September 1, 2021 - 12:55pm
Good baseline blend of berries for WW?
Officially out of WW flour (save some Turkey Red) and plan to mill my flour from here on out. Our local coop offers a "hard red wheat" which doesn't indicate whether it's spring or winter, though by the nutrition label (I know), it's coming out at 15% protein so I presume it's spring. I have a contact in to the supplier, Meadowlark Organics, to see the specs. They also offer soft white winter, and a proprietary "high protein wheat berry blend" of spring and winter red at 12.5%.
I'd prefer to get into my own blends, but am brand new. Anyone have a suggestion for a good baseline blend of berries, for general, rustic breads (both French and German - more as a component only in the latter)?
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I just use hard white mostly, sometimes winter white, other times it is called spring white, though I have not noticed a difference. Red has more of a grassy earthy flavor, and some may like that, or you may try a 35 red 65 white - that gives a little earthy, but not too much. I use soft white for pancakes, waffles, banana bread, and a mix of soft white and hard white for pasta. I have never tried any of the more specialized - like Red Fife, Einkorn, Turkey Red . I tried Kamut once, but could not justify the price over plain white. Since you have a mill, you can always sprout hard wheat and then dehydrate and grind it to get sprouted flour.
OK, that's good to know, thanks Barry. My local only carries soft in white, but I'll do some digging. I could be wrong, but I seem to recall Rubaud using 50:50 hard red spring and winter, which is what must have guided my mind there.
BTW - the milling thread - perfect. Thanks Barry, you were a ton of help.
As you mill more of your own, there are many good wheat berries available that give very different flavors. Yecora Rojo, Rouge de Bordeaux and Triticale are very flavorful. Adding some rye into the mix is really nice too. You can get them online once you are ready to start experimenting. Breadtopia has a good selection.
I have been wanting to get some triticale but haven't been able to source it. Where do you often get it?
Thanks in advance!
Mary
I get it here: https://www.moonfamilyfarm.com/shop
Their other wheat berries, Hollis and Sequoia, are good too. They are super people and great to deal with.
My personal preferences vary over time. Lately it's been roughly 70% hard white spring, 20% hard red winter (using up an older stash) and 10% whatever (spelt most often, sometimes a bit of rye or sorghum mixed in for fun).
Mary
I'll echo the others, although I suggest buying smaller quantities until you decide what you like.
Basic repertory would include Hard Red Winter and/or Spring, Hard White, an Soft White.
Soft White, so far for me, has been limited to biscuits, pancakes, waffles. I bought 50# and want to find a use for it.
My main "go-to" has been Hard Red Winter. It has a rich, earthy flavor that conjures visions of being in a farmhouse, baking with a woodstove.
Hard White will probably go for sourdough, and stuff like breadsticks to accompany pasta.
And speaking of pasta, you can stock durum for making pasta, once you figure out how to deal with the bran.
I recommend Wheat Montana as a vendor. Their products are guaranteed non-GMO and chemical-free, which is important to me. My local Amish store sells 50# sacks for $20 to $35, depending on variety.
For "ancient grains," so far it's Danko rye berries and Einkorn.
For mills, IMO it's absolutely the GrainMaker. It grinds everything except rocks.
That's a lot of great stuff to go on guys, thank you. Until I can match up my palate with the specific contributions of the hard wheats, I think, I'll begin by sourcing the red winter and spring, and white hard wheat. And go from there. Thanks for all the info, a great deal of help.
Perhaps I should weigh in here since I bake the same 60% whole-milled miche week in and week out for a household with very demanding and uncompromising palettes. Since I resumed baking bread several years back, we've settled on a consistent proportion of 40% hard red (winter or spring - no preference) + 20% hard white + 40% AP for the weekly bake. All organic and usually Central Milling, fwiw. More hard red starts to get bitter, more hard white starts to get bland, and any less AP becomes too white-bready for our unforgiving consciences. I dabbled in ancient grains when I started milling and fairly soon came to appreciate why world cuisines mostly settled on Triticum aestivum for leavened baked goods: Its gluten serves an irreplaceable function and T. aestivum just tastes good. That said, I have been known to fold in porridge and substitute 5 of the 40% hard red with durum, barley, rye, einkorn or spelt on rare occasions.
My $.02 and YMMV.
Tom
Excellent post, thanks, Tom. I also get my stuff almost entirely from Central Milling, though a bit of a bummer that 50# bag shipping has gone so sky high. I still buy in 25's when available or multiple 5#'s.
Your 2:1 for hard red:hard white sounds really appealing and I appreciate your comments as to why. It's in this realm I would like to at least start out exploring. I really love just about everything from the late master Rubaud, whose breakdown is:
70% BF, 9% Winter hard red, 9% spring hard red, 9% spelt, and 3% rye. He loves 2:1 WW: rye. I love the blend - though I've only used some unknown blend (e.g., KA) for the whole wheat portion, thus so far I don't know the natures of the winter and spring hard wheats (nor winter white, while at it). He eventually changed to only 13% whole grain because his customers were finding his much-cherished pain au levain above "too rustic."
I love his bread as is, the old-school way he loved to do. So there's some interesting things to do in there, I think, with the WW portion of the blend. Your comments about miche are on target, I think. No better way to know the wheats. Great idea, thanks.
Much appreciated!
I've maintained my starter on a Gerard Rubaud-based ration for most of its life, thanks to Farine's delightful bloggings about her encounters with the late Green Mountain baker. My "hi-fiber Rubaud" starter feed is 30% hard red, 7% spelt, 3% rye and 60% AP. The bugs as well as the doughs raised therewith seem to like it.
Tom
That's awesome! I don't know about you but eventually I find the starter is rocking so hard I have to refresh every 5 hours or so - You probably know he dealt with it and put the maintenance ahead of his need for sleep (!). What's your maintenance scheduling, refreshment intervals?
Marie-Claire/Farine is an absolute goddess. I'm so grateful to whoever recommended her to me. I've learned so much.
In the field of home flour milling, you'll get sieves along with your mill and a bunch of containers to hold grain and flour. I haven't settled on a standard ratio of grain types and so always have wheat, spelt, and rye on hand. In addition, lately I'm sure to have some durum wheat and some barley. Each batch of dough is built from different combinations.
You mention Rubaud. His leaven for pain de campagne was 6:3:1 wheat:spelt:rye, according to a post on farine-mc.com. I've used that for bread, not just the leaven and liked the result. Plus, you can switch the components around so that rye is in six parts and the other two grains take the smaller portions. My breads are mostly whole grain, though from time to time I make a bread with some high fraction of all purpose flour.
Currently, I'm also getting into white wheat. Always before it's been red, and mostly winter red. However, before the late 19th century, here in colonized North America, people made bread with white wheat, and probably soft white at that. I'm wanting to learn more about what that was like.
Tony, like Wlaut, I bought a 50 lb bag of soft white, so lately I have tried adding up to 30% soft white wheat to hard white or red a few times. I haven't done any formal testing , really just trying to put a dent into my stash since 50 pounds of soft white will make tons of pancakes and waffles, but so far, I haven't noticed anything negative. One thing I do notice is that on the rare occasions I use 100% red ( central milling ) , it feels much stronger and takes more water than 100% hard white, regardless of whether the white is marketed as winter white ( central milling ) or spring white ( prairie gold ).
Thanks. A lot of interesting things I didn't know, in particular the historical usage.
Don't know if you saw it M. Rubaud split his WW portion into a 50:50 hard red spring: hard red winter ratio, so 9% each of hard red winter and spring, and spelt. So far the only red I have is spring and it's crazily high in protein, so definitely blending this in with a winter red or white. I have so much respect for Rubaud and love the bread that comes from his levain, but man, by the book, I get no sleep. 3 days in, I was already getting an easy tripling within 5 hours. Worked it a couple more days to refine the level of acidity and the quality of that acidity...and reluctantly put it in the fridge. Given how little it takes to get the working levain, I might work a fresh one up when doing a run of French rustic sourdoughs, but for now very happy to have just one starter, a liquid rye.
Our coop carries the hard red spring wheat, red "pastry" wheat (9% protein), rye, spelt, khorasan, einkorn, emmer, buckwheat and a bunch of other berries. I feel pretty lucky.
Just recalled I have a healthy amount of the turkey red flour, in addition to the spring wheat berries, and wasn't aware if it's a spring or winter hard red wheat. Not ideal as the TR has been there a couple of months, and one would think not to use an "heirloom" flour in a blend like this, but need to use it up. At 10.9% with the winter TR, nice with the 15% spring wheat, it seems to me.
(Another topic, but I consider that I have a decent palate, from a lifetime in French cooking. Granted it's only one, but a miche I made with the TR, well....I didn't detect a lot of differences. Anyone have particular experiences with the TR they'd like to share?)