates closer together (don't ask -- not recommended), and (2) catching the output in a 55# sieve (see above link for details), shaking sieve and bowl to separate fractions and then re-milling the retained fraction four times on the finest setting (sieving between each), until 60-70% of the total starting weight has passed through the sieve. That 'high extraction' pass-through makes wonderful bread, of course, but I soaker the retained branny fraction and always include it in the bake (again, see link above).
I wouldn't recommend the KGM, truth be told. It's a recipe for frustration. I crave a dedicated mill, have my eye on a candidate and am increasingly anxious to pass the KGM on to another baker and acquire a proper, dedicated tool. A non-trivial issue here is the capacity of current KA mixer motors. My ~40 year old KA has a Hobart pedigree and can drive even the hacked KGM without complaint (mild heating). Newer KAs are less robust and if you rely on your mixer for other things (I don't, it turns out), you could be endangering it with beaucoup milling.
Case in point: I was inspired by Varda's post of a 100%WW SD loaf last week and baked the largest such loaf I could (800 gr) without having to mill multiple batches of grain in my KGM. Came out nice (though strong flavored!) but anything bigger -- no way. Would take all morning to do the milling (given my sieving procedure).
Think hard about (and save up for) a Komo, Grainmaker or Diamant or others people are happy with.
And like Paul said, it's essentially impossible to make "white flour" at home. Any home mill will produce fine enough germ & bran to pass through even the finest sieve, giving what most home millers consider a lovely creamy color to the flour.
Happy milling and baking,
Tom