296029 Fri Feb 06 14:10:02 -0800 2004 5 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 1629250 In my never-ending quest to fully connect with and understand the food that nourishes and ultimately becomes me, I’ve recently embarked on a bit of a homesteading effort here in Northern Manhattan. Once again, I’ve spent a goodly chunk of my tax return on various kitchen items. This time, it’s a grain mill (the manual Family Grain Mill), a bread machine (the Zojirushi V20) and a Hearth Kit (to turn my kitchen oven into the equivalent of a brick one). What I’ve found is that bread is good. Really good. As a kid raised on rice, I never really understood the “staff of life” concept – probably had to do with the fact that the only bread in the house was Wonder. I looked forward to the trading cards in the plastic bag far more than I did the bread. As an adult, I discovered artisan breads, like Dan Leader’s (Bread Alone), and started to understand. But being the way I am, I needed to make it myself. So I ventured to make the occasional loaf, only to be sorely disappointed in one way or another. I always thought it was my abysmal lack of breadmaking skills that failed to produce loaves that someone could actually live on. Well, it turns out that with the proper ingredients, a bit of knowledge and the right tools, not only is it possible, but it can actually be done on a daily basis. I get organic wheat berries shipped direct from a Montana family farm by Alvin and Dorothy Rustebakke (http://www.greatgrainsmilling.com), then grind them fresh for every loaf. This is absolutely vital from both a health and flavor standpoint -- there’s a night and day difference between freshly milled whole meal and any store-bought flour. One is alive and full of the essence of life, the other is denatured to the point that even bacteria don’t recognize it as a valid food. (General rule number one: if it doesn’t rot, it’s not worth eating.) Volatile oils in freshly ground wheat cause rancidity within days, so commercial flour producers strip it out. Health food stores then package and sell wheat germ oil separately as a cure for what ails you. (General rule number two: if any corporation makes significant money from it, it’s not worth eating.) Anyway, I figure the best way to get the vital nutrients I need is straight from the source -- why pay for B-vitamin supplements when I can get them from freshly milled wheat instead? Next step is the grinding: takes about 10 minutes of hand cranking per loaf. Yes, they make electric models, but a bit of focused exercise every day has become moving meditation to look forward to. That way, you get the incomparable pleasure of inhaling the fresh wheat (or rye or whatever) aroma at the moment it’s ground. I want to just start eating it by the handful, which you’d never say about a bag of supermarket flour. The mill is easy to use and will last a lifetime. It’s beautiful in the way good tools are – you can fully disassemble it for cleaning, then put it back together with your eyes closed since everything only fits together one way. (General rule number three: Occam’s Razor still applies, simple is always better.) We then come to the bread machine. I never thought I’d get one, but since I work all day it’s a vital piece of equipment. I think bread baked in it is vile (temperature restrictions can’t produce anything remotely resembling a proper crust), but as a kneading and proofing machine, it’s unparalleled. I load ingredients before I leave for work in the morning, set the delay, then come home to beautiful dough ready for shaping and the final rise. Which brings us to the final luxury item to rave about, the Hearth Kit (http://www.hearthkitchen.com). I’ve always wanted a brick oven, but figured that I’d never have one in a rental apartment. Well, this is the answer – and it works exactly as advertised. Regular ovens have wildly fluctuating temperatures, inherent in the nature of the way they regulate the temperature. Pizza stones and baking tiles help hold temperatures steady, but this hearth kit contraption is definitely the way to go (major kudos to the brilliant folks in Connecticut who came up with the design). Loaves get baked directly on it, so I can finally produce the bread of my dreams. So that’s it – I’ve actually been able to start baking artisan loaves on a daily basis, for less than a buck a loaf (not counting the initial $400 invested in the toys). It’s a shame to have to spend so much money on the proper tools for the job, but a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do. Anyone else out there making whole grain loaves? Fri Feb 06 14:10:02 -0800 2004 0 Dennison 1 1629265 I looked at the hearth kit and what they say about radiant heat jives with what I've read about brick ovens - that it is the amount of radiant heat that distinguishes them from metal ones. I'm not sure if I should go with a Hearth Kit or just stuff my oven with refractory brick as recommended by an inventive sourdough baker. It's only a stopgap until I build a brick oven out in the backyard. I'm still trying to perfect the perfect loaf of white bread using a mix of whole wheat and King Arthur all purpose with a natural leaven. I do a long retarded second rise on the top rack of my wine fridge. Once I get consistent results here I plan on branching off into ryes and other. Fri Feb 06 15:12:52 -0800 2004 1629250 0 muD 1 1629277 Dennison! I agree so much with everything you've said! I was a bit surprised by your breadmaker, but I agree that the use you're using it for (proofing, kneading, rising) is perfect, and it's great that it enables you to continue your baking habit while holding down a full-time job. I hope you get your hands on the bread to knead it once and awhile yourself, however. It's one of the truly sensual pleasures (like you described the scent of freshly ground flour -- I've felt exactly as you say!) of bread baking. I don't hand-knead everything (certain loaves really are improved by machine/mixer kneading) but I do try to finish at least the last minute or two of each knead to make sure I have the texture right. I cannot say enough about freshly-milled flour. I first grew to love it from the Great Harvest bakery in Northern Minnnesota. This is a commercial bakery that uses freshly-milled wheat that comes off the trains bound for the great lakes ships that take it all over the world. It would come on the train from Saskatchewan and other parts of Canada, be bought at the trainyard by the bakery folks, and the rest would go off into big lakers or "salties" down at the docks on Lake Superior (this is in Duluth, by the way) to various flour mills/food processors all over the world. This freshly milled flour is full of all the good stuff -- it's totally different than flour you buy in sacks at the store. The moisture content is so much higher, and the fat and liquid content of a recipe made with whole-grain flour needs to be drastically reduced! It's like working with a live product, I agree, and the difference is shocking. It is not just for health food (which was my original motivation -- I love bread and don't want to give it up, so I thought I'd try to make the most whole, nutritious, and delicious bread I could at home. Litle did I know that it would become a love affair all about taste, with the health benefits as just a hidden goodie in the smell, feel, and taste of the best bread I've ever eaten) -- now it's just all about yumminess! I think whole-grain milling at home is one of the best cooking decisions I ever made. I use the kitchenaid attachment to great success, too, for any of you bakers out there who may not want to manually grind. This attachement is expensive (100$+) but works very well and very quickly. I'd encourage you to branch out into naturally-leavened and non-leavened breads, if you're only doing yeasted loaves right now. Not only is this for flavor (ooooh what's better than a good levain or sourdough?), but, since you are looking for more health benefits from your "staff of life", there are some medical experts who think an excess of yeast is not all that good for you. Whether you believe in this or not (I'm not preaching -- I myself still eat yeasted bread pretty regularly, just not exclusively), the natural leavening is really a good thing to get into. Don't just try a powdered starter -- go the high road and make your own from scratch (it will take time, but it's worth it, and then you know there is nothing funky in it). Sally Fallon gives you all the information on this that you could possibly need in her book "Nourishing Traditions". The best levain is made in bakeries who have their own starter strain, too -- it's just good baking sense. You may want to wait until you feel you've mastered yeast breads, and that's cool. I'm just suggesting further avenues to explore. I never truly loved wholewheat bread until I got my grain mill, too! Now I know what all the fuss is about. Glad to hear the hearthkit is worth it. I've been considering one myself. I use a big rectangular baking stone (pizza stone) now that fits on the bottom of my oven, but maybe it's time for an upgrade. If you make muffins with your whole grain flour, too, stoneware muffin cups make a difference I've found. Something about whole wheat and stone -- they go together to make something better than the sum of it's parts :) Happy baking -- send us more accounts of your baking adventures as they occur! Fri Feb 06 15:57:29 -0800 2004 1629250 0 Mrs. Smith 2 1629425 Thanks for the words of wisdom and great tips, Mrs. Smith – I agree wholeheartedly that nothing can replace the primal joy of hand-kneading, I just wish that I had the time to do so regularly. Maybe one day I’ll finally get myself together and live off the grid. Until then, there’s always the weekends. I’ve found the Laurel’s Kitchen book to be a great reference for whole grain bread, and highly recommend it to anyone who’d like to start experiencing firsthand the therapeutic pleasure of creating a great loaf. And yes, there is very little in life better than a whole wheat boule or batard made with grain you’ve milled hours before and a starter that you’ve nourished yourself. The entire process speaks directly to all that is holy in cooking, and breadmaking points out clearly another of the simple facts of life – speed and convenience are both inversely proportional to flavor and quality. Believe me, I had my doubts about the bread machine. After all, convenience and speed are their raison d'être – it’s all about making it easy for anyone to produce a loaf within a couple of hours. Unfortunately, the vast majority of resulting loaves are like IKEA furniture – they look good enough, but don’t be fooled by the slick veneer hiding pressboard interiors – the stuff will give out sooner rather than later. I do however think it’s possible to reap the benefits of the machine world while avoiding their weaknesses altogether. For instance, I’ve successfully made in the Zo a deliciously heavy Norwegian dough that was so sticky that it would have been nearly impossible to knead by hand. I’ve been able to quickly get the hang of basic whole wheat dinner items like rolls, flatbreads, and foccacia/pizza. The machine excels at getting those doughs primed and ready for weeknight dinners. But it hasn’t all been smooth – I learned pretty quickly that I had to completely ignore the preprogrammed cycles, which simply don’t give enough time for any significant flavor to develop. The whole grain recipes provided in the manual are useless as well – they rely on vital wheat gluten to give a boost to the rise, which has the unfortunate consequence of imparting the cardboard flavor that I’m trying to avoid by grinding my own in the first place. Just make sure to get hard red spring wheat and you’ll have no need for added gluten. I know I need to create a custom program cycle that allows for the longer rises that whole wheat wants, but I haven’t determined what it should be yet. I’ve gotten some good tips from Eckhardt and Butts’ “Rustic European Breads From Your Bread Machine”, particularly useful are their pointers on using a levain, poolish, biga or other starter to build the flavors. Overall, it’s a work in progress. I still haven’t developed the proper machine recipe and timing for the whole wheat levain that I want to regularly bake. It’s fun trying though, so overall I’d highly recommend the Zo to anyone who can’t spend hours every day producing their dough. (BTW, I do have some yeast concerns, so the tip on “Nourishing Traditions” was greatly appreciated – I’ve already ordered a copy, sounds like my kinda info, thanks Mrs. Smith!) Sat Feb 07 22:31:35 -0800 2004 1629277 0 Dennison 3 1629431 As someone who hasn't baked a loaf of bread in more than 30 years, may I say that this is a wonderful thread. Thanks, Dennison, Mrs. Smith, and BarbaraF. Sun Feb 08 01:55:18 -0800 2004 1629425 0 Dave Feldman 1 1629359 Ah, boy. I can tell that I am going to have to order some wheat berries.... I have a Sumeet multi-grind that can grind it; mostly I use it for grinding spices and making curry pastes. When the carpal tunnel in my wrists is acting up, sitting and pounding on a mortar and pestle, which generally I don't mind doing, and actually like, becomes an excruciating chore. Bread-baking is a passion of mine. I love good breads, and I grew up with my mother's mother making the most wonderful yeast breads. My father's mother made biscuits that were as light as angel's wings, but she never made good bread. Mom's mother's bread was fit for God himself, but her biscuits were a bane to man and beast. I inherited the talent for yeast bread, and I think it has to do with our hands; my Grandma had the warmest, strongest hands of any woman I knew. I am the same way--I have very warm hands. Gram, on the other hand, had very cool hands--her blood circulation wasn't great, and she had a whisper-light touch. Now that I am old enough to think on these things, I realize that her cool fingers and gentle touch kept the butter in the biscuit dough from melting. When I make biscuits, I have to half-freeze the butter, and then cool my hands under running water or in ice water and dry them before working with the dough, or I will melt the butter too much every time. I bet the same thing happened with my Grandma. I tend to bake bread by feel. I learned that from Grandma--she never used a recipe for bread. She just baked it by feel, straight from her heart. It was a body-knowledge she had of bread dough--the understanding of it was in her nose, for it knew just the proper balance of yeast and flour by scent. The understanding of bread was in her hands, which kneaded along on their own, seemingly without any guidance from her--they knew what to do. It was in her eyes--she knew how the dough should look. I grew up watching her, and helping her, standing on a chair at the counter, the two of us kneading bread together. She'd tell me stories while we worked. "Thousands of years ago," she'd tell me, "There were women doing this work. Kneading the bread, bringing it to life. Bread is alive, and when we knead dough, we are connected to all those women who went on before us, carrying the secret of life in their hands." "All around the world, there are people kneading dough right now," she'd say. "We are the same people, and God smiles on us all." I always think of those little stories as the bread stories. She taught me that to make bread you had to understand that it was alive and it needed what all living things needed. So long as you provided the necessities of life to the dough, the bread would be good. Dough, like all living beings needs food, water, air, warmth and love. When I knead bread with my daughter, I tell her the same stories. When I ask her what bread dough needs, she tells me, "Food, water, air, warmth and love: food comes in sugar, water is itself, to give it air, you cover it loosely, warmth comes from the sun or a warm oven and love comes from my hands." My daughter has warm hands, too, by the way. Sat Feb 07 00:03:21 -0800 2004 1629250 0 BarbaraF