anyone grind their own flour?

[dds07]

What kind of a mill do you have? How often do you end up milling? Any suggestions for mills, flour recipes, etc?

Thanks!

[mamadelbosque]

My dad splurged and bought a diamant grain mill from lehman's last summer. We love it. I mostly mill when I'm making a big batch of something (waffles, pancakes, bread, muffins, etc), and always doa little extra (enough to make an extra 1-3 cups of flour), so that I have flour to use as coatings for chicken and thickners and such. But basicly whenever I'm baking or using more than 2 cups of flour I grind it fresh.

HTH!

[fresh_veggie]

Do you let the flour age? I've used both fresh ground and aged in a food science lab next to eachother - aged worked much better. Something about disulfide bridges developing, breaking, and rebonding which helps the dough have more structure.

Do you change recipes for fresh ground? Or use the same ones?

[RunnerDuck]

I make oat flour in my blender.

[fresh_veggie]

I'm getting a vitamix (i can't believe someone actually GOT it for us off our registry!!!) that I'd love to grind my own grains in.

[mamadelbosque]

Letting the flour 'age' seems like it'd defeat the purpose of grinding it yourself - the grain itself lasts for a long time, but once it grounds it starts to go rancid very quickly - as in within 1-2 weeks its rancid, and has lost much of its nutritional value. I just use the same recipes as I always did, and everything turns out great.

[hummingmom]

Originally Posted by fresh_veggie

Do you let the flour age? I've used both fresh ground and aged in a food science lab next to eachother - aged worked much better. Something about disulfide bridges developing, breaking, and rebonding which helps the dough have more structure.

I found something on a bread-baking blog (can't find the link right now) that said that you basically have two choices, for the best results:

1) use the flour within 7 hours of grinding
OR
2) age it for 2 weeks.

Flour in the in-between stage isn't going to be quite as workable, or rise quite as well.

Chemistry isn't my strong subject, but what you said about bonds breaking down and rebuilding would seem to fit with that. AFAIK, it's not a nutritional issue, just a question of making "adequate" vs. "world class" bread. But I could be wrong on that point.

The flour used by professional bakers would traditionally be bolted, i.e. sieved to take out the bran and coarse grains. I think this would slow down the spoilage process somewhat, as some of the oils would be removed. They'd also age it in a cool place, not at warm room temperature. Still, I can't see how flour that was aged for a month would be healthy.

[kiwiva]

I have a NutriMill. Works well.

I make flour a couple times a week typically. I mill bread flour before I make bread and then if I am organized will also mill the lighter wheat for whatever I anticipate needing for other baking during the week and put it in the fridge or freezer.