Home-made DURUM pasta.
I've expanded my durum repertoire a bit, from bread to pasta.
I've made some noodles from the four kinds of durum flour that I've used for bread.
So far I have used (all from Patel Brothers grocery):
- Sher brand "Fiber Wala" whole-grain durum, roller milled, from Brar Mills in Canada.
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/files/u151432/A7F6A0D5-663C-4314-AFA1-D8DEC53F590C.jpeg - Patel brand stone-ground whole-grain durum.
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/files/u151432/3302E5FA-9B56-4866-AD46-A7C67FD84C2A.jpeg - Golden Temple brand durum atta, in the red/white bag. It has a little bit of added bran, but it's closer to fancy durum than to whole-grain. Roller milled.
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/files/u151432/511FB9A0-64CA-451D-A22F-0A62C0FAA036.jpeg - Swad brand semolina (update: this is durum, UPC 0-51179-17530-3 ), the low-bran gritty stuff. This has the least ash of the four flours, practically branless.
[Updated:] Semolina comes in 3 granularity sizes: fine (aka "semola rimacinata", or "fancy durum flour"), medium, and coarse. #4 above, the Swad semolina, is likely "medium," as I think I've seen coarser. Technically, "fine semolina" and "semolina flour" are misnomers, because the technical definition of semolina is "coarse middlings", not "flour." If your "fine semolina" or "semolina flour" has particle sizes the equivalent of regular flour, it should be called "durum flour" or "fancy durum flour" or "extra fancy durum flour."
Formulas, egg-less, with water:
1. 100% Swad durum semolina, 2% salt, 50% water. After mixing, let it rest at least an hour before kneading, and at least 30 minutes after kneading. The larger grain size takes longer to absorb water.
2. 100% Golden Temple durum atta in red/white bag, 2% salt, 56% water. Follow your normal dough resting period(s). This has neither the high bran percentage nor the large granularity that requires extra resting time to absorb water.
3. 50% Patel stone ground whole-grain durum, 50% Golden Temple durum atta in red/white bag, 2% salt, 60% water. For a smoother pasta, mix all the Patel stone-gound durum with half of the water, and let rest for at least 20 minutes before mixing in the rest of the ingredients. After mixing, let rest another 20 minutes before kneading, and let rest at least 30 minutes after kneading before rolling and cutting.
4. 60% Patel stone-ground whole-grain durum, 20% Golden Temple durum atta in red/white bag, 20% Arrowhead Mills organic AP flour, 2% salt, 60% water. For a smoother pasta, mix all the Patel stone-gound durum with 60% of the water, and let rest for at least 20 minutes before mixing in the rest of the ingredients. After mixing, let rest another 20 minutes before kneading, and let rest at least 30 minutes after kneading before rolling and cutting.
5. 50% Sher Fiber Wala durum, 50% Golden Temple durum atta in red/white bag, 2% salt, 64% water. It's been a while since I made this, and I forget if it required special resting periods to absorb water. Both of these flours are roller milled, so I think regular non-durum resting periods would work.
Cooking time seems to depend on how thick I roll the noodles.
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Tip o' the hat to the comments on this thread https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/51372/hokkaido-milk-bread-unreal that inspired this post.
Unfortunately, nothing was measured here, except for exactly one (1) egg.
I saved the discard from the last refresh of two different 100% hydration starters, (made entirely with KA bread flour) added Patel stone-ground whole grain durum, and saved them in the fridge as stiff starters, separate from the two ongoing 100% hydration starters.
Today I took the discard/stiff-starters out, combined them, rolled them flat, put them in a bowl, added a whole egg (but not the shell), added more Patel SG WG durum, some Golden Temple durum atta in the red/white bag, some salt, stirred it up. Then kneaded in the combined and flattened out stiff-starters and added more of the Patel SG WG durum until firm. Let rest. I could still feel a little grit, so I decided it needed some oil and water, so added them and kneaded them in. Let it rest. Rolled it out, cut it up into noodles, cooked it.
Best of my home-made noodles yet.
Starter discard...., meet durum, salt, egg, water, and oil. Yum!
Jeffrey Hamelman's durum pasta on the KA Isolation Baking show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7il1Qsswgk&t=111s
mwilson's comments here, also the whole post is good: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/comment/209065#comment-209065
This thread about home-milled flour for pasta. Has info on Kamut (Khorasan). https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/44642/grain-grind-fresh-pasta
I make Hamelman's version regularly. Here are the amounts:
340 g Durum flour
115 g pastry flour
4 eggs, large
1 tsp salt
pepper to taste
Instructions:
Mix by hand and knead until incorporated and firm. Adjust hydration with water if required. Wrap in cling film and rest 30 to 60 minutes.
Divide into four pieces about 175 - 180 grams each. Press each piece out flat and pass through the pasta machine on the highest setting. Letter fold and pass through the pasta machine again (open end first). Repeat for a total of 7 to 8 times on each piece. Lightly dust the pasta with AP flour to stop sticking if required. Rest folded pieces for about 10 minutes.
Pass each piece through the pasta machine, and gradually reduce the setting on each pass until the desired thickness is reached.
If making spaghetti or fettuccini etc. hang the lengths to air until the pasta sheets feel like they won't stick to the cutting roller.
The cut pasta can be frozen after lightly dusted with flour.
Thanks. I saw that episode of the KA Isolation Baking show. And I need to credit you because your post from earlier this year, https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/67412/pasta-dough-using-durumsemola-rimacinata with that link reminded me of it when I searched TFL for durum pasta.
I haven't had much time lately to bake. Do want to begin learning sourdough, ancient grains, and rye.
Question on pasta dough: In your opinion, what is the best way to "process" home-milled durum to minimize / break down the bran? Attempt something like autolyse? Something that causes it to approximate the characteristics of commercial semolina.
TIA.
Check with isand66, he mills and sifts durum. You can comment on his blog posts about durum bakes, or start a new post for a Q&A, or send a PM.
You can't, and you don't even want to, approximate bran-less germ-less semolina. Whole-grain and sifted durum work fine if you know how to work with it and blend it.
Using whole grain durum at 100% (no blending) for bread is a disaster. The glue-like bran mucks it up. I've gone up to 33% WG durum. Isand66 goes up to 40% durum with his sifted home-milled durum.
My next step is to experiment with a pasta blend of 50:50 whole grain durum and whole grain soft (pastry) wheat.
Soak time and resting time before and after kneading seem to be critical when making pasta with durum that has bran in it.
In the Hamelman formula above, he blends durum with pastry flour. Though both of those are refined (bran-less), not whole grain.
Thank you. I'll look up isand66 to review his postings. Since I have a couple bags of Bob's Red Mill Semolina, my initial attempts were to adjust my GM99 to output the same size, but the bran made for less-than-satisfactory results. I did try sieving out the bran, but was dismayed at how much was lost.
I recalled my biggest lesson from learning to bake HRW, which was using high enough hydration (80%) and let it sit for an hour so the gluten would form and the bran could soften. I haven't had time to experiment, until recently. Your post reminded me.
Let us know how your 50:50 blend turns out! One of my goals is a 100% home-milled dough that is supple enough to run through my Marcato Atlas 150 to make ravioli, and an extruder to make mostachiolli(sp?), et al.
I don't know if this would interest you, but Grit Magazine ran an article on Pennsylvania Dutch-style pot pies, one of which features sprouted-grain noodles. Here's the link:
https://www.grit.com/food/classic-pot-pies-zm0z18jfzsar/
I was surprised that you didn't include the reground semolina (semola rimacinata) in your comparison. If you combine the liquid and flour and let it rest refrigerated overnight (or even for a couple of hours at room temp) you can knead it without any problem. I find that ~61% hydration is where it wants to be. I also use the same flour to dust the pasta when rolling it out (I also use it to dust my couche when I want to retard a soft dough without having it stick to the couche).
Golden Temple white/red bag is essentially "almost" semola rimacinata. It is roller-milled and has a little bran added back in according to the ingredients list, but not enough to really make a difference, IMO.
Update: Here's Alfanso's opinion/experience on Golden Temple white/red bag in relation to real Italian semola rimacinata in bread: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/comment/459843#comment-459843 (GT needs a bit more water, and the Italian version is more finely ground.) That, plus his following comment.
I also found out that regular semolina, the gritty stuff, is the same as semola rimacinata that has just not been re-ground yet. Semolina comes in three grinds, or particle sizes. The Swad brand semolina I have is either fine or medium. All it takes is a little extra time to hydrate, and it's been fine in leavened bread, flatbread (tortilla/chapati) and pasta.
One of my goals is to make pasta with at least 50% whole grain durum. I've done that, and am happy with the results.
The next step is to test 50% WG durum, plus 50% WW soft wheat (pastry) flour. I have some soft WW Indian Sharbati flour to test. Then I'll try another batch with American WW pastry flour, such as Bob's Red Mill.
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For the peanut gallery, Golden Temple No. 1 Fine durum in the white/yellow/green bag has less bran than the Golden Temple white/red bag, and would therefore be even closer to Italian semola rimacinata.
Update: Here are photos of the yellow/green bag: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=golden+temple+%22no.+1+fine%22+durum&t=fpas&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images
Sher brand "Desi Style" is also a very-low-bran/low-extraction roller-milled durum, and would also be a good equivalent to Italian semola rimacinata. Photos of "Desi Style" durum: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/files/styles/default/adaptive-image/public/image_7.jpeg?itok=TwzqK3Nr and: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/files/u151432/1B2AF296-CED1-4D6A-9649-9C2B25C1D322.jpeg
Golden Temple and Sher brand flours are available at many Indian/Pakistani grocery stores.
I will look for the #1 Fine durum in the white/yellow/green bag and see if I can do a comparison. I have been using the red/white bag version with the added bran (which I tried sifting out with some success) but found that the Italian Caputo semola rimacinata made that unnecessary. But I agree with you that the bran makes only a cosmetic difference. I never got to the place where straight semolina absorbed sufficient water to make it really smooth after boiling the pasta, but that could be my lack of skill.
Here's what I learned from bread-making with coarsely ground flours, and also from blending stone-ground whole-grain durum to make pasta. It may work for mostly-semolina pasta.
Try overhydrating the gritty semolina first, with 10 percentage points more water than it needs for the final hydration. Let rest sufficiently, maybe an hour, then knead until supple, then let rest again. Verify that it has become true dough, with no wet sand effect, no grit left. Then knead in a quick-absorbing flour such as regular wheat all-purpose or regular wheat pastry flour, in an amount to achieve the final desired hydration. Let rest again so the finer flour has time to "steal back" the excess water from the durum.
Note that this doesn't work well (for me) if the flour that I'm overhydrating is whole-grain durum, as it seems the durum bran "locks up" the water and never releases it to added fine flour. This may not be truely what's happening at the granular level, but is my interpretation based on the dough's behavior. It's a "workable explanation" for me, even if it's not technically true or accurate.
I discovered that it is available at Walmart (in Canada): $11.47 for a 9Kg (green/yellow/white) bag - which does not help in in Los Angeles.
This may help you find it: https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=indian%20grocery&find_loc=Los%20Angeles%2C%20CA
I saw the yellow/green bag at my local Patel Brothers. But there doesn't seem to be a Patel Brothers store in L.A.
The yellow/green bag is not as common as the white/red bag.
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If 50 pounds isn't too much, and you have access to a restaurant/bakery supply company, here are 2 General Mills (Gold Medal / Sperry) durum flours:
Extra Fancy Durum, enriched, 50 lb., code 57602.
https://www.generalmillscf.com/products/category/flour/durum-and-semolina/extra-fancy-durum-patent-flour-enriched-50lb
Extra Fancy Durum, untreated, 50 lb., code 53324.
https://www.generalmillscf.com/products/category/flour/durum-and-semolina/sperry-extra-fancy-untreated
Today's batch, July 22, 2021:
I was too chicken to go all whole grain, so that is still on the agenda for the future. Assuming that the Sharbati is 100% whole-grain, then this mix is 66/80 = 82.5% whole grain.
Millers are sometimes loose in their definitions. "Whole wheat" or "whole grain" does not always mean 100% whole wheat/grain.
I chose soft Sharbati wheat based on Jeff Hamelman's use of pastry flour, as given in gavinc's comment above, which is from the linked video. (Though Jeff does not use any whole grain flour in his formula.)
I first mixed (by hand) all the egg and all 33 g of the whole-grain durum, and stirred until no lumps. Being that it is coarsely ground, has all the bran, and durum endosperm absorbs moisture slowly, I like to give this flour a "head start" so that the other quicker-absorbing flours don't grab the water first and prevent the durum from getting fully hydrated.
The dough was put in the fridge for all rest periods.
I let it rest for about 20 minutes, then I mixed in all the Sharbati. I kneaded just until homogenous, then kneaded in the Golden Temple.
I then let it rest at least 30 minutes, then kneaded some more, just a couple minutes, then rolled it out with a rolling pin and cut it into noodles with a roller style pizza cutter.
I used some US all-purpose flour to dust the dough so that it would not stick to the rolling pin and the parchment paper upon which I rolled it
It is a nice golden color.
After cutting it, I put it on plates as individual noodles and put it in the freezer. After it froze, I put all the noodles into a plastic bag, and back in the freezer.
Next day, July 23, 2021:
Cooked some of the noodles in boiling water for 6 minutes. The texture wasn't as smooth as previous 50% stone-ground WW durum noodles made with water. I'm guessing I should have let the stone-ground WW durum "soak" in the egg longer, before adding the other flours. Or, it could be because the secondary flour was also WW, whereas in previous batches, the secondary flour was low bran.
Wow, I normally cook my frozen pasta for a minute , maybe a little longer, but probably not more that 2 minutes . I can't imagine what mine would have looked like if it was cooked for 6 minutes, yours must be much stronger. I go back and forth a bit, but normally around 50 % soft white and 50% hard white whole wheat.
This stone-ground WW is tricky in terms of how it hydrates. I suppose it could be that using egg instead of water prevented it from hydrating sufficiently. I'll try giving the sg/ww durum more time with the egg on the next batch before adding the other flour. It could also be that the net hydration was just too low. Or that egg is too thick to be absorbed well by SG/WW durum and needs thinned with water.
Hamelman uses egg with durum, but his is not SG/WW durum.
This is an update on the above noodles made with
I'm still working my way through the first batch. It's been kept frozen.
I've upped the cook time to 8 to 10 minutes. I've cooked them as part of a chicken vegetable stew, and I was mutli-tasking too much to take accurate note of the time.
They are much smoother with the longer cooking time, and are still somewhat "al dente."
I suppose it's the cooking water finally fully hydrating the noodle that makes it smoother than a mere 6 minutes of cooking.
So, I'm wondering.... should I increase the hydration when making the pasta dough, or keep hydration the same and just remember to cook longer?
I continue to find that 61% is a good starting point to get excecllent texture whether with egg or water or beer. I like the idea of letting the coarse semolina get a head start before adding the more highly absorbent flours.
@Barry:
"I go back and forth a bit, but normally around 50 % soft white and 50% hard white whole wheat. "
Is that with egg or with water?
Dave, Are you a fan of serious eats? While they suggest 1 egg to every 2 yolks seriouseats ( they say an egg is 90 % water ) I usually go one egg to one yolk ( meaning 50% eggs, and 50 % just yolks ). I usually do 4 eggs and 4 yolks, and then play with slowly adding flour to the Food processor to get it to come together ,but stay dry to the touch.
That's an excellent article, with some new-to-me info about the composition of eggs.
The article inspires me to try hydrating the SG WW durum portion with just the egg white and not the whole egg.
I haven't totally proven it to myself, but my current understanding, which comes from making tortillas/chapatis with SG WW durum, is that when oil gets to the SG WW durum flour first, it interferes with (slows down, or reduces the capacity of ) the flour's absorption of water. This is backwards from the "standard" way of making tortillas with flour made from normal red or white (ie, non durum) wheat, wherein oil is added to the flour first, then the water is added.
The fact that the yolk is high fat, points me to the possibility that the yolk is therefore interfering with absorption. (And for the lurkers who are just now joining the thread... I know Hamelman and others use whole eggs with durum, but he doesn't use stone-ground WW durum, he's using low-bran refined "fancy" durum flour.)
It looks like the slow-to-absorb nature of SG WW durum is going to require more experimentation on my part. (I think it is worth it, because it is so inexpensive at $.40/pound. And this last batch of noddles, cooked 8-10 min, had a surprising al-dente nature which is rare in home-made pasta.)
Yet, a 10 minute cook-time is not a bad thing, either. And in the case of "throw everything all at once into a slow cooker", the stout nature of these noodles may actually be a good feature.
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My really big lessons in all this.... durum is a very different animal apart from standard hard red/white wheat. And WW durum is a very different animal than lower bran content semolina or reground semolina. The handling methods of "fancy durum flour", aka semola rimacinata, just can't be done with roller-milled finely granulated WW durum, nor stone-ground WW durum.
Hi! New to baking, pastas, and this forum! I'm looking to make extruded pasta, and it seems that coarser grained semolina is better for extruded, while more fine grain is better for rolled pastas. Of the 4 flours you've listed, are any of them 100% semolina and coarse? I'm also able to go to the Patel Brothers grocery, so I was curious as to whether I could find coarse 100% semolina for extruded pasta. It appears that sooji is the indian term for "semolina", and it also appears more expensive than durum, is the main distinction between the two the bran content? I'm looking for a relatively more affordable option, but it appears the semolina/sooji is quite a bit more expensive than durum flour..
Welcome to the forum. I generally use a mix of durum flour and pastry flour when making rolled pasta:
@kneadybaker: Welcome to TFL. Where are you located?
You're looking for #4 on my list, Swad Semolina. $5 for 4 pounds at Patel, last I checked, around April 2021.
I called it "gritty", but you are calling it "coarse."
Technically, it may be "medium", because there may be an even coarser, but it is not "fine" and it is not "flour", it is too coarse to be flour. (I updated the OP, and hope it is more accurate now.)
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"Fine semolina" is an oxymoron, but is usually intended to mean "fancy durum" _flour_, or "semola rimacinata" which is the floury miling of durum with particle sizes similar to common flour.
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I'm not sure of the difference between "fancy durum" and "extra fancy durum". One source said it was a mere marketing term. It may also indicate the level of bran/ash, as I've seen .79% ash durum and .99% ash durum at the General Mills web site.
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Durum _semolina_for _dried_ extruded pasta needs very high pressure, which supposedly is only in commercial dry-pasta extruders. (To clarify: the dough is moist when extruded, and then dried to become shelf-stable.)
For home pasta extruders, I think/suppose you need the durum _flour_, aka "fancy durum" or "roller miled" durum, or "semola rimacinata." But use whatever your machine instructions say. I hope you post some write-ups of your pasta-making.
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In the US "semolina" came to be a common name for "durum." But that is incorrect usage. The correct/technical meaning of "semolina" is coarse middlings of any wheat, red, white or yellow(durum).
So when a product is described as "durum semolina" that is not a redundancy -- it means coarse middlings of durum grain, as opposed to coarse middlings of any grain.
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The sooji that I have seen is not durum. Sooji is (usually?) common wheat "triticum aestivum", (what we would call red wheat or white wheat) not "triticum durum" (yelllow wheat).
Sooji is essentially what in the US is called "cream of wheat", which is boiled to make breakfast porridge. I ate a lot of Cream of Wheat when younger.
Technically, sooji can be called "semolina" because it is "coarse middlings." But it is not necessarily the coarse middlings of _durum_, it is usually the coarse middlings of common wheat.
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If your extruder machine instructions say to use "durum flour" with no further clarification, then I would suppose they do not mean "semolina".
For durum _flour_ at Patel, for pasta (meaning you do not want whole grain), your options are:
All three of those are made with Canadian grain.
Hope this helps.
Again, welcome. And I look forward to reading your pasta-making experiences.
Great post! Now we have a place to point when the word "semolina" becomes a topic of discussion. Well done!
Doc
Thanks.
Any corrections and clarifications would be welcomed.
The vernacular versus the technical meanings in the US is confusing enough. Then here on TFL we also have Italian/European and Indian usage as well.
(I didn't realize until mwilson pointed it out, that using eggs, instead of water, for durum pasta is looked down on in Italy.)
Thanks so much for all this!
I see, I guess it will be hard to find durum semolina. But you explained that for non-commercial extruders the pressure isn't high enough to warrant the need for coarse durum semolina, but rather something more fine. So I tried out the Sher Brar Durum Desi Style!
I'm not sure if this is how durum is meant to taste, but they ended up tasting very "whole grainy" to me. Additionally, they weren't very el dente (I tasted them while cooking throughout the boiling time, and when they were not cooked enough I could tell that the outer layer was already quite soft), so I kept them in for 30 more seconds and they were cooked, but didn't hold a nice bite like I got from boxed pasta.
I assumed durum would be quite "strong" after heating, and was a little surprised that they ended up a bit on the softer end. Have your pasta's been quite strong with this flour? Additionally, is durum meant to taste a bit "whole grainy"?
Thanks
I'm a bit confused too. I updated the OP to make clearer that the yellow bag of "Swad Semolina" at Patel is durum semolina, it's not labeled sooji. But then, your Patel may not necessarily carry it. So I do not know if you looked, and it was not there, or if you did not look for it.
I think it would be useful and quicker to make your own post, so others can see it and join in. If you have time, please answer the following in your post, and that would save a lot of time having to wait a day for every question back-and-forth.
In order to further address your comment, you will need to give the recipe that you used, including all procedures and rest times. You'll also need to describe the equipment that you used: an extruder, a pasta rolling machine, a pasta cutting machine, or did you roll it out with a rolling pin and cut by hand. And how thick, and how wide did you make the pasta?
Is this the first time you've made pasta? Have you ever made pasta with regular AP or bread flour? I don't do very well helping people who have never baked/cooked before. So if you are a complete beginner, you would learn faster watching a video recipe on Youtube for durum pasta, like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7il1Qsswgk&t=111s but he does use some pastry flour in addition to durum.
You also need to describe how you cook it. Did you put it in tap water and then bring to a boil? Or did you put the pasta in water that was already boiling?
Also, your English is perfect, but sometimes people for whom English is their second language use it differently, and people from outside the US don't fully understand our "shortcut language" when we speak of recipes. If you are originally from outside the US, please let me know, and I'll try hard to avoid common North-American verbal shortcuts.
But I do use pasta flour to make bread. The pasta flour I buy is 50:50 durum and bread flour ground very fine. This seems to be a common mix sold as pasta flour.
If you're going to approximate a similar pasta flour of your own then for the durum flour it's best to use rimacinata, or the finest semolina you can find, and a good quality finely ground bread flour. I believe it's "00" grade.
I agree with Dave. If it's your first time making pasta then follow a reputable recipe with a step-by-step guide. This seems like a good website: https://www.seriouseats.com/best-easy-all-purpose-fresh-pasta-dough-recipe-instructions
@Dave, I agree this thread would make a good bookmark, well done.
@Abe, Unfortunately the product you mention is one example of several which demonstrate that even milling companies outside of Italy don't fully understand Italy's flour grading system nor do they understand the typical and appropriate application of specific flour types.
As ever, many mistakenly think 00 signifies fineness / particle size. It is actually a designation of ash, i.e. how white / refined the flour the is. 00 flour is produced by using greater proportion of the innermost part of the wheat kernel which has lower mineral content.
A further misunderstanding is the blending of common wheat and durum wheat, I believe this approach may have been popularised by Jamie Oliver. Such a product doesn't exist in Italy and it would be atypical for these flours to be blended together to make pasta. Each flour type has distinct properties and are used to make specific pasta types.
Finally, this product implies that fineness is a desirable or ideal requirement for pasta making. This is simply not the case at all. For example; pasta made in Southern Italy using locally grown durum wheat is often done with standard durum wheat flour which is fairly gritty. Semola "rimacinata" or re-milled semolina is specifically intended for bread making (per panificazione) but of course you can still use it for pasta.
I think because it's not standardised, and some countries don't even use the grading system, it can get confusing. Must admit my "knowledge" only came from what I have seen. The "pasta" flour packet. I've seen it done by a few companies and while I did think pasta flour wasn't standardised was under the impression it might be a good mix - whatever the reason. I buy it simply because it's good for a bread I like to make - Alan's take on Raisin, Fennel and Pine Nut bread which calls for a mix of these flours and it means I don't have to buy two different packets. Pasta is something I haven't made... yet!
I always recommend Rimacinata over Semolina because as someone who has only really delved into bread baking it really does perform far better.
I'm not sure if anyone on this thread has used an extruder or not. I have a plastic-geared extruder and I broke one of the gears many years ago because my pasta dough (and my personality) were both a little too much for the machine. If you have a plastic geared extruder, you'll want a dough that doesn't strain the mechanism.
i'm wondering what your pasta recipe is. It should be water + flour for extruded pasta. You may need some more time allowing the flour to soak up the water if the flour is coarse, before you run it through your extruder. You may also need to let it relax a bit. I don't think I was ever patient enough.
Sadly, I'm separated from my broken machine or I would repair it and give it another try.
Nice summary, one thing I might add which may or may not be obvious is that you can only obtain semolina from Hard wheats. Depending on kernel hardness, the milling of soft wheat predominantly results in fine particles when milled.
Michael, I have come across non-durum semolina. Shipton Mill and Gilchesters both sell it.
In fact I bought some from Shipton Mill, assuming it to be durum. When it arrived and had no yellow tinge, I queried it with them and they informed me it was non-durum - their description is very misinforming!
Lance
Lance, I suppose you're aware, but just to head off any misunderstanding of US versus Italian usage of terms....
when Mike used hard/soft above, I suppose he was using the American paradigm/meaning of hard/soft, not the Italian paradigm/meaning of hard soft.
Mike, thanks for chiming in.
Indeed, I wrote in terms of the North American classification, which actually makes more sense than the Italian Hard / Soft distinction.
In Italy all Triticum aestivum is "soft wheat", while "grano duro" / hard grain (wheat) is mostly Durum (Triticum durum) but also includes Khorasan (Triticum turanicum).
This hard/soft wheat distinction is a source of endless confusion!
BTW German terminology aligns with Italian on this one: they refer to durum wheat as Hartweizen (hard wheat).
Lance
Semolina = grit. Flour = fine.
They're actually not proper nouns for the variety of grain one is buying. Cream or Wheat, in the US, is Semolina but not Durum Wheat.
Semolina has become synonymous with Durum grain and will be confusing when people use it in it's true sense of meaning.
Sure but they can't be soft wheats, in the UK we can at least grow "semi hard" wheat.
Of Rivet Wheat. I think as we're heading back into lockdown I should revisit some of the more rare varieties. I'm going to try and get some.
One the tastiest loaves I ever baked. Pizza Flour & Rivet Wheat | The Fresh Loaf
factsheet_Rivet Wheat.docx
Delved into it a bit but haven't done so since. When I manage to get hold of some i'll be back for the recipe. Unless you wish to give it to me now.
You mention Lievito Madre which is 50% hydration fed 1:0.5:1 a few times till you have a strong yeasty stiff starter?
I suppose all I need now is LM % to flour and final hydration.