While visiting Kentucky last week, I was blown away by the grits at Gralehaus (you must go for breakfast or brunch if you are ever in Louisville). Bought a few bags of the locally milled grits from Weisenberger Mills, and then noticed that Weisenberger also mills whole wheat pastry flour, so bought a bag of that to bake with at home, too.
This led me to the question-- are there any HO bakers out there who regularly use and buy locally milled flours? If so, which ones do you use and what do you make? Would be especially curious if there are bread bakers that have favorite local flours.
Here is the link to Weisenberger if anyone is interested:
when ‘in the area’ I always buy grits from a water-powered mill.
just to support them - I can get grits most anywhere.
they typically do not have wheat flours, it’s usually a ‘historic preservation’ operation vs. a commercially oriented business.
one can buy home-sized grain grinders - buy wheat berries of choice, mill-your-own…
it’s an entire DIY / hobby / (??) pursuit . . .
I always want to make a French baguette taste like I got in France. Here’s what made the difference among the many flours I tried.:
Amazing flour. Abou $3 a lb, though. I felt it worth it after trying. I was at the end of my rope, when buy coincidence, I read that Serious Eats article. Epiphany!
If you want your sourdough to scream delicious, might want to try it.
I have had a Komo Fidibus XL for many years, so I’ve grown used to working with freshly milled flour. Fresh, whole grain handles differently than industrial flour. 100% whole grain bread can be quite dense, so I combine it with roller milled bread flour for loft. My all purpose blend for cakes, cookies, etc. is a combination of 60% roller milled hard flour to 40% freshly milled sifted, soft wheat. I haven’t found a difference in performance between that and a store bought AP, but the baked goods do taste better with whole grain flour as a component.
My favourite grains for baking are einkorn, spelt, rye, and Red Fife. I’m not sure which variety of soft wheat I have, but it is organic, as are all the other grains. I’ll have to get my hands on some flint or dent corn and make a polenta out of that. It’s something I haven’t tried.
Bear in mind that if you have a whole grain flour, it will go stale faster than a roller processed variety because the fatty components are not sifted out of it and are subject to rancidity. Keep it in the freezer until you need it, or use it up quickly.
Going the other way. When we lived in France it took me a minute to figure out the flour issue and what to buy to use in my US recipes that called for AP.
I finally got there (with no small help from David Liebovitz’s blog, as he had moved to Paris just before we did) but there were some failed experiments!
Wow, this is really informative. Thanks for including the links. I am a little ways down my sourdough journey, just enough to start wondering if I should incorporate specialty flours. I’d never heard of high extraction flour.
I have two friends who mill their own flour. I’ve yet to make that step-- I worry that the whole grain would go rancid before I could use it up (those friends would regularly send parcels out to their baking friends). I bet your baked goods are lovely!
Love this idea about buying grits from local mills. Where I live there aren’t any of either, but it’s something I’ll keep an eye out for when I return to the midwest or South.
I was going to ask what your favorite way of cooking grits is, but maybe that should be a whole 'nother thread…
Whole grains keep for years when stored in cool, dry and pest-proof conditions. Rancidity happens when that little freshness capsule of a grain gets broken down into flour. Think of a tomato. A whole one lasts much, much longer than one that has been opened from slicing or crushing.
