Bread and an Experiment!

So I decided that this weekend I would give my new mill a whirl! In my decision to use it I decided that bread would be a good idea. My grandmother has a recipe that is rather infamous in our family. No I won't share it as it is a family secret but I will tell you how it turned out! DELICIOUS!!

I was rather nervous to use my mill, as it is so old I wasn't sure if it would still run well, or even if it would be as air-tight as they are supposed to be. The family I got it from had a son that was teasing me when I picked it up about opening the lid when the grain is going. I guess we know who usually made the messes in that family!

I pulled our my hard wheat, as that is supposed to be the most like all-purpose flour. I had it wrong in my last post. The three buckets are spelt, hard white wheat, and soft white wheat. The soft white wheat is supposed to be your super fine pastry flour. I don't really use pastry flour much so I will have to think on recipes for that, but for now the all purpose flour will do. 

The grain mill has a ratio of one cup wheat berries to one and a half cups flour. Never having made my grandmothers recipe (and not checking it, what was I thinking?!) I just decided to make about 5 cups of flour.

You are supposed to turn on the mill before you pour the grain in, and leave the lid off. I would assume so that air can be sucked down into the mill along with the berries. There is a dial on the side that adjusts how fine the resulting flour is. Some people prefer a little rougher flour for more texture. Again never having made this I decided to err on the side of caution (and my brother has a massive dislike for any kind of textured bread.) 

This was the result with the dial as far over as it would go for the finest grind. I think it looks closer to whole wheat flour but I like either kind so I am not worried.

After milling it I set about to make my bread, and boy does this recipe call for a lot of flour. 12 cups!!! Though it makes 4 good sized loaves so I can't complain that much. The time it takes for this bread is a little ridiculous. It calls for two risings of an hour apiece, then you divide it into the loaf pans and let it rise for one and a half to two hours more. But it was soooo worth it!! We devoured the first loaf before they had even cooled down! We had the rest of another loaf on Monday night as grilled cheese with homemade tomato soup. Boy was that ever good, no more canned stuff for us EVER.

Yeah I think we will be doing this many more times. Hope you all are staying warm with our crazy weather!