November 6, 2023 - 4:12pm
Milling flours at home
Hey everybody.
Ive been looking online for how to's, so I can mill my own different kinds of french flours for different uses.
I would like to mill my own T65 flour but info is limited.
Can anyone recommend a book or provide some advice on how to mill the different types of French flours?
Any information would be appreciated.
Peter
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Milling T65 flour at home involves grinding high-quality wheat berries to a fine consistency. Make sure you have high-quality T65 wheat berries, which are specifically meant for making this type of flour. T65 flour, you want a fine consistency, so set the mill to a fine setting. I can't find any reference to shifting the T65 flour.
Cheers,
Gavin
Hey Gavin
Thanks for the reply.
Any idea where to get "high-quality T65 wheat berries" outside of France.
Or what that means when talking about the whole grain?
Cheers
Peter
A local farm near me Tuerong Farm has the closest to T65. Their web site says: "French Red Flour - Several of our red wheat varieties were developed in France for the milling market. We are currently milling a variety called Adagio, a modern cultivar with medium protein levels and rich flavour. The high extraction flour is supplied at 170-220 micron fineness (very fine) and milled to demand. It is fresh, full of flavour and nutrition, and a true expression of a single variety and the land in which it was grown."
I buy the red wheat berries and mill at home. Delicious. However, I live in Australia and the farm is about 20 minutes drive. They also ship.
😅France is closer!
I live in Victoria bc
Cheers
Hi Gavin, I also get berries from Tuerong. I've been looking lately for other types of grain and can't find dent corn or durum wheat in Oz - have you got any ideas?
Hi,
It's taken me years (trial and error) to discover he most reliable and viable grains for my home milling. We are restricted by border force restrictions that limit buying whole grains in Vic or NSW. I regularly buy red wheat berries from Teurong Farm and rye berries from Australian Wheat grass in NSW. Organic Rye Grain Seeds For Growing Sprouts And Baking Bread (australianwheatgrass.com.au). When I want some spelt I just go to our local "Health Food" shop.
Much appreciated
Hey Gavin
I wish I lived close to a farm that grew its own wheat.
I'm going to look for the variety you mentioned though. It sounds good.
I came across this post on TFL just in case you might get something out of it.
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/16879/home-tempering-and-bolting-wheat-get-high-extraction-flour
Cheers
Peter
Thanks Peter. This is something new to me and worth exploring. I have such good results from my current process, it may take a bit of a nudge to get me exploring; but I'm always up for something new and research.
Cheers,
Gavin
Hello
Gavin
From what I found out so far, T65 is actually a coarser flour and not a fine flour at all.
As typical European flour is graded by ash.
T65 means the flour is refined (sifted) to a level such that its ash measures between 0.62% to 0.75% on a dry matter basis.
Technically you could mill any wheat from any country to meet this stipulation. However T65 made from French wheat and T65 made from North American wheat would have very different properties and performance characteristics.
French wheat being between low and middling protein content will be soft / semi-hard and when milled will have a fine texture.
I don't think it's feasible to mill T65 flour at home. T65 is nearly white flour; extraction rate is probably around 75%, so you will lose 25% to start with when you sift.
And with a small stone mill, the bran layer tends to shatter, so you will still end up with more bran in your sifted flour than you should and it won't be white. You can certainly use the flour, but it won't be T65, quite apart from the problem Gavin mentions, of having the right wheat berries.
The best bet is probably to mill and sift with a #50 sieve. You will probably end up with something in between a T80 and a T110 (but nearer to T80).
Lance
Hi Lance
Thank you for sharing.
It would be helpful if you could share what you do know about achieving T65 flour even if its the commercial process or share where you got the info.
Best
Peter
Hey Lance
I found this fresh loaf post that talks about tempering the grain before milling.
Its a good read and though you might get something out of it if you mill your own flour.
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/16879/home-tempering-and-bolting-wheat-get-high-extraction-flour
Peter
Hey Lance
I found this fresh loaf post that talks about tempering the grain before milling.
Its a good read and though you might get something out of it if you mill your own flour.
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/16879/home-tempering-and-bolting-wheat-get-high-extraction-flour
Peter
Ah yes, tempering. I have tried it in the past, but I found it was a bit tricky - easy to add too much water and find your mill needs a strip-down because it is blocked with gooey grain. Also not too easy to ensure the water is evenly distributed amongst all the grains. And ideally you would want a grain moisture meter to know your initial grain moisture.
And it's just another process step I can do without...
Have at look at Bill Wraith's (bwraith) old posts - he did a lot of work on home milling.
Some people have tried multiple pass milling, getting ever finer, but then excessive starch damage becomes a problem.
So now I just keep it simple - single pass and use as is, as fresh as possible. Or sometimes I will sift for a lighter, taller loaf, playing the tune on fine kitchen sieve or #40 and #50 test sieves. And I seldom use 100% home milled flour - I prefer to blend with commercially produced flour to give good loaf volume.
Have fun and good luck!
Lance
Yes Lance
But you are talking about yourself, and I on the other hand am interested in learning about the process. I am happy if you aren't interested because you find it too difficult and not worth your time, but that is you and not me. I am interested for my own reasons and not interested in why I shouldn't do it.
Thank you for mentioning bwraith
I was trying to give you some helpful guidance based on my experiences and the experiences of others. As I previously said, good luck with your quest as I will no longer be replying to this thread.
Lance
Hello, I wanted to get into Milling my own flower and greens for bread making. And possibly pasta feasible but I've never done it before and I'm trying to read as much info as I can all over the place. One thing I have to do is buy myself a meal. Now I was thinking of one for the Hobart KitchenAid style mixer but before I purchase one I'm wondering if maybe that's not the best idea so I am wondering if anybody has any suggestions on what's the best meal to get without breaking the bank. Or if the metal KitchenAid / Hobart attachment is a really good meal and would handle anything I want to do then that's perfect because that's what I wanted to do anyway was just getting attachment so I don't have an extra piece of standalone equipment.
Fact that I don't notice autocorrect spelling errors until after I click Send kind of sucks because this site doesn't allow you to go back and edit things. Which is what I'm used to on every other place on the internet except here apparently. I hope people will recognize the odd word placement as the era it is and could figure out what it meant. Such as greens instead of grains, or Meal instead of mill.
You can edit your own comments and posts.
Unless it's different on a phone than a computer, your own posts have an edit link at the bottom right next to reply and report.
I had one. I've moved on to something better (a Komo Fidibus Classic). The KA mill does a good job at producing cracked grains and meals but it's finest setting only produces a rather coarse flour.
If you want to use a mill that attaches to your KA mixer, take a look at the Mockmill. It seems to get good reviews and costs less than most mills since you aren't buying a motor, too.
Paul