Flour / Grain Talk

Fermentation The New Sexy, Microorganisms The Next Taste Frontier

April 15, 2012

Two years ago I can’t imagine I would be as excited  as I was yesterday about watching David Chang’s Harvard Lecture on “Microbiology: An Overlooked Frontier”  he made in 2011, David is the chef at Momofuku.  This lecture on microbes and their flavour profile is interesting for me personally on two different levels, one because [...]

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Debra Wink & Pineapple Juice Sourdough Starter

March 29, 2012
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Debra Wink is a microbiologist who’s work I’ve used before on this site when explaining what’s happening inside a Sourdough Starter here.  Without Debra’s work I would still be in the Dark Ages, continuing to think incorrect facts about starters such as establishing a starter is a battlefield between good and bad bacteria or that [...]

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Heritage Wholemeal Buns & Gloria’s Rhubarb Ketchup

March 19, 2012
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I made these wholemeal buns yesterday, made 12 with the intent of using them this week for oldest kid’s pack lunch for school but today I have three left.  Father-in-law and Bikerboy had a couple still warm out of the oven, one with just butter melting and the other with bacon, father-in-law took some home. [...]

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John Letts Heritage Wheat Loaf

March 14, 2012
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These two loaves are made with John Letts 85% stoneground flour (85% extraction), a mixed variety of Heritage wheat.  John doesn’t know exactly how many varieties there are in this mix but he thinks something in the region of hundred and fifty.  These wheat kernels are special, they’re from varieties you can no longer buy, [...]

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The Broken Relationship Between Farmer, Miller & Baker

March 11, 2012
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It appears the relationship between farmer, miller and baker is somewhat broken and I feel this relationship should be intrinsically bound. Reading last night the book Dan Lepard  recommended to me a month ago, Breads White And Brown – Their Place In History, by R A McCance and E M Widdowson,  the author mentions in early [...]

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Shipton Mill No. 4 Flour Organic

March 4, 2012
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The white roller mill flour I like and use regularly from Shipton Mill is their organic number 4, 12% protein.  I use it for all sorts, to mix with stoneground flour like the loaf below or making the kids loaves, whenever I want a roller white texture. What I like about no. 4 is that [...]

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Shipton Mill’s Two Mills

March 3, 2012
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I met John Lister, the owner of Shipton Mill, last October at their Tedbury site where John’s office resides, but my first encounter with Shipton mill was at their other huge site in Frampton-on-Severn in September.  It’s not until you visit this old Cadbury’s site do you realise how big Shipton Mill are. My introduction to [...]

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Amaretto 2011 Using Amaretto Levain

February 27, 2012
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After the last post here, at the very end of that post I had said how the amaretto flour harvest 2011 had suffered a little from not being aged enough and I also said I was about to post photos of the successful dough having worked on it, and here it is.  No tearing before [...]

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Difference Between Good & Bad Stoneground Flour

February 27, 2012
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I wanted to demonstrate the difference between good and bad stoneground flour.  I’m hoping that over the last few months I’ve shown how stoneground flour can produce beautiful looking loaves on par with any roller mill flour loaves.  I’ve also shown even freshly milled low protein 10.5% flour like this amaretto harvested 2010 with everything [...]

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White Spelt Stoneground Foster’s Mill – Alkor

February 21, 2012
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I have little to say about this loaf other than, wow I never thought I would make a loaf with English Spelt using my free-form rising method and result in a rise like this.  Last year I attempted sourdough using English white spelt I had bought in my local supermarket and had disastrous results with [...]

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In-Between Flour, Straight Flour, High Extraction Flour

February 13, 2012
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This flour is the perfect answer to those who think wholemeal flour is too heavy but still want the good parts of the wheatberry because along with having particles from the whole endosperm it will also have a fair amount of the bran and the germ. Stone Milling With stone milling the process is very [...]

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White Amaretto 10.5% 3 Months On & Power of Oxidisation

February 9, 2012
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I’ve been posting recently about white stoneground flour I’ve bought from Anne in Felin Ganol watermill in Wales and the first flour I tried was this amaretto from a 2010 harvest which yielded a low protein flour of 10.5%, too low for making bread on its own it was believed, but I proved in this [...]

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Tybalt & Paragon Wheat Varieties – Stoneground White Flours

January 31, 2012
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I bought both of these flours from Anne at Felin Ganol Watermill in Wales, just like I did with the Amaretto flour here.  It’s very unusual to buy flour by single wheat variety, most mills will mix a combination of different wheats to produce their bread flours.  I feel I’m in a privilege position with [...]

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Stoneground Amaretto Semolina Wheat Sourdough

January 11, 2012
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I made this loaf using some of Felin Ganol’s amaretto semolina for the first time yesterday.  I was expecting a slightly textured crumb, perhaps similar to the Khorasan loaf  but instead was pleased to find a soft mouth-feel crumb as you do with wholemeal, only this is lighter. To give you some idea of the [...]

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Amaretto Wheat Variety 10.5% from Felin Ganol Watermill

November 29, 2011
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After writing my last post on Low Protein Flours Make Great Bread, It’s All About the Flour I said I would write in detail how I made my loaves using Anne Parry’s Amaretto white flour from her watermill in Wales.  A flour currently being sold as All Purpose because of its low protein content, 10.5%. [...]

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