Whole Wheat Sourdough Rolls

I haven't made bread for quite some time. It's easy to get out of the habit, especially when things like surgeries and recovery get in the way. So, it's back to the bread board, so to speak, even though I just knead it on the counter.

I have a new sourdough cookbook that I haven't used before. It is written in a very straight forward, sensible language that is easy to understand and follow. There are also some great stories and good humor. I appreciate an author that doesn't make any bones about the fact that flops will happen when you make bread. They even have recommendations for brick bread, you know, when it doesn't rise and is ultra heavy. They make bread crumbs or crackers from this very heavy bread which I think is a great idea!

I chose a recipe with 100% whole wheat flour and no sweetener. Frank and I are changing our eating habits and trying to limit the carbohydrates we eat. Some of the sites I have researched explain that the process of fermenting, or proofing your dough allows the lactobacilli in the sourdough starter to predigest the carbohydrates in the wheat, thus lowering the production of insulin when we digest the bread. Another benefit of using whole wheat is the fiber and nutrients it includes. This cookbook also has some very good information and explanations about using whole wheat for a variety of bread recipes.

I took my starter out of the refrigerator a few days ago and starting feeding it twice a day, morning and evening, to sweeten it up a bit since I hadn't used it in quite some time. I explained how to recondition a sourdough starter here. I guess sweeten it up can be misleading. I didn't add any sweetener at all, but by feeding it flour and water, and discarding all but about a cup and a half of the starter after a couple of days, it decreased the acidity or sourness of the starter, allowing for a milder flavor and odor. This is a personal preference. Your starter can be as sour, or acidic, as you like.

The Art of Baking with Natural Yeast recommends you proof your dough for a minimum of six hours to allow for the dough to autolyze, or predigest, which "neutralizes harmful enzymes, breaks down the negative aspects of gluten, and frees up vitamins and minerals for human digestion" (page 43). I ground my wheat and fed my starter last night so I would be ready to make bread this morning. 

This simple recipe includes:
1/2 cup starter
2 1/2 cups warm water
2 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. coconut oil (I used olive oil)
5-6 cups whole wheat flour

One of the recommendations I found in this book was to let your dough rest for 30 minutes after mixing. This allows the fiber in the whole wheat flour to absorb moisture and make kneading easier and more effective. There are many tips throughout the book that I found very useful. As you can tell, I would recommend this book, especially for beginners with sourdough, like me.

I let this dough proof for seven hours before I made up the rolls. Then I let the rolls rise for another two hours before baking.

The recipe I used makes two loaves of bread. We chose to make rolls this time. This dough does not look like regular whole wheat yeast rolls. It doesn't brown or fluff up as much, and took a little longer to bake. But you know what? We like it. One of the reasons we do is because we know how much better it is for us. It is another step toward trying to improve our health.

Until next time - Fern

Grain Grinder, Manual Type

Hi Everybody, Frank here.

There has been some spooky news in our country lately. This has given Fern and I a reason to think about our homestead situation. So, this morning Fern went out and dragged in a product that we bought a couple of years ago and have never used. We have lots of things like that. Things we have stocked up on and never used. But, today was the day to try out one of our manual grain grinders.

This product is a Wonder Junior and it's manufactured by Wonder Mill. Our electric grain mill is also made by Wonder Mill. The electric one turns at significantly greater 

speed, since the hand mill is rated at one human power. It's not rated the highest of the hand grain mills, and it's not made for industrial or agricultural purposes. But it was rated consistently among the good to better hand grain mills. So here is the results of our test today.

Assembly was pretty straightforward. It is durable enough that when I tightened all of the pieces down, nothing fractured or warped. The instructions are self explanatory. They're written in plain English, by someone whose first language is English. The reason I mention that is I buy some radios that the manuals are in English, but you can tell it's not the writers first language. Back to the mill.

Okay. It's assembled. Instructions are easy to follow. Here goes 1 cup of hard red winter wheat, and you know who starts cranking. The instructions say that if the grinding is real difficult, then release a little pressure off of the grinding plates, we did, and cranking was much easier. But the flour was still too large of a grit, which the instructions addressed. We were to grind it once, resulting in a more coarse flour, tighten the grinding plates and re-grind it a second time. The instructions were correct. It took a little bit more time, but it was much easier to grind, both times. So, again, the instructions were right.

I am so funny.

You can remove the handle if you choose, and attach a pulley wheel kit assembly. We did not purchase this option. It also comes with a little gizmo type drill bit, which is an optional accessory, and use your electric hand drill. We did order this attachment, but I can't find it. So. After watching the video of how to remove the handle, where this man used his fine adjusting tool, more commonly known as a hammer, to pry loose the handle. Well, the one in the video had obviously been removed a few times before. You would now say that mine is definitely a used machine. There are a few dings and chips in the back side of the handle, but I got it off. The video made it look real easy, but they have editing. 

So, what I did was after removing the handle, I replaced the retainer bolt back into the auger, found the appropriate socket size, which I will share with you is 13mm, and that little gizmo turned just fine with my battery operated hand drill.

We have since ordered the little gizmo bit attachment thingy, that is made especially for this hand drill type purpose. Remember, I lost the first one. I do believe a larger drill, like a 1/2 horse, with an adjustable trigger for speed control, would be a better choice. That's what I will use next time. But, it worked just fine grinding the wheat. I have a large, older electric hand drill that I use for much heavier jobs when I really want to twist the head off of something. Back to the mill.

This mill comes with two sets of grinding plates. One set of grinding burrs is for dry items like corn, wheat, barley, things with a much, much lower oil content. The other set of grinding burrs are made of stainless steel, which is made for things like peanuts and other oil producing type seeds or grains. So, if you're into making peanut butter, stainless steel is the way to go. Or, if you choose, you can use the stainless steel all the time. But if you do mess up and use the stone burrs for something like peanut butter, it will not ruin them, you will just have to spend a little time washing them with a very coarse type brush.

After having used the mill, some of the flour was a little difficult to contain. While we were ordering the hand drill bit attachment, we also purchased a flour guard. This should make clean up significantly easier, not that it was difficult at all though. 


Overall, I found the hand mill easy to assemble, the instructions were easy to follow, we only ground a dry type grain, which was wheat. It gave us a nice flour, and it was easy to disassemble and clean. I can't speak to it's long term durability, but it appears to be well made from durable products. I do have another hand mill that I have also never used. It comes from my Y2K days. And it's not going to get used in the near future. The Wonder Junior made by Wonder Mill appears to be a good quality product. If you have any questions about this particular product, I hope this helps. And, yes, I have the ability to recharge my hand drill batteries if the electricity goes off, because I know somebody is going to ask that question. At my age, I would not want to crank this mill enough times to make four or five loaves of bread. 

If you have items, like I do, that you have bought, put in storage and never used, now is a good time to try them out. You never know when you are going to need them, and I'm as guilty as anybody for not having tried all of my stored items. But that's just the way it is. I would certainly encourage you, if you haven't, to pick out one and make sure it works. Now I'm going to go find the Ben-Gay, my arm hurts. Just kidding.

We'll talk more later, Frank.

100% Fresh Whole Wheat Bread

A miracle has occurred! Frank actually liked this bread. In the past, he lovingly named it Brick Bread, because it is heavier than typical homemade bread that has at least a portion of regular white flour. Hmmm.....I wonder what I can get him to eat next??

A while back, when I first posted about making bread, my friend Grace asked what the difference was in bread that had about 50% fresh ground whole wheat flour (which was what I was making then), compared to bread with 100% whole wheat flour. Well, I finally got around to making some 100% whole wheat bread. I haven't made this type of bread in a number of years because Frank has never really cared for it. It has a heartier flavor that some people just don't care for very much. And besides that, if I don't treat it right, it won't rise very much resulting in a very heavy bread, hence the name Brick Bread.

I didn't warn Frank I was making this type of bread beforehand. After I had worked the dough and formed the rolls and loaves, he eyed it on the stove as it was rising and said, "This bread looks pretty dark." "Yes, it is Brick Bread." I don't remember what he said or even if he spoke. It may have been more of just a grunt like - oh, that again.

The only difference in this bread and the bread I have made in the past is that I have set my wheat grinder to the pastry, or the finest setting instead of coarse, which is where I always had it before. It does make for a finer flour, even though it is not anywhere as fine as store bought. I think one of the main differences in the flavor is that my fresh ground flour still has all of the bran and germ still intact, with no chemical means of separating the parts of the wheat grain. I really like this robust flavor, but again, it is not for everyone. 

The bread on the left is the standard 50/50 white to whole wheat flour ratio and the bread on the right is the 100% whole wheat. The 50/50 is a little lighter in color as well as texture. 

If you have wheat stored and you plan on using it in the case of a long-term disaster or down turn I highly recommend you learn how to use it now. If you try to eat foods that your body is not accustomed to when times are difficult and stressful there is a good chance it will make you sick when you can least afford to be. Think through your stores very carefully and make sure you can process, cook and eat them without the usual conveniences we take for granted everyday.

Until next time - Fern 

Making Whole Wheat Bread

I love to make bread! It smells good. It tastes good. Wheat - the staff of life.

The recipe I use now is a variation of the one my mom used when she taught me to make bread when I was in high school many years ago. She still makes some at Christmas time. It brings back good memories.

I keep my favorite recipes on index cards in a little file box. I guess you can tell I have used this one for a while. It looks a little worse for the wear. I have listed the ingredients for a single batch that makes two nice loaves and a few rolls, as well as a double batch when I want more.

A friend asked me what the difference was in the flavor of bread that is made with 100% fresh ground whole wheat flour and my usual recipe of 50% fresh whole wheat and 50% unbleached white flour. I told her the 100% whole wheat is a much heavier bread. This time I am going to make the 50/50. Later on I will make the 100% whole wheat and show the difference.

First we grind the wheat. I use a Wonder Mix set on pastry or the finest setting. It has a whining jet engine kind of sound, so you have to be ready for some noise. 

I like to grind the wheat when I make bread. Fresh ground wheat flour has a higher nutrient content than the flour at the store. As soon as wheat is ground, it starts losing nutritional value and I think fresh ground tastes better.

I start off heating half of the milk with the shortening in it so it will melt. I used the microwave. I have also heated it in a pan on the stove many times.

While that is heating, I measure out the honey and pour it in the mixing bowl.

Then, using the little bit of honey that is left in the measuring cup, I add the warm water and the yeast. This lets the yeast soften and start to bubble up.

Next add the eggs, salt and whole wheat flour to the mixing bowl. After the yeast is bubbling up, add it into the bowl.

  
I buy the yeast at a warehouse market by the pound and keep it in the freezer. After I open it, I keep it in this small canister in the frig.

When everything is mixed well, add the white flour .

When it gets to this point, I turn it out onto the counter and start to knead. I used to knead it only until it was nice and smooth.

I found out from a friend recently that if you knead the bread for about 10 minutes it will be less crumbly - a complaint we had about my bread for years. It is so nice to learn new, useful things!

When you finish kneading, the dough should be just a little sticky, but not enough to come away on your finger when you poke it. Coat the mixing bowl with shortening, put the dough in, then turn it over to coat it with shortening.

Put it in a warm place or on top of the refrigerator covered with a warm, damp towel to rise.

It will take about an hour or two to double in size depending on the temperature in the room.



 

Isn't it beautiful? Silly question, huh? I like the smell of bread rising.

When it is ready, turn it out onto the cabinet and let it rest while you grease the pans.

We bought this cast iron pan thinking we would bake biscuits in it, but we prefer the cookie sheet method. However, it makes wonderful rolls when I make bread.

When I learned how to make loaves, I always rolled them out, like it shows in the Betty Crocker cookbook. Now I just kind of roll them up by hand and skip the rolling pin. They turn out just as well.

For this recipe I make two loaves and a few rolls. I really like cast iron and these pans cook the bread up nicely.

Yum! Can you smell it? Fresh, hot bread. What a treat!

The rolls bake for 15 minutes at 400 degrees.

The loaves bake at 350 degrees. When the bread is rising, the rolls are ready first. By the time the rolls finish baking, the loaves are usually ready to go.
The loaves need to bake for 40-45 minutes. After the first 20 minutes, I take them out and cover them with foil so they won't get too brown before the 40 minutes is up. I keep this foil and reuse it only for this purpose. I used to throw it away each time, but it seemed like such a waste.

There is not much that can beat the smell of baking or freshly baked bread. You will notice there are only three rolls now. The rest didn't survive the baking of the loaves.

It is a very satisfying skill - to be able to make bread for your family.

 
I save produce bags and twist ties. They work well for storing the bread.

There is nothing like fresh, hot bread with homemade butter. Add to that some deviled eggs and cheese, and you have a great lunch!

It is hard to describe the pleasure and satisfaction we get from producing our own food - or as much of it as we can. It is time consuming and hard work and a tremendous learning experience. But most of all, it is very gratifying. We are humbly grateful.

Until next time - Fern