Walton Feed's Golden 86 Wheat
Thought you may like to read this site. http://waltonfeed.com/rahn/whitewht.html They are sold in the stores here and they can ship to anywhere in the U.S.
If you have never ground your own wheat or corn you are in for a supprise. It is so much richer.
If you are a cornbread fan get some shelled dent (field corn) and clean it by hand. It will be full of cob and even soy seed and weed seed. Then spread it on a sided cookie sheet at 350 and roast it until it smells wonderful. Cool it to dead cold and do not rush this, you don't want hot meal that will then be packaged and go bad on you.
Put a handfull of this into your favorite bread type recipe. It just brings it up a notch. Put it into cornbread with some soft spring hand ground flour and you will jump out of your chair.
If a hickup in grocery supplies happens your grocery store will be shut down within days. If you have your own beans, wheat, corn, rice etc. for food and echinacia and mullien for colds you have nothing to worry about.
This is an awesome link that you've mentioned here. Thanks.
Cliff. Johnston
"May the best you've ever seen,
Be the worst you'll ever see;"
from A Scots Toast by Allan Ramsay
Noche,
What grinder do you use? Tell us a little bit about it.
Drifty Baker
Walton's sure does have some attractive products; however, the shipping is a killer. For example:
50# Hard White Wheat costs $9.95
Shipping to Texas costs $31...WOW! This sure took the wind out of my sails quickly.
Now if I could only find something closer...
Cliff. Johnston
"May the best you've ever seen,
Be the worst you'll ever see;"
from A Scots Toast by Allan Ramsay
Have you checked out rocky mountain milling?
www.rockymountainmilling.com
Their product line is somewhat more limited than some (wheat flours only, for example), but you should not have any trouble finding a good bread flour from them. I have not ordered from them, but I recall that shipping from CO to WI was quoted to me at less than $20 for a 50# bag, so you should be able to do even better than that.
I learned about it from Artisan Baking Across America--it was used by at least one of the bakeries profiled.
And if you find that you really like using it, you can buy it by the rail car!
Someone spared no cost to build the RMM facility. I like the rock and metal picker and the separator for wild oats (they get in all our fields here in Idaho) and weed seeds.
What they fail to mention is that the metal bins sweat in the winter and soy and other grains stick to the sides and then they fill it with corn or wheat and the soy sluffs off and you get not only soy or some other grain in everything else, you sometimes get moldy black crap into your milling process.
The plant is featured in Artisan Baking Across America. As I recall, it was designed by a couple who were professors of cereal sciences, milling, or some other such thing at Kansas State (apologies to any 'cats out there if it was Kansas, not K State--I know you all are touchy about such things). So it would not be a surprise if it was state of the art at the time it was built.
After looking and reading about grinders I bought the Country Living hand grinder from Walton. I am near 70 and for the few loaves I make a week it is fine.
I was not disappointed with the results I receive from grinding my own flour, but the learning curve for which wheat was steep. I finally grind like this - hard red winter rough ground wheat 1/2 cup per loaf; soft white fine grind 1 1/2 cups per loaf; roasted and fine ground dent (field) corn one handful per two loaves; flax seed and a hand full of potato flakes. I pour my boiling water in and let the hand ground cook a bit. My loaves are crunchy.
I still have a new Golden hard white spring out in the car to unload and start grinding today so it can sit overnight and be ready for baking tomorrow. I found it at my local store but called Walton to make sure it was the Golden they talked about in my post. My son in law and daughter are coming this weekend and they are BIG bread eaters and love the new sourdough Carl starter like you can't believe.
My neighbor air sprayed my grass and alfalfa seed on nine acres last spring and I just dropped off a huge sourdough loaf to him last night. He was tickeled pink to get it. The grocery clerk asked how I bake when she checked me out with the Walton grain sack and Im giving her a start from Carl. This bread thing really make you well known.
Co-op or buyer groups in San Antonio and Del Rio already ship this wheat into Texas.
Call and ask for Gay at Walton Feed - Idaho - and she can tell you the closest place you can get it, no matter what state you live in. Or, get a buying group together. If you can get one baker into your group, you have it made.
1-800-847 0465
in Friendship, TX, has ordered some hard white wheat and rye grains for me. I had to buy 50# of each, but the price was still less than having grain shipped in from Walton's. It's certified organic too. I didn't ask who grew it, but I'm sure that it will work out just fine. On top of that they are only about a 30 minute drive from where I live.
When I run out of this batch of grain I'll call Walton's and see if there is someone close who handles their product. Thanks for the suggestions. By the way, Walton's was a wee bit slow responding to my email. In fact, they never did so I called them.
Cliff. Johnston
"May the best you've ever seen,
Be the worst you'll ever see;"
from A Scots Toast by Allan Ramsay
Thanks, but no luck here in the Houston area. Gay said that the closest was San Antonio - too far to drive and double shipping won't work either...I'll keep you posted on how I make out with the grain from Nature's Garden.
Cliff. Johnston
"May the best you've ever seen,
Be the worst you'll ever see;"
from A Scots Toast by Allan Ramsay
I called.
Have ground some of the Golden 86 and will try and bake with it tomorrow and will post as to what I find. I will take the hard red winter out and put the hard white spring Golden 86 in and keep everything else the same.
I found after several years that it is the soft white spring that gave my bread the biggest boost in taste; like unbelievable.
I have some wheat sprouted and will let it dry and grind it and see what it does for taste next week. This is what I understand is called malt. Is that right?
Thanks for telling us about your grinder and your results. I would like to get a grinder myself. All I have to do now is convince my family that we need to have one. One of the reasons I took up bread baking as a hobby was because it was so inexpensive to start out. Then came more and more loaf pans and mixing bowls, a stand mixer, baking stone, peel, and on and on. I have always said it is very hard to justify the expense of your hobbies except for the enjoyment one gets.
I believe you are right. Sprouted or germinated grains are called malt. Apparently the germanation process activates some enzymes in the grain that help break down the starches to sugars. I am experimenting with a bread now that uses malted rye. I have made a loaf with the malted rye ground into a flour in my blender as well as making a mash with the cracked grains. I prefer the cracked grain best. I think I used too much cracked malt though as my loafs turned out to be too gummy. Next time I will use less. The cracked rye I am using is a very dark variety I got from our local home brew store. It imparts a very nice dark brown color to the bread.
I got into baking rye bread out of necessity. We moved to an area where there simply wasn't any decent rye bread available. My wife wouldn't even eat "the stuff" off the store shelves. She did buy and try them. They all ended up in the trash. Now she can't wait to cut into a fresh rye loaf when I'm baking. I attribute a lot of my "success" to using rolled rye grain or "rye flakes". I get mine from Barry Farms. Here's their link: www.barryfarm.com My biggest remaining problem is obtaining a good hard wheat flour. This is about to change as I just ordered a Nutrimill yesterday.
Buying my Nutrimill was an experience, to say the least. I sent emails to the sellers who were advertising on eBay. I consider a timely response time to be 24 hours. One seller did not respond, period. The second seller responded, but she failed to answer all of my questions. 3 follow-up emails on my part went unanswered. Don't ask me why I even tried sending that many follow-up emails - a mental lapse...lol... The 3rd seller was a charm. She answered in a timely fashion and answered all of my questions. Needless to say, she got my business. Here's a link to her auction for a Nutrimill on eBay: http://cgi.ebay.com/NUTRIMILL-Grain-Mill-Wheat-Grinder-FREE-S-H-Demo...
I noticed this morning that another Nutrimill dealer has a demo unit listed. Starting bid is $165. Dunno how you feel about buying a demo. It will probably go higher. It could end up being a good buy. Here's the link: http://cgi.ebay.com/Nutrimill-Grain-Grinder-Demo...
While I'm on the subject of ingredients, I got tired of paying almost $4 for less than 2 ounces of Caraway seeds at the local stores. I got on eBay and found Mels Country Acres. There I bought a pound of Caraway seeds and a pound of Poppy seeds for somewhere around $15 delivered. They have a toll-free number: (800) 267-6141. There are a lot of other goodies too at great prices. I was surprised at how fresh my seeds were when they arrived. Excellent scents and they were also clean - very important to me.
Let us know how your experiments with malted rye go.
Cliff. Johnston
"May the best you've ever seen,
Be the worst you'll ever see;"
from A Scots Toast by Allan Ramsay
Drifty Baker
Go to this site (http://www.breadbeckers.com/freestuff.htm) and send for the free audio on about making bread from home-milled grains. There are so many great testimonials on why it is so much better for you that your family will probably run right out and buy one for you! :-)
A great book on the subject is Flour Power, by Marleeta F. Basey.
Nancy
I just finished baking with the Golden 86. I was looking for increased wheat flavor but didn't get it.
It was excellent bread and had changed my loaf taste, but I can't explain it. I fine ground the wheat and with a hard grain I usually just break it into about three pieces; like with hard red winter. Then I boil the water and cook it but still you get a churchy texture which I like. I even add cornmeal which I think is a catalist for any wheat baking. I use corn in everything.
Several years back, I started grinding with hard red winter for the unbeatable content of slowly stooling grain (we use to graze it in Texas during the winter) and absorping minerals etc. over a long winter. But ... the taste just isn't there and after baking with it for about a year I read in The Bread Builder's about everything available to me. I bought Walton's soft white spring and boy was I thrilled with all the rich taste as compaired to the hard red.
I will keep trying with the '86 but it looks like an uphill battle. I will call Walton tomorrow and frankly tell them I'm disappointed and see if they can tell me what I did wrong, if anything. They didn't put all this effort into this grain for nothing - I hope.
...about what I expected - the Great American Way - lot's of hype, but in reality just another "me too" product. I'll be waiting to hear what Waltons has to say. Thanks for keeping us posted. Actually I'm disappointed deep down inside. I was hoping for something significantly better, especially in the flavor category.
Cliff. Johnston
"May the best you've ever seen,
Be the worst you'll ever see;"
from A Scots Toast by Allan Ramsay
I re-read what the women said about 86 on the page that touted it so highly. They said it tasted better than hard red winter wheat, which in my openion doesn't take much. One woman used hard red for forty years before her son showed her the taste of soft white. I used hard red for two years and thought I was wasting time.
It did do several things to my loaf - better crust; sweeter taste so I can use less brown sugar. At 1/4 cup per loaf, it is worth it just to play on these aspects. What if I rolled my dough in hard white as I kneeded it? Will try that one. I use the Carl Griffith starter from 1847. Other starters could react differently.
I suspect after a long try, I will swing back to my soft white and perhaps go with some rye.
One huge complication for this test has been that my new starter has settled down or has gotten cross fertilized with my local molds and has changed in appearance, raising characteristics and taste. Not what I needed right now.
I have to go to work, but will try and call Walton this afternoon.
What have you discovered with your hards? Did your crusts improve?
One employee told me they only use one grain in their bread making which is the Golden 86 and they only use instant yeast.
I will probably bake again on Monday and will take my brown sugar to 1/8th cup; take the 86 to 1/4 cup and increase the soft white and see what happens. I will roll out my dough and kneed it on 86 flour and try and get a good dusting into the crust as I liked what it did for my crust.
If this doesn't work or seem to be where I want to go I will put the 86 on the back burner.
I appreciate all comments on Rye flour as I think that is the next venture. Have you seen Bob's Red Mill Rye Berries? http://www.bobsredmill.com/catalog/index.php?action=showdetails&product_ID=336
I found a building for sale that will be demolished and it has a wainscoating out front of a really nice ledge stone. I don't know how much trouble it would be to field dress and get the old cement off of it but it would make a nice looking perimeter for my waist high bench (36") on which to build my adobe oven. I have a good friend that sells rock and he might have something that would work also.
My first post was immediately after taking the loaves out of the oven and I could already tell the crust was better.
Well, ... I just put my toaster on high and put my '86 loaf thru 1 1/2 times and I am floored. This is probably the best tasting crunchy crust that I have produced in 40 years of baking.
Sorry to be swinging around but the number of days you wait after milling flour makes a difference (you should always wait at least a day before using). I waited a day but it could be even a little different the next time I use it. I noticed that RMM rested their flour ten days before packaging or shipping it in bulk. It is like letting a calf hang in the freezer to age I guess. Also, letting the loaf completely cool under a dish towel overnight changes things also. The crust hardens etc.
Have you noticed that the setting on your toaster that will burn (almost make it catch fire) store bought bread, doesn't even make toast with hand ground bread? Hand ground takes twice the heat that store bought junk will take. In store bought bread, the weight isn't there, nor the taste, nor the nutritional value and who knows what else they have put in there. For you that are grinding your own grain and are thinking about it all I can say is go for it. You will never be sorry.