OK, well I just had my first attempt at grinding my own flour and making
whole wheat sourdough bread. With a recipe from BigJohn I was able to pull
some tasty loaves that were not perfect (but not bricks either) from my
oven. I just have a Family Grain Mill, by using some gift cards I had
burning a hole in my pocket I only had to shell out $44.00 for it, and it
actually does a pretty good job. I know there are those that say flour
should be aged, but I like the idea of trying to get all the vitamins that
supposedly start to break down in the first few weeks. Anyhoo, the recipe I
followed is this, comments appreciated:

1 1/2 cups active starter (medium consistency fed with regular AP flour)
5 1/2 cups fresh ground flour (Montana Millings hard white wheat berries)
1 cup water
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 tsp salt

I actually doubled this recipe four 4 loaves.
I ground the flour the day before and kept it in the freezer, so it was
pretty cold when I made my dough.
Basically did the no-knead approach, stretch and folds right in the bowl.
Mixing of ingredients thru bulk fermentation, shaping, forming and final
rise: 6 hours
Dough started out sticky and pretty gritty.
Dough degassed twice during bulk rise, noticed it get smoother and a bit
less sticky as hours passed.
I think I might have benefited from a heat pad on the final rise, in the
time I allotted as I was preheating the oven my boules rose very little and
yet I had some overexpansion in the oven spring, the initial bulk rises were
much more active.

The flour I ground with my mill is pictured here, clockwise from top left
for comparison: King Arthur All Purpose flour, Hodgson's Mill Whole Wheat
Graham flour, and at the bottom is my own grind, (used unsifted).

http://members.cox.net/hutchndi/fresh0.jpg

The loaves I baked at a preheated 375 degrees on hot tiles with initial
steam, a lower temp than I normally bake as I was nervous about the added
buttermilk, I think next time I will try a bit higher though. Crust kind of
reminded me of a bread baked with honey or some sweetener in it, the inner
crumb came out really tender but with small holes like "wonderbread".
Appearance of the gluten strands baked into the stretched slashes in the
crust look like the gluten could have been developed more. Perhaps why in
Lauren's Kitchen Bread book it is so stressed to knead (if by hand) a FULL
10 minutes for each loaf worth of dough, though BigJohn may have a better
no-knead technique. Pictures are he

http://members.cox.net/hutchndi/fresh1.jpg

http://members.cox.net/hutchndi/fresh2.jpg

Really tender and yummy, slightly sour. Loaves are a bit more than half the
size of my usual 15% whole-wheat sourdough loaves using the same dough
weight. I would like to open up those holes a bit and get a bit more rise. I
don't notice much of a flavor difference with the buttermilk, but then these
are my first fresh flour loaves, so I don't really know what effect it had.


hutchndi

oops, that should read 1 1/2 cups buttermilk!


"hutchndi" > wrote in message
news:n3Jig.87997$IZ2.68681@dukeread07...
> OK, well I just had my first attempt at grinding my own flour and making
> whole wheat sourdough bread. With a recipe from BigJohn I was able to pull
> some tasty loaves that were not perfect (but not bricks either) from my
> oven. I just have a Family Grain Mill, by using some gift cards I had
> burning a hole in my pocket I only had to shell out $44.00 for it, and it
> actually does a pretty good job. I know there are those that say flour
> should be aged, but I like the idea of trying to get all the vitamins that
> supposedly start to break down in the first few weeks. Anyhoo, the recipe
> I followed is this, comments appreciated:
>
> 1 1/2 cups active starter (medium consistency fed with regular AP flour)
> 5 1/2 cups fresh ground flour (Montana Millings hard white wheat berries)
> 1 cup water
> 1/2 cup buttermilk
> 2 tsp salt
>
> I actually doubled this recipe four 4 loaves.
> I ground the flour the day before and kept it in the freezer, so it was
> pretty cold when I made my dough.
> Basically did the no-knead approach, stretch and folds right in the bowl.
> Mixing of ingredients thru bulk fermentation, shaping, forming and final
> rise: 6 hours
> Dough started out sticky and pretty gritty.
> Dough degassed twice during bulk rise, noticed it get smoother and a bit
> less sticky as hours passed.
> I think I might have benefited from a heat pad on the final rise, in the
> time I allotted as I was preheating the oven my boules rose very little
> and yet I had some overexpansion in the oven spring, the initial bulk
> rises were much more active.
>
> The flour I ground with my mill is pictured here, clockwise from top left
> for comparison: King Arthur All Purpose flour, Hodgson's Mill Whole Wheat
> Graham flour, and at the bottom is my own grind, (used unsifted).
>
> http://members.cox.net/hutchndi/fresh0.jpg
>
> The loaves I baked at a preheated 375 degrees on hot tiles with initial
> steam, a lower temp than I normally bake as I was nervous about the added
> buttermilk, I think next time I will try a bit higher though. Crust kind
> of reminded me of a bread baked with honey or some sweetener in it, the
> inner crumb came out really tender but with small holes like
> "wonderbread". Appearance of the gluten strands baked into the stretched
> slashes in the crust look like the gluten could have been developed more.
> Perhaps why in Lauren's Kitchen Bread book it is so stressed to knead (if
> by hand) a FULL 10 minutes for each loaf worth of dough, though BigJohn
> may have a better no-knead technique. Pictures are he
>
> http://members.cox.net/hutchndi/fresh1.jpg
>
> http://members.cox.net/hutchndi/fresh2.jpg
>
> Really tender and yummy, slightly sour. Loaves are a bit more than half
> the size of my usual 15% whole-wheat sourdough loaves using the same dough
> weight. I would like to open up those holes a bit and get a bit more rise.
> I don't notice much of a flavor difference with the buttermilk, but then
> these are my first fresh flour loaves, so I don't really know what effect
> it had.
>
>
> hutchndi
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>