April 19, 2012 - 11:58am
Brown rice flour...?
Hi again.
So, since it looks like I need some rice flour to rub into and dust over my "couche material", I'm wondering if I can just mill some brown rice I have in the cupboard? Or should I either buy some white rice and mill that, or buy milled rice flour outright? I have a Nutrimill that I'm sure would be up to handling the job.
Thanks in advance,
Stephan
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I mill brown rice regularly. I put the motor on high and the hopper feed on slightly wide.
It looks VERY white when its done!
Just go buy a pound of rice flour.
A few points to consider:
1. whatever you choose, the particle size needs to be appropriate for the material since the effect you seek is to keep the cloth fibers from sticking to your dough. This requires that the rice flour coat the cloth fiber rather than just sit in a hole between the fibers.
2. brown rice when milled will produce rice bran particles (which are brown) and you may or may not care whether you have some of them transferring to your bread dough.
3. rice is hard, much harder than wheat, and abrasive, so before you mill rice with your Nutrimill check the manual and ascertain whether your warranty will still be good after you get done.
4. buying a pound or two of rice flour (assuming it is readily available in your area) will keep your cloche protected for a long time, and the size control in a purchased bag will be much better than you can achieve with your Nutrimill even if you have an appropriately sized set of screens to grade your output (you might have to mill a few pounds of rice to get a pound of uniformly small particles).
If you can't easily buy rice flour, then try milling a little white rice and see if it meets your expectations. It may turn out that you want to order out anyway.
Just checked the Nutrimill booklet - brown rice is fine for milling. Not sure what 'particles' to be concerned about, my finished product is about as smooth and fine as pastry flour.
When I bought my first brotform I had some brown rice flour so I used it after using the AP to dust it. So far it has worked just fine (except for the time it stayed, forgotten, in the freezer.
> Rice is *softer* than hard wheat, not harder. Even brown rice (which includes the bran and germ) is *softer* than wheat.
> the manual for my Nutrimill specifically says that rice can be milled with a Nutrimill with *no problems*
Brown rice, besides including the bran, includes the germ. Refined white rice excludes the germ (and the bran). The problem is that home milled brown rice flour can, over time, become rancid (due to the oils in the germ). A baker who simply wants to mill rice into flour to dust a couche or a banneton is therefore better off using a refined white rice.
I mill rice flour from cheap, refined white rice with my Nutrimill. The resulting rice flour is a tiny bit more gritty than store-bought rice flour but does work well for flouring bannetons and couches.
I see you are a production baker (took a look at your site). If white rice is cheaper in your area than rice flour, it may serve to keep a bag of white rice on hand for your baking needs.
Short grain or medium grain refined white rice would probably produce a slightly finer rice flour than long grain rice. However, in my area, long grain rice is more available (and cheaper) so that's what I used.
I find brown rice to be more expensive than white, so I don't think it would be cost effective to use brown rice to mill rice flour for dusting bannetons and couches on a regular basis.
Thanks, everybody. I thought our small grocery store here in town might not have rice flour, but lo and behold, there it was: Bob's Mill Rice Flour. Used it today and worked like a charm...:)
Stephan