Fresh Milled Flour

EZEKIEL 4:9 Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof…

You may remember this post from December where I received my new grain mill. Well, I had just recently been to the commissary, where I’d stocked up on 3 months worth of groceries, which included about 100 pounds of flour. As such, I had to work through my existing stock of flour before I started playing with this new gadget.

Thanks to a couple of toddlers I know, I worked through the flour pretty rapidly…

(well, them and the fact that I’ve been making pasta, bread, and desserts for 50+ people for the last three Wednesday nights.)

Today, I pulled out the grain mill

opened the containers of wheat berries,

and read the book that will tell me all that I need to know.

You may be asking, “Why? Surely you have enough to do without grinding your own wheat.” Well, in answer to that, I’ll tell you that I grind my own coffee beans, too, because fresh ground coffee is superior tasting compared to store-bought ground coffee. Much the same way, fresh milled wheat is superior to store-bought milled wheat. With God’s perfect creation, the whole-wheat berry will keep indefinitely without losing any of its nutritional value as long as it is kept in a relatively airtight environment. Wheat has been discovered in the Pharaoh’s tombs and when it was sprouted or ground, it still contained all of its 26 essential vitamins and minerals even after thousands of years. It contains iron for the blood, potassium and Vitamin E for the heart, vitamin B for the nervous system, etc. However, within 24 hours after it is ground, it loses 45 % of all its nutrients, and within 72 hours, it loses 80-90 per cent of its nutrients.

We have hard red wheat berries,hard white wheat berries, and soft white wheat berries.

Reading my book, I learned that hard red wheat is used for bread making and has a nutty, wheat flavor. Hard white wheat is also used for bread making, but is sweeter and lighter. Soft white wheat berries are used for pastries or any time you need a delicate, flaky flour.

So, after reading up on it, I decided to mix the two hard wheat berries equally to make my Honey Oatmeal Bread. I first loaded the grain mill with 2 cups of hard red wheat berries, then with 2 cups of hard white wheat berries. Together, they made 6 cups of fresh milled flour.

Over the last year and some months of reading homemaking blogs, I’ve read all sorts of pros and cons about soaking grain. I still don’t know that I understand it all, so I’ve decided that I’ll soak my grains for bread and not worry about it for desserts. That ought to be just indecisive enough to cover all of my bases.

After soaking the mixed wheat for the bread for 30 minutes, I loaded it into my stand mixer and added the ingredients for my Honey Oatmeal Bread. It rose beautifully, baked perfectly, and I’m happy to say that my first batch of bread made from home milled wheat was a resounding success.

While the bread rose and then rose again, I made a batch of Oatmeal Cinnamon Raisin Cookies and Chocolate Brownies out of fresh milled soft white berries. These two were hugely successful.