Help me ❤︎ my grain mill

I would love to grind grain and make fresh bread with it vs store-bought, but SO hates whole wheat bread. He did however get me a Wondermill (yes, I am lucky). Hoping someone has a recipe or technique that I could make a bread he might enjoy using fresh-milled flour instead of store bought AP flour. I currently am using the recipe for a no-knead bread baked in a dutch oven (https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/saturday-white-bread-ken-forkish) that gives me a reliably good loaf using mostly AP (I can sneak 10% WW without complaint). While the loaf isn't a sourdough, it has that flavor due to the long ferment. At this point I haven't delved into the sourdough/poolish/biga route, but am wondering if I should. SO likes Italian, rye, potato, and sourdough. We don't eat a huge amount of bread and the fridge space for keeping starters is limited. I've been getting prairie gold, hard white spring wheat since it is available locally, but would be fine if there was a better option that was less of a strong "WW" flavor. The biggest thing I'm looking for is a recipe doesn't make a dense loaf or boule.

I find that wholegrain breads work better with a fairly wet dough. I like to use loaf tins, because it’s easier not to over-flour the loaf because you can just spoon the dough into the tin rather than having to shape it. I make our basic everyday sourdough bread this way and it ends up getting lots of smaller bubbles all the way through, good for open-faced sandwiches, toast, and pretty much anything. Not the same as white bread, but we like it this way. I often use 50% rye, 50% spelt or wheat.

Another tip is to measure ingredients by weight rather than volume - the weight of a cup can vary depending on the flour and how it is put into the cup, where as the weight is always the same.

Baking with fresh flour is so good, I hope that you can learn to love your grain mill

Thanks Kate, I may have to try using sourdough but I'll start first with a recipe I found that makes a really slack dough and give it a shot in a loaf pan. I do use a scale for bread, as you noted it makes it way easier to measure. Off to put the grains in the freezer, they seem to mill better for me when super cold!

This is an old recipe that I picked up at an intentional community about 25 years ago. It's for a spongey loaf and works well with freshly milled hard wheat.

Yields 8 loaves

4 T yeast
1 c sorghum
8 c water
4-5 c milled flour
1 c oil
3-4 T salt

Mix yeast, sorghum, warm water and let it sit 5-10 minutes.

Add enough flour to make a pudding consistency.

Let sit 30 minutes, until spongey.

Add oil and salt plus more flour... Enough to make stirring extremely difficult.

Knead in more flour until proper consistency.

Let rise in an oiled bowl 1 hour.

Punch down, let rise again.

Split into 8 balls, knead each, and put in oiled loaf pans. Let rise 30 minutes.

Bake at 350 degrees 1 hour.

Thank you Jenny, I've "ear-marked" this recipe and if I can find sorghum I'll give it a try!

Jenny Cahill wrote:This is an old recipe that I picked up at an intentional community about 25 years ago. It's for a spongey loaf and works well with freshly milled hard wheat.
Yields 8 loaves
4 T yeast
1 c sorghum
8 c water
4-5 c milled flour
1 c oil
3-4 T salt

Mix yeast, sorghum, warm water and let it sit 5-10 minutes.
Add enough flour to make a pudding consistency.
Let sit 30 minutes, until spongey.
Add oil and salt plus more flour... Enough to make stirring extremely difficult.
Knead in more flour until proper consistency.
Let rise in an oiled bowl 1 hour.
Punch down, let rise again.
Split into 8 balls, knead each, and put in oiled loaf pans. Let rise 30 minutes.
Bake at 350 degrees 1 hour.

Howdy!
It might be that I'm very slow to wake up this morning, but is the sorghum called for the seed or the syrup?
The one is amazingly easy for me to find, while the other I may have to fight the geese for.
Thank you for sharing this recipe!

Howdy!
I'm afraid I have no idea of how to convince someone who doesn't like a whole wheat loaf that WW is a great choice.
I make a recipe (in a bread machine, because .. lazy but still want Good Food), and have been mixing whole wheat and unbleached white flours, along with some of the more interesting things I find.

(Soy, rye, hemp, oats .. The hemp flour turns the batter a brilliant green, It bakes up a normal color, though. The pumpkin muffins I made a few years back while experimenting were amazing and so much fun - green and orange batter that turned the most amazing "pumpkin color" when baked.)

Anyway, So, it doesn't matter what it is, I generally do a 50/50 blend on the flours. for whole wheat and unbleached white.
Maybe the same sort of blend in a sourdough would help?
I guess the problem is one of  - why? Why doesn't your Darling Adorable like whole wheat bread? When you know why, it's easier to make adjustments.
Not going to pry. My very own Darling Adorable has his own eating quirks, so I understand trying to work around them.
I wish you very good luck with your future bakery and am thinking fond thoughts about grain mills.
And here's my favorite recipe -
Kris's Modification of Richard Blunt's Whole Wheat Bread as printed in Backwoods Home Cooking Cookbook Anthology

Put in a 2 pound bread machine.

Dry Ingredients
5 cups Flour (I use half and half whole wheat and unbleached white)
1/2 cup Dry Milk

Yeast Mix
2 cups water  - at least 90F
1 tablespoon Active Yeast
2 teaspoons Sugar (I usually use white sugar, but brown is good, too)

Other Liquids
1 tablespoon Honey
1 tablespoon Molasses (Regular or Blackstrap, whichever you prefer)
3 tablespoons Butter or other fat (I like butter. You may prefer a really good olive oil, or lard or ... Have fun and experiment.)

Following the directions of your particular bread machine, add the ingredients to the pan, make sure each set is mixed well.

Push the Magic Button, and enjoy the lovely smells later.

The bread is sweet, tender, and makes a good 2 pound loaf. You could probably make a few normal loaves, as well.

Non bread machine instructions

Combine proofed yeast mix with other liquids.
In a large bowl, add the dry ingredients slowly and incorporate well. Add flour until dough becomes firm.
Turn out onto a floured surface and knead until dough becomes elastic and no longer feels sticky.
Rest in a well oiled bowl and allow to double.
Punch down; knead for about 5 minutes.
Cut dough into 2 equal sized balls and set aside to rest and rise for 5 minutes.
Shape into loaves, place in loaf pans and allow to rise until doubled.
Bake at 375F for 40-45 minutes or until bread sounds hollow when rapped.

I'm not an expert, but I've been playing around with different types of wheats and mixing them into my sourdough breads.  I have inconsistently been trying things (and feeding my starter poorly), so I can't say anything for certain.  But I have been trying to add ww flour in different percentages to see what works best.

A ww loaf won't rise as much as an AP flour one will, because all the little bran particles will slice through the rising dough.  I have tried sifting the flour but didn't see much different yet.  I plan to get a finer sifter to pull out the larger bran particles and either re grind or just discard them.  

I would look into buying some hard white wheat to play with.  They say it has a milder flavor.  My inconsistent loaves means I can't say if I found that true or not.  I can say my einkorn wheat has a stronger flavor.  

So, to sum up, try a milder wheat.  And look into getting a sifter (I have the 30, but plan to get the 40).  Add small amounts of fresh ground wheat at first, and build up from there!  

I'm in the middle of a move, but once I get settled, I'm hoping to be more scientific about my sourdough and grinder!

Not all wheat is the same.  If you add some hard WHITE spring wheat it will look and act much more like AP flour. Montana gold and wheat Montana are two brands

I concur that white wheat does not have that bitterness that red wheat does.  I think I read that red wheat is so prolific because it was easier to grow years ago. Fresh flour is worth making in my opinion. I read an article that said something like 95% of nutritional value of wheat is gone within 24 hours of being ground into flour.

You're welcome, Denise! Though I haven't tried other syrupy sweeteners myself in this recipe, I would suspect that honey or agave or even maple would work well. Just be aware you may get a significantly different flavor (especially with maple). If I were going to play with it, I'd probably start my experiments with honey.

Hi Kristine! It's sorghum syrup in the recipe I posted above. The birds might pass on that... but you might still have to fight the ants.

Thank you Kristine! I may give that recipe a shot, it's crazy that hemp flour turns the batter a brilliant green! I don't even know where I could get hemp flour here. I agree with everyone else on the type of WW used, I've been using hard white spring wheat and it is lighter in color and flavor than red wheat. I might look into a better sifter, the one I have is just your standard and it does leave a ton of the bran and larger bits (even though the mill does make a pretty darn good flour IMO).

Denise Kersting wrote:Thank you Kristine! I may give that recipe a shot, it's crazy that hemp flour turns the batter a brilliant green! I don't even know where I could get hemp flour here.

Howdy!
The recipe is one of the few non sourdough or pumpernickel that Darling Adorable really, really likes. With both honey and molasses, it ticks all the boxes for him.
I enjoy that it works and gives me a reliable good tasting sweeter loaf.
I'm still looking for a really good sandwich bread, but am content for the moment.

After reading your note, and then remembering I still had some of the hemp, I checked.
It's a Bob's Red Mill brand Hemp Powder Protein Supplement. And the powder is a good sage green color.
I bought it at my local grocery on a whim (The doctors want me to boost my protein intake, so I experiment with a lot of things) and substituted it 1 for 1 with an amount of flour.
I hope that makes it easier to find.

Jenny Cahill wrote:Hi Kristine! It's sorghum syrup in the recipe I posted above. The birds might pass on that... but you might still have to fight the ants.

I have an excuse to get sorghum!!
I'm excited about adding things to my shopping list.

Thank you for the clarification. I do appreciate it.
(The chickens don't like Brussels sprouts, but they usually like sweeter stuff. I know their supplemental feed smells very molasses-y, but that might just be me.)
Thanks again!