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Making semolina flour at home

macdds's picture
macdds

Making semolina flour at home

Is it possible to grind durum wheat berries to make semolina flour for pasta?

idaveindy's picture
idaveindy

there are some considerations.

Commercial semolina flour is low bran.

Home-milled flour has all the bran, unless you sift it out.  Durum bran causes  home-milled durum flour to be very sticky and glue-like when made into dough.

You can sift home-milled durum flour, isand66 does so.  But due to the way the durum berry fractures during stone milling (it is more "glass like" and it "shatters" as opposed to how regular wheat "crumbles", and therefore the bran doesn't separate as well from the endosperm). Hence, you can only remove a small portion of the bran, and when you do, you also end up sifting out chunks of endosperm with it.  

Sieves only know the size of the particle, not what it is made of, therefore small bits ot bran pass through the sieve, and large particles of endosperm are sifted out.

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I can't emphasize this enough: whole grain durum is a very different animal from whole grain common (red or white) wheat.  Durum bran turns to glue when hydrated, therefore it becomes harder and harder to hydrate and mix properly as you go with higher and higher portions of whole grain durum.  A flour mix of 25% whole grain durum is workable for loaf breads, but it gets harder as you go higher.  50% seems to be my crossover point for pasta.  And I can make 100% whole grain durum roti/chapati/tortillas with special handling.

I could not seem to work out a formula for pasta made from 100% whole grain durum. It's just too gritty and sticky.

But I could make good pasta from 50% whole grain durum and 50% refined store-bought durum, such as Golden Temple, or even semolina flour.

I think 50% whole grain durum and 50% whole grain common wheat worked too.

60% whole grain durum, 20% whole grain common wheat, and 20% store-bought refined flour (all-purpose or bread flour) also worked.

Further comments and formulas here: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/68529/homemade-durum-pasta

and:

https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/62248/praise-durum-flour-brar-mills

Isand66's picture
Isand66

I’m not nearly as technical on these matters.  I have a Mockmill 200 and here is what I do for bread and pasta:  I grind the berries on a setting that’s right before the stones are touching.  I sift using a #30 drum sieve.  I then remill the flour with the stones slightly touching.  Next I sift with a #40 sieve.  I use the end result for bread and I’ve made pasta as well.  It works for me and I recommend you try it yourself.  Good luck.

Ian