Hi, I am a bread novice in Hobart Tas, looking for somewhere to buy
wholewheat flour for breadmaking. Does anyone know of a retail outlet
or wholesaler who will sell small lots? Or a mail-order company. If
possible I would love to use organic wheat. Please email me if you have
any ideas, I'd appreciate it.
Deb

Tasmania? Is there a Coles. Safeway, Bi-LO,Sims superstores nearby
like in Mainland Australia?

Some bakeries that grind their own are willing it sell it by the pound. A Great Harvest near me does that. Kinda spendy, though.

Order a mill and buy grain in bulk?

On 15 Jul 2005 14:28:35 -0700, "Deborah" >
spewed forth :

>Hi, I am a bread novice in Hobart Tas, looking for somewhere to buy
>wholewheat flour for breadmaking. Does anyone know of a retail outlet
>or wholesaler who will sell small lots? Or a mail-order company. If
>possible I would love to use organic wheat. Please email me if you have
>any ideas, I'd appreciate it.
>Deb


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This practice has cut my spam by more than 95%.
Of course, I did have to abandon a perfectly good email account...

Wooly wrote:

>Order a mill and buy grain in bulk?
>
>

I hate to be honest, but the home mills I've seen produce a very poor
grade of flour from the baker's perspective. Check the recipes at the
web sites that cater to home bakers and sell grain mills for home use.
Virtually all the recipes I've seen use adjuncts to make the bread work
right. Vital wheat gluten, dough conditioner, cottage cheese, and eggs
among them. There's nothing wrong with these ingredients per se, except
that they are unneeded. If you have to add them to make the dough rise,
theres something wrong with your flour, your technique, or both.

Some people use home mills to crack grains to add to other doughs, and
thats very nice and easy to do. It's making flour that will work well
that's hard.

To do a good job of home milling, and make good flour, you need to have
a mill that grinds the grain, not a micronizer mill that shatters it
into microscopic components.

Then you need to sift out the heaviest bran and chaff. And then you get
a nice fresh whole wheat flour that will work well. You can sift it
further and get white flour.

The key advantage of this flour over the stuff you buy in the store is
that its fresh.

However, it won't be consistent. You don't have an army of purchasers
trying to get the best wheat for you. The big mills do. You don't have
a squad of food chemists analysing the wheat to determine how the
different wheats should be combined to give you a flour that handles
(reasonably) consistenly. The big mills do.

Some people say flour you grind is healthier than the stuff in the
stores. Well, the additional nutrients in the wheat are bound by phytic
acid, so they aren't available to you, which means that they aren't
actually more nutritious. You can unlock them through the use of
sourdough, however, these very high ash flours will produce a bread that
is more sour than many home bakers are really after.

At the end of the day, I'd rather not mess with it. There are enough
complications in my life already.

Mike

I've got a 10yo Grainmaster Whispermill. Until I was diagnosed as a
type-2 diabetic and had to drop 90% of carbs from my diet I baked 3x
weekly with output from the mill. The only "adjunct or additive" I
used was sourdough starter or, if I made yeasted bread, yeast,
molasses, salt and oil.

No sifting, no additives, no adjuncts. I turn out essentially the
same bread every bake, with slight variations due to humidity or lack
thereof. Baking is just as much art as it is science. "Variations"
are what keep it interesting. I'll posit to you that the sites you're
visiting that publish recipes calling for "conditioners" and gluten
flour also sell those things, and call for them by brand name in the
free recipes. Yes?

You seem to be looking at low-end (ie, inexpensive) mills, which do
mostly mash or crack the grains instead of producing flour. I owned a
Corona for about 30 seconds, long enough to realize it wasn't going to
be a good mill for me as a baker; my friend the home-brewer loves it.
The more expensive mills do in fact pulverize the grains, producing
quite nice flour - my GM puts out a finer flour when set 3 clicks from
"finest" than I've ever been able to find in a market.



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"Mike Avery" > wrote in message =
news:mailman.3.1121656109.12629.rec.food.sourdough @mail.otherwhen.com...

> I hate to be honest, but the home mills I've seen produce a very poor=20
> grade of flour from the baker's perspective. =20

I do very well with my ancient chromed VitaMixer. Witness:
http://www.prettycolors.com/bread%5F...BMWW7SEP04.jpg
which was made in a bread machine.

1 cup bread flour (All Trumps 50111)
2 cups hard red spring wheat, ground in VM after measuring
10 fl. oz. water, in which is dissolved at the right temperature
Enough dry yeast (try 1.5 rounded tsp. of the not-instant variety)
2 fl. oz. molasses (total fluid incl. molasses 65% of flour weight)
10 grams salt (~2 tsp. level)
Optional: zest of an orange
(Cycle #1, crust setting 1 of 3 in machine rated for a 1.5 LB loaf.)

I know what you mean about honesty -- you just don't get any respect.
Even worse -- contempt sometimes.

> [ ... ]

> At the end of the day, I'd rather not mess with it. There are enough=20
> complications in my life already.

Whole grain is nice because it stores indefinitely and is always "fresh" =

as soon as it is ground and can be bought cheap in big sacks. I think
that WW bread has got enough taste of its own so that WW SD does
not make sense. I have made the above formulation slightly complicated
with the molasses and the orange peel, but it works (rises) much better =
with
the molasses, and tastes pretty good with the slight molasses sweetness
and the very mild orange flavor.

In general, I feel that the best bread is that which is made in the =
simplest
way with the fewest ingredients. (Couldn't sell any books about that,
could I(?), nor bread to fancyassess!). Similarly, when it comes to=20
ingredients, the cheapest and most abundant are always the best. (So
don't recommend me for a job at kingarthurflours.)

Normally I would not be using a bread machine, but I found one at a
close-out for $17 and could not resist. There were serious problems=20
with the instruction book that came with it, which probably accounted
for the low price. We do have a KA45, but it is quite old.

--=20
Dick Adams
<firstname> dot <lastname> at bigfoot dot com
___________________
Sourdough FAQ guide at=20
http://www.nyx.net/~dgreenw/sourdoughfaqs.html

On Sunday, July 17, 2005, at 10:08 PM, Mike Avery wrote:

> I hate to be honest, but the home mills I've seen produce a very poor
> grade of flour from the baker's perspective.

I've been using an $85 dollar KA mill attachment for about 18 years,
baking bread no less than twice a week, often three times now that I
have teenagers. It certainly won't mill a super fine pastry flour, but
with long fermentations, the grain breaks down just fine. The mill
produces flour equivalent to KA whole wheat. Personally, I set it to
grind a bit coarser because I get a better quality dough. The feel
isn't glue-like.

> Check the recipes at the
> web sites that cater to home bakers and sell grain mills for home use.
> Virtually all the recipes I've seen use adjuncts to make the bread work
> right. Vital wheat gluten, dough conditioner, cottage cheese, and eggs
> among them. There's nothing wrong with these ingredients per se,
> except
> that they are unneeded. If you have to add them to make the dough
> rise,
> theres something wrong with your flour, your technique, or both.
>

Very true, but look at any cookbook, same thing. The adjunct issue
isn't a mill issue... it's a cultural one. Our contemporaries (out
there) think bread needs eggs, milk, honey, sugar and what-all.

Those bakers have their own news-group, it's called bread-bakers-list
or something.

> Some people use home mills to crack grains to add to other doughs, and
> thats very nice and easy to do. It's making flour that will work well
> that's hard.
>
> To do a good job of home milling, and make good flour, you need to have
> a mill that grinds the grain, not a micronizer mill that shatters it
> into microscopic components.
>

I've not used a micron-izer mill though I'm betting you are right. I
read, somewhere in Hamelman's book, that a miller had to replace his
micron-izer unit because his commercial customers did not like the
flour it produced. The subject was starch damage.

> Then you need to sift out the heaviest bran and chaff. And then you
> get
> a nice fresh whole wheat flour that will work well. You can sift it
> further and get white flour.

There are times when I have to urge to buy a lab shaker and a few
screens <g>.

My solution is longer ferments/retards. I also omit kneading, which is
another one of the myths we've inherited. Fully hydrated bran isn't
nearly as destructive as dry bran being whipped around a bowl for 6 or
7 minutes.

> The key advantage of this flour over the stuff you buy in the store is
> that its fresh.
>
> However, it won't be consistent. You don't have an army of purchasers
> trying to get the best wheat for you. The big mills do. You don't
> have
> a squad of food chemists analysing the wheat to determine how the
> different wheats should be combined to give you a flour that handles
> (reasonably) consistenly. The big mills do.
>

The blending to produce an ash number, protein number, falling number
is certainly interesting. But isn't this "big mills" reasoning similar
to the argument that filled the grocery shelves with cake and pancake
mixes after WWII? Are men in white coats with clipboards are necessary
to evaluate quality? (Forgive me, I just reread Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance.)

> Some people say flour you grind is healthier than the stuff in the
> stores. Well, the additional nutrients in the wheat are bound by
> phytic
> acid, so they aren't available to you, which means that they aren't
> actually more nutritious. You can unlock them through the use of
> sourdough, however, these very high ash flours will produce a bread
> that
> is more sour than many home bakers are really after.

I must be doing something wrong. I had to cadge some of that ACME going
around to get sour <g>. My buried dough ball levains are sweet.
Seriously... I suspect a lot of that "sourness" folks experience is due
to stale flour, heat damaged flour, rancid germ oils, etc...

> At the end of the day, I'd rather not mess with it. There are enough
> complications in my life already.

But not bread, right? Never bread.

Will

Wooly wrote:

>I've got a 10yo Grainmaster Whispermill.
>
I have a two year old whispermill. And had a year old nutrimill. And a
four year old KA attachment.

>No sifting, no additives, no adjuncts. I turn out essentially the
>same bread every bake, with slight variations due to humidity or lack
>thereof.
>

Or grain.

>Baking is just as much art as it is science. "Variations"
>are what keep it interesting.
>
If you are baking for yourself, or to give bread to friends, yes. If
you are trying to sell bread, then consistency is essential.

>I'll posit to you that the sites you're
>visiting that publish recipes calling for "conditioners" and gluten
>flour also sell those things, and call for them by brand name in the
>free recipes. Yes?
>
>
Some of the sites do, some don't. Some specify the brand of vital wheat
gluten, others tell you to just go to the store and buy some there.
Some sites specify the dough conditioner to use, others give you a
recipe so you can make your own. (Key ingredient - vitamin C, diluted
with milk powder so it is measureable. Less important ingredient - ginger)

>You seem to be looking at low-end (ie, inexpensive) mills, which do
>mostly mash or crack the grains instead of producing flour. I owned a
>Corona for about 30 seconds, long enough to realize it wasn't going to
>be a good mill for me as a baker; my friend the home-brewer loves it.
>
>
Nope. I don't think my mills are less expensive. One is the same as
the one you use and like.

>The more expensive mills do in fact pulverize the grains, producing
>quite nice flour - my GM puts out a finer flour when set 3 clicks from
>"finest" than I've ever been able to find in a market.
>
>
>
There is a difference between the texture of a flour and its
useability. In the end, it was all but impossible to get a consistently
good result.

Mike

On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 09:18:19 -0600, Mike Avery
> spewed forth :

<much snippage>

You asked for flour sources, I recommended a mill. You threw up
objections, I countered by relating my experience with my mill.

You needn't get huffy, and you needn't feel as if I was teaching you
to suck eggs since you never did mention that you have mills but are
tired of doing the work yourself. Had you done so at the outset you'd
have saved us both some time.

+++++++++++++

Reply to the list as I do not publish an email address to USENET.
This practice has cut my spam by more than 95%.
Of course, I did have to abandon a perfectly good email account...

Correction - you weren't the OP.

+++++++++++++

Reply to the list as I do not publish an email address to USENET.
This practice has cut my spam by more than 95%.
Of course, I did have to abandon a perfectly good email account...

Wooly totally missed several points and wrote:

>On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 09:18:19 -0600, Mike Avery
> spewed forth :
>
><much snippage>
>
>You asked for flour sources, I recommended a mill. You threw up
>objections, I countered by relating my experience with my mill.
>
>
As you later realized, I didn't ask for flour sources.

>You needn't get huffy, and you needn't feel as if I was teaching you
>to suck eggs since you never did mention that you have mills but are
>tired of doing the work yourself.
>
I didn't get huffy. I still haven't gotten huffy. Despite your
condescending BS attitude.

No, I didn't get tired of the work. I got tired of the inferior results
that were only salvagable by adding things to bread I'd rather not add
to bread.

And my comments were made so the OP would realize that grinding your own
wheat adds another layer of complexity to the bread making process, and
that the outcomes are not as wonderful as people who sell mills would
like you to believe.

I talked to a "Great Harvest" owner a while back. The two hardest
things in his life are staffing and grinding wheat. And they do it all
the time. They claim they grind all their own flour.

If its worth it to you, cool. I'm happy for you.

My experience was, inconsistent results, lower quality results over
all. I don't recommend it if your goal is better bread.

If your goal is mystical re-connection to the earth, a quest for better
nutrition, religous reawakening, other health issues, or whatever, then
it might be worth it.

Mike

Dick Adams wrote:

>"Mike Avery" > wrote in message news:mailman.3.1121656109.12629.rec.food.sourdough @mail.otherwhen.com...
>
>
>>I hate to be honest, but the home mills I've seen produce a very poor
>>grade of flour from the baker's perspective.
>>
>>
>
>I do very well with my ancient chromed VitaMixer. Witness:
>http://www.prettycolors.com/bread%5F...BMWW7SEP04.jpg
>which was made in a bread machine.
>
>1 cup bread flour (All Trumps 50111)
>2 cups hard red spring wheat, ground in VM after measuring
>10 fl. oz. water, in which is dissolved at the right temperature
>Enough dry yeast (try 1.5 rounded tsp. of the not-instant variety)
>2 fl. oz. molasses (total fluid incl. molasses 65% of flour weight)
>10 grams salt (~2 tsp. level)
>Optional: zest of an orange
>(Cycle #1, crust setting 1 of 3 in machine rated for a 1.5 LB loaf.)
>
>
>
I think the all trumps saved you - it's my favorite white flour. If you
had tried to make the bread with just home ground hard red spring wheat,
which is what most of the food faddists want to do, your results would
have been very different.

Having made more than my share of 100% whole wheat breads, the home
ground variety straight from the home mill is not as good.

>>At the end of the day, I'd rather not mess with it. There are enough
>>complications in my life already.
>>
>>
>
>Whole grain is nice because it stores indefinitely and is always "fresh"
>as soon as it is ground and can be bought cheap in big sacks. I think
>that WW bread has got enough taste of its own so that WW SD does
>not make sense. I have made the above formulation slightly complicated
>with the molasses and the orange peel, but it works (rises) much better with
>the molasses, and tastes pretty good with the slight molasses sweetness
>and the very mild orange flavor.
>
>
>
If you were trying 100% home ground, I think you'd find sourdough is worth the effort with the home ground. It helps. Not enough, but it helps.

Mike

On Monday, July 18, 2005, at 11:36 AM, Mike Avery wrote:

> If your goal is mystical re-connection to the earth, a quest for better
> nutrition, religous reawakening, other health issues, or whatever, then
> it might be worth it.

Come on, Mike...

How did you feel when you discovered that mechanical dough development
was bogus?

There must have been some element of re-connection. I mean after all,
thousands of pre-industrial, French bakers lived and died, working
every day with the knowledge you just discovered. They used coarse
flour from a donkey mill too. Want to bet there's another revelation to
come? <bg>

Will

Will wrote:

>On Monday, July 18, 2005, at 11:36 AM, Mike Avery wrote:
>
>
>
>>If your goal is mystical re-connection to the earth, a quest for better
>>nutrition, religous reawakening, other health issues, or whatever, then
>>it might be worth it.
>>
>>
>
>Come on, Mike...
>
>How did you feel when you discovered that mechanical dough development
>was bogus?
>
>
Well, it's not bogus, so thats not a good comparison. Kneading works,
and works well. And is reasonably optimal in a large production
environment. I don't feel betrayed because I've been kneading dough for
30 years. The breads I made were good. I enjoyed them.

>There must have been some element of re-connection. I mean after all,
>thousands of pre-industrial, French bakers lived and died, working
>every day with the knowledge you just discovered. They used coarse
>flour from a donkey mill too. Want to bet there's another revelation to
>come? <bg>
>
Since the middle ages - or before - flour has been sifted or bolted to
remove the extra bran that makes the bakers job difficult. In the
middle ages, the wealthy ate white bread that would please a wonderbread
fan.

When people have tried to use really whole grains, they have met with
mixed results, usually along the lines of, "thats nice, but I prefer
something lighter". Commercial whole wheat, like you get in the grocery
store, is about an 85% extraction flour. That is, 15% of the grain has
been extracted and sold as animal feed. Getting commercial whole wheat
to rise "well" is an interesting exercise that some people never manage.

I am quite convinced that if you don't do something with flour straight
from the mill, something like mix it with a high protein flour, use
wheat gluten, or sift it, you'll be getting less than wonderful bread.

I've made enough less than wonderful bread that that is no longer my goal.

I don't think I'll be getting a reconnection with milling my own flour
and using 100% extraction flour.

That said, I love dense ryes, rich whole wheats, and I really like to
crack grains to add accents to breads. I'm not a white bread fanatic.
I just don't think grinding wheat into flour and using that flour as
ones only flour is a good answer for most people.

Mike

"Mike Avery" > wrote in message =
news:mailman.12.1121706067.12629.rec.food.sourdoug ...=


> ... I think the (All Trumps bread flour) that saved you - it's my =
favorite=20
> white flour. If you had tried to make the bread with just home ground =

> hard red spring wheat, which is what most of the food faddists want to =

> do, your results would have been very different.

It is about 1/4 AT bread flour, since grain is denser than flour. The =
gritty
content of the grain remains, though the VitaMixer probably smashes it
to quite fine particles, relatively. The bread flour contains a dough
enhancer, which may be consequential, and diastic enzyme, which is
probably irrelevant due to the sugar in the molassas.. I have not
tried it with all WW. The bread machine kneads much more intensively
than do the usual methods.

It is possible that All Trumps 50111 I get on the east coast is not the=20
same as what you get, regards to the enhancer used.

Ref.:

Dick Adams wrote:

>
>It is possible that All Trumps 50111 I get on the east coast is not the
>same as what you get, regards to the enhancer used.
>
>
>
I haven't checked the bag for its number in a while. Mine is unbleached
and unbromated. I have been told that the unbromated version is not
available on the east coast. If yours is bromated, you also gained
benefit from the bromation.

However, the big gain was from the nice 14 to 15% protein flour.

Sorry... that link doesn't work for me.

Mike

"Mike Avery" > wrote in message =
news:mailman.15.1121711138.12629.rec.food.sourdoug ...=

> Dick Adams wrote:

> >It is possible that All Trumps 50111 I get on the east coast is not =
the=20
> >same as what you get, regards to the enhancer used.

> I haven't checked the bag for its number in a while. Mine is =
unbleached=20
> and unbromated. I have been told that the unbromated version is not=20
> available on the east coast. If yours is bromated, you also gained=20
> benefit from the bromation.

It is all he http://www.gmflour.com/gmflour/home.asp

Dick Adams wrote:

>
>It is all he http://www.gmflour.com/gmflour/home.asp
>
>
>
It's bromated. I prefer to avoid bromated flour, but it will help your
home ground flour considerably.

On the other hand, bromation shouldn't phaze anyone who puts carbon
tetrachloride in his flour tubs...

Mike

On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 10:36:18 -0600, Mike Avery
> spewed forth :

>>
>I didn't get huffy. I still haven't gotten huffy. Despite your
>condescending BS attitude.

Who's condescending? You slammed grinders as a whole, I defended the
one I've been using for years. 'Nuff said.

>
>No, I didn't get tired of the work. I got tired of the inferior results
>that were only salvagable by adding things to bread I'd rather not add
>to bread.

Sounds like a problem I've never had when baking with my own
homeground flour. A bit of food for the yeast, a bit of salt to keep
the beasties from overrunning the kitchen...

>
>And my comments were made so the OP would realize that grinding your own
>wheat adds another layer of complexity to the bread making process, and
>that the outcomes are not as wonderful as people who sell mills would
>like you to believe.

We're not all out for the perfect loaf, or consistent production for
the masses. I cook what I eat, I eat what I cook. Occasionally I
have a spectacular failure, but only occasionally. The last horrible
batch of bread I pulled from the oven was still edible as croutons, so
it wasn't a complete failure. The cake may fall, but we still eat it.
I draw the line at overcooked rice or broccoli...

I'm sorry that your experience with DIY flour has left you with a bad
taste in your mouth. Reporting your results and slamming home milling
as a whole isn't called for, IMO.

>
>My experience was, inconsistent results, lower quality results over
>all. I don't recommend it if your goal is better bread.

While it *has* been a decade, I recall my store-bought flour-based
bread to be lacking in both flavor and character and requiring all
sorts of "additives and adjuncts" to make it worth eating. Bread I
make with home-ground flour is, IMO, far superior to what I used to
turn out with store-bought flour and is light years better than
store-bought bread of any stripe.

>
>If your goal is mystical re-connection to the earth

Nope, I'd make tampon tea if I felt mystical. Fortunately that hasn't
yet happened and damned well better not until I'm well past The
Change, at which point it'll be impossible for me to make tampon tea
and therefore pointless to get mystical.

, a quest for better
>nutrition,

That, and better bread.

> religous reawakening

No thanks, I shucked that off when I moved out of my parents' house

Its also cheaper to grind your own in most instances. I buy Montana
hard white through the local food coop. A 50# bag costs me about $18,
delivered to my door and usually carried into the house by a nice
college boy who is working to maintain his or his girlfriend's share
in the coop. The same quantity of flour purchased at the market would
run me upwards of $100 these days, and I wouldn't like the results.
The grinder paid for itself sometime during its third year of use.

+++++++++++++

Reply to the list as I do not publish an email address to USENET.
This practice has cut my spam by more than 95%.
Of course, I did have to abandon a perfectly good email account...

"Mike Avery" > wrote in message =
news:mailman.17.1121718004.12629.rec.food.sourdoug ...=


> I prefer to avoid bromated flour, but it will help your=20
> home ground flour considerably.

Can you specify just why it should do that? (I suppose
everybody but me knows the answer to that.)

> On the other hand, bromation shouldn't phaze anyone=20
> who puts carbon tetrachloride in his flour tubs...

And who uses fluoride tooth paste...

(Well, I do not fumigate flour, but only grain which is to be
stored for months. I presume bleaching kills most everything
in bleached flour.)

--
Dicky

Dick Adams wrote:

>"Mike Avery" > wrote in message news:mailman.17.1121718004.12629.rec.food.sourdoug ...
>
>
>
>>I prefer to avoid bromated flour, but it will help your
>>home ground flour considerably.
>>
>>
Bromating the flour improves its handling characterstics. It's like
flour on steroids. I used to know why, but I've slept since then. It
would also help pull together the less managable flours.

AFAIK, the USA is the only country that allows bromated flour to be
sold. While the baked bread is safe, the chemicals are not safe for
bakers, leading to a higher level of various cancers, if memory serves.

Mike

"Wooly" > wrote in message
news
> On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 10:36:18 -0600, Mike Avery
> > spewed forth :
>
> Its also cheaper to grind your own in most instances. I buy Montana
> hard white through the local food coop. A 50# bag costs me about $18,
> delivered to my door and usually carried into the house by a nice
> college boy who is working to maintain his or his girlfriend's share
> in the coop. The same quantity of flour purchased at the market would
> run me upwards of $100 these days, and I wouldn't like the results.
> The grinder paid for itself sometime during its third year of use.
>

You must be living in a particularly deprived area. I pay about $8 for a
44lb (20kg) sack of good bread flour!

Graham

"Mike Avery" > wrote in message =
news:mailman.0.1121730341.34082.rec.food.sourdough @mail.otherwhen.com...
> >"Mike Avery" > wrote in message =
news:mailman.17.1121718004.12629.rec.food.sourdoug ...=

> >>I prefer to avoid bromated flour, but it will help your=20
> >>home ground flour considerably.
> Bromating the flour improves its handling characterstics. It's like=20
> flour on steroids. I used to know why, but I've slept since then. It =

> would also help pull together the less managable flours.

Well, then, I tried the (non-sourdough) mostly whole-wheat, bread-
machine bread, mentioned in

http://www.prettycolors.com/bread_cu...BMWW7SEP04.jpg
with supermarket-brand all-purpose flour instead of All Trumps.
Results were quite good, not totally as good as what was shown,
but within the expected spread, say 90% as good. (Next time might
easily be 110% as good -- it is a statistical thing, I believe.)

After a couple of repeats with AP flour, I will do it with all WW flour.
The reason I did not do it originally was that my chrome VitaMixer
does better on two cups of grain than on three. So I'll need to do
two grinds for the all WW. The grinds are quite hard on the ears.

The AP flour used contained vitamins and barley malt, no enhancer.

My present thought is that the VitaMixer really whacks the hell out of
the grain so that everything is reduced to fine dust. That, and the
extremely energetic knead given by the bread machine, along with
the sugars in the molassas, give the dough the noted advantage for
rising.

Mike Avery > wrote in
news:mailman.3.1121656109.12629.rec.food.sourdough @mail.otherwhen.com:

> Wooly wrote:
>
>>Order a mill and buy grain in bulk?
>>
>>
>
> I hate to be honest, but the home mills I've seen produce a very poor
> grade of flour from the baker's perspective.

Why not invest in a nuclear-powered blender like VitaMix. The retail price
of the VitaMix 5000, including a grain container, is about $450. They spin
at 3 times the typical blender speed, and generate so much heat in the
process that you can mix some water, broccoli, and chicken bullion and turn
out a steaming bowl of soup in 7 minutes.

The grain container has built-in blades, and it is internally shaped
differently from the standard container. It is meant to convert grain into
fine flour fairly quickly. And the base assembly contains a variable speed
control.

With VitaMix, you not only get a fabulous blender that is guaranteed for 5
years, but you also get the ability to mill grain. In fact, you can knead
make single-loaf dough in it and plop it out into your hand, ready for
rising.

You could make a worse investment.

"Dick Adams" > wrote in
:

>
> "Mike Avery" > wrote in message
> news:mailman.3.1121656109.12629.rec.food.sourdough @mail.otherwhen.com..
> .
>
>> I hate to be honest, but the home mills I've seen produce a very poor
>> grade of flour from the baker's perspective.
>
> I do very well with my ancient chromed VitaMixer. Witness:
> http://www.prettycolors.com/bread%5F...BMWW7SEP04.jpg
> which was made in a bread machine.
>
> 1 cup bread flour (All Trumps 50111)
> 2 cups hard red spring wheat, ground in VM after measuring
> 10 fl. oz. water, in which is dissolved at the right temperature
> Enough dry yeast (try 1.5 rounded tsp. of the not-instant variety)
> 2 fl. oz. molasses (total fluid incl. molasses 65% of flour weight)
> 10 grams salt (~2 tsp. level)
> Optional: zest of an orange
> (Cycle #1, crust setting 1 of 3 in machine rated for a 1.5 LB loaf.)
>

Dicky:

For how long do you process the grain in order to convert it to flour?

Have you tried to make bread without using any bread flour at all - only
using flour you milled yourself?

>Bromating the flour improves its handling characterstics. It's like
>flour on steroids. I used to know why, but I've slept since then. It
>would also help pull together the less managable flours.
AFAIK, the USA is the only country that allows bromated flour to be
sold. While the baked bread is safe, the chemicals are not safe for
bakers, leading to a higher level of various cancers, if memory serves.



Dunno mike..... but there is is not enough evidence to prove the such
infinitesimal amount of potassium bromate could led to cancer in
humans; even from the results extensive animal feeding studies done
for several years. They could not induce cancer or any kind of tumor
to be formed by if they are using the normal to even maximum suggested
level in the baking industry.
It is only when they use (extremely high dosage that even by
imagination cannot be used in flour )would such malignant effect
could occur.
I think any kind of food grade chemical can behave the same if used in
extremely high levels but that defies common sense and forgetting the
tenets of good manufacturing practice..
Besides there was no evidence that proves that potassium bromate will
accumulate in the animal body, unlike organochlorine pesticides like
DDT, heavy metals like mercury ,cadmium lead etc.
Potassium bromate is converted to harmless potassium bromide in the
flour and ( due to its solubility) is just excreted in the urine..
Although extremely sensitive analytical instruments can detect parts
per billion but that is still excreted from the body and never
accumulated.
The fear of potassium bromate use is more related to politics clever
media manipulation by parties/businesses with vested interests on
alternative but expensive dough conditioners. in order to gain a
better market share. They know that
Unless potassium bromate is not removed from the market they will have
difficulty competing with it ,.ITS DIRT CHEAP , EXTREMELY EFFECTIVE
and UNPARELLED DOUGH PERFORMANCE in weight for weight basis as a
bread enhancer.
In my observation most individuals who opposed its use, they are less
informed or knowledgeable about its interaction and related chemistry
of bromate in the dough human physiology.
The few knowledgeable ones who happen to be anti- bromate side was just
being swayed, or 'paid for ' being used by those kinds of people.
Roy

"Gonorio Dineri" > wrote in message =
.. .

> For how long do you process the grain in order to convert it to flour?

2 min.=20

> Have you tried to make bread without using any bread flour at all - =
only=20
> using flour you milled yourself?

Not yet. First I will repeat a few times using AP flour (no bromate). =
Then
to all WW. All that will take a month or two, since we are eating the
bread by ourselves. The present proportion of white flour is ~ 1/4.

It would be extremely interesting if the answer to good rising WW bread
should turn out to be a speck of bromate. I am not holding my breath,
however.

--
Dicky

Deborah wrote:
> Hi, I am a bread novice in Hobart Tas, looking for somewhere to buy
> wholewheat flour for breadmaking. Does anyone know of a retail outlet
> or wholesaler who will sell small lots? Or a mail-order company. If
> possible I would love to use organic wheat. Please email me if you have
> any ideas, I'd appreciate it.
> Deb
>

You may want to try Bio-Distributors in Sheffield, Tasmania.

http://www.biodistributors.com.au/index.htm

Wholemeal Flour - Stoneground - Kialla 5 kg $8.70

A few years back, I lived in NZ for a year, in the Nelson
area on South Island, and I tried to recreate the whole
wheat loaf there that I'm accustomed to baking here in the
U.S. where I use hard red spring wheat from the Great
Plains. NZ doesn't seem to import wheat from North America,
and I had a hard time finding good whole wheat bread flour
there. After much calling around, I was able eventually to
locate two good flours that I combined into a loaf that was
quite different from my American whole wheat loaf but very
tasty and nutritious nevertheless.

One kind of flour that went into it was Kialla flour, an
organic, stoneground, wholemeal plain flour milled from
white hard wheat grown in Queensland. Its taste is quite
different from that of American hard red spring wheat flour
but it has a high protein content, handles well and produces
well-rising loaves and is of good quality nutritionally -
altogether an excellent flour.

The other kind of flour that went into it was Zentrofan
flour, an Australian soft wheat flour that was stone-milled
in NZ in an innovative German centrifuge mill (Zentrofan)
which generates little heat and minimizes the degradation of
nutrients during milling.

I'm not sure you would find Zentrofan flour in Tasmania
under that name but the Kialla flour you ought to be able to
find. If all else fails you could contact the mill and ask
them for local suppliers of Kialla flour in Hobart.

Graham McNally and John Egan
Kialla Pure Foods, Pty Ltd.
Greenmount, Queensland
Ph: 07 4697 0300 Fax: 07 4697 1261
email:

Good luck!

Robert

Deborah wrote:
> Hi, I am a bread novice in Hobart Tas, looking for somewhere to buy
> wholewheat flour for breadmaking. Does anyone know of a retail outlet
> or wholesaler who will sell small lots? Or a mail-order company. If
> possible I would love to use organic wheat. Please email me if you have
> any ideas, I'd appreciate it.
> Deb
>
Hi DEB from an Ex launcestonian over in Wheat belt WA
Give Monds & Affleck a call up in Launy
Or Try the the guys that sell home made breads
at the Salamanca markets they would have some clues surely
Chap at Longford Bakery hada stone mill out the back in 80;s
used to grind all sorts of stuff for us .
HTH
If that wont work get back to me by above email
and I will obtain some stuff from the Benedictine monks bakery about 3
hours down the road at New Norcia and get it over to you
Your only 5800 Km away