Grinding real atta flour at home?
I see most people here grind flour for European-style baking. I have a slightly different question about milling grain.
I own a Komo Fidibus 21 that I use regularly for grinding tsampa (soaked and dried whole grain barley, baked in the oven at 180C for 20-30 min). It works great for that.
Now I have been hit by the great Indian atta shortage (India banned wheat exports in March 2022, and stocks already overseas have just run out).
Wheat berries ground at the finest setting in the Komo produce a flour nothing like the atta I used to buy. Mainly, the bran comes out in dark flakes, not ground as fine as the rest. Sifting it out is not the goal.
This may partly be down to the variety of wheat on sale here in Switzerland being different from the varieties grown in India.
Mostly, though, I want to understand if there's any way I can grind the whole wheat berries as fine as regular Indian atta.
In India, one would normally not buy the prepacked atta I used to buy (until last week) here in Switzerland, but rather go to a local miller like this guy who would grind wheat fresh for you (it's stale after a few weeks, certainly months).
I don't know what he has but it would not fit in my kitchen (internet searches suggest something along the lines of, if not quite, this 600kg beast with 60cm grindstones).
I'm trying to figure out if there's any way I can grind atta successfully and regularly without it taking over my life.
One option I'm looking at is a Salzburger MH8 with 22cm stones. Not sure if it would grind fine enough or if it would be too much time and work (need say 300g / day on average).
Otherwise a Waldner Industry or Haussler Molly with 15cm stones. Would be annoying to pay 2000 bucks for it and find the stones are too small.
Alternatively, a Diamant, but it looks from reading the forum that I would need to pass it through several times, might be a lot of time, and atta is generally stone ground.
Lee looks interesting but no 220V version. All Grain A-44 does have an export version but information is thin and hard to understand.
Does anyone with experience in milling flour have any suggestions for me based on the above? Thanks!!!
And how it differs to whole-wheat flour used in the West. So after a quick google search I came across this site: Atta Flour
So it may not be as simple as buying any hard red wheat and grinding it fine as there's other factors to take into account. Atta is for flat breads. While one can make leavened breads with atta it's not ideal. If you are making flatbreads then all well and good. If not you might as stick to Western style bread flour. And if you are making flatbreads this can be done with other non atta flours too so it may not justify going out of your way to make "authentic" atta flour anyway. Finely grind wheat flour that you have ease of access to and learn techniques how to make flatbreads with it. After all there are many traditional flatbreads that aren't Indian that don't rely on atta flour.
Thanks Abe. Chapatis have to be made with atta to taste right. Just as a Western person complains about their bread not having the right fluffiness/whatever if the flour isn't right. Using "whole grain" bread or tortilla flour or whatever is a non starter I'm afraid. Generally western whole grain flour has gritty bran so the customers can feel the grit.. that's not atta.
As well as the wheat grown in a particular region it has a lot to do with the grinding which damages the starch and that it's ground very fine.
Since you don't have access to that particular wheat and don't have a stone mill it's not going to be possible to make authentic atta flour.
The most you can do is find a hard red wheat and grind it as finely as possible in your home mill. The best way to do this would be to pass it through your mill a few times. First on a coarse setting, then on a medium setting and finally on the finest setting. This will produce a fine flour and might just have the same effect on the starch to some degree.
That's the best you can do it seems.
Thanks Abe. Komo manual says nothing about regrinding so I'm going to try. I did already manage to get it badly stuck once with tsampa, had to use two Ikea hex keys to lift the upper stone out for cleaning!
Do you have a restaurant? I think folks are operating on the assumption you are grinding small quantities for personal use.
I wasn't aware of the shortage but I think Indian stores in USA are now selling more American/Canadian atta. It isn't quite the same due to different soil conditions, but closer than anything else.
Hi Econprof. I used the word customers to refer to the people who buy whole grain flour in the West... I think they expect it to feel like roughage.
The stores in Switzerland are also selling "atta" ground in Italy. As atta for chapatis it's disgusting, I have an unused bag sitting right here. The taste is closer to suji/rawa (semolina).
Reading this article and the quote by Meera who says her chapatis taste like plastic, I'm guessing it's not much better in North America. I think the makers are sifting out bran. I'm baffled why the journalist keep talking about durum wheat since I understand atta is usually made from common wheat. Hmm.. maybe that's why the Italian "atta" tastes like semolina, they're using the wrong wheat!
Terminology! Like Farro can refer to 3 different wheat grains Atta can also refer to wheat or durum (2 varieties as far as I know. There might be more). So while many understand atta as a hard red/white (maybe) wheat there is such as thing as Durum Atta made from durum wheat.
Milled from Canadian Durum. Dave in Indy put me onto it several years ago. It has 'bits' of whole grain throughout but is definitely finely milled like a semolina made for bread.
I have a good supply of Durum Flour (Italian) however i haven't seen Durum Atta but then again I don't frequent Indian stores. I might try to find some durum atta. Compare the prices. Durum flour prices have gone through the roof.
Re feeling like roughage: I hear you. I initially refused to believe my husband when he said that chapatis are made with whole wheat flour. It was so different from the whole wheat flour I was used to.
My mother in law just happens to be coming to visit in two days. I think the atta we have at home is made with Canadian durum wheat. I will see what she thinks of it. My husband isn't very particular so I don't think he can judge.
Hope it holds up! If she has space in her suitcase, wouldn't hurt to ask her to bring a bag of the home stuff for comparison!
She did not care for the Canadian durum atta and went to the Indian store to get atta from India. No trouble finding it so I guess they haven’t run out here.
Thanks for letting us know! You know, I thought about that and realized that atta has a very characteristic smell. Which I believe is missing even from the whole wheat flour I have ground on my Komo (leaving aside the fineness of the grind). I am not clear if this is from
- the varietal of wheat, as with jasmine rice: should be easy to prove or disprove by getting whole berries from India and grinding them
- the relatively large diameter stone mill? seems unlikely as there are such mills in use in the west.
- some type of additive we don't know about? also seems unlikely for every small miller/wheat grower across all of India to be doing this
- durum vs. bread wheat? again seems unlikely since the clearly unsatisfactory bag from Italy I bought here says "FARINA INTEGRALE DI GRANA TENERO" which is bread wheat, not durum.
Anyway, glad she found supplies in the shop. I hope some of those will make there way to Europe soon!
A Unifine mill might be what you need, so it's worth researching, P.S. but it might be overkill for home milling. Have you considered using a Vitamix?
Some popular manufacturers of Unifine mills are Brabender, Ferkar, and Modern Process Equipment (MPE).
Yippee
Thanks for the suggestion! Well the Komo I have is a stone type mill (corundum/ceramic)
That does give me an idea. It might be too much work to do regularly, but by sifting and regrinding the bran to the same fineness as the rest of the flour I might be able to tell if the type of wheat is an issue. Your search also motivated me to find this article on something called Bakerpedia which makes the claim that atta is usually ground on "corrugated iron disks" rather than stone. I don't believe that, I think they used a dodgy source. All the commercial atta mills for sale online seem to use stone or "emery" aka corundum.
I have a suspicion the wheat you can buy in the shops here in Switzerland is hard red, while hard white appears to be the type used in India. In French and German I've never seen any reference to color on the packet, generally just "wheat" and in a very few cases "hard wheat".
will make it finer, but it may still be too coarse to produce atta. Blending the bran is likely to yield better results.
Yippee
Thanks Yippee. The Unifine looks cool, haven't found one of those that fits on a kitchen counter yet.
Again this sent me off on some more web searching. Seems the smallest atta mills they sell in India are comparable in millstone size and weight to the Haussler or Waldner (15cm stones). So if that one works (slight question without checking the output) the German ones should too.
I always thought that a high level of starch damage was important when making atta. This scientific paper abstract gives some ideas about best levels.
Perhaps you could keep regrinding the flour from from your Fidibus a few times if it is permitted - I know you can regrind in the Mockmill. That will increase starch damage.
Alternatively, just buy some atta from the UK - I haven't seen any shortage over here. It may not be up to the standard of Indian atta, but it still tastes good!
Lance
Don't see a shortage of (Indian) chakki atta for sale here in South Africa either, but it may be old stock.
I just checked the half used 5kg bag I have (with Sharbati wheat!) and it says it was milled in February 2022, recommended to use within 12 months so mine is 2 months out of date now. It's funny that they say 12 months, most of my other whole-wheat flour bags have expiry dates a lot sooner than that.
Can't help with your question, sorry - but wanted to say hi, since I am also in Switzerland! Whereabouts are you here? I am in Basel!
Hi! And privet of course. Over in the waelsch side here (Lausanne).
Bonjour! I don't think there is anyone else among the active members here in Switzerland at the moment, so nice to virtually meet you :)
Merci! You too Ilya. Yes, Switzerland is surprisingly small isn't it... the whole country has about the same population as New York!
Hi Rubru,
Did you manage to grind four which is suitable for chapatis? I recently bought komo mill and milled wheats grown in UK but didn't get flour suitable for rotis. As you mentioned it could be down to variety of wheat berries.
Please can you provide updates on this!
Thanks