Fresh Milled vs Store Bought Whole Wheat Flour?

Hello everyone. I’m new here. I just got into bread baking over the last 6-8 months. I’ve got more bread cook books than I care to admit, and a Mockmill for grinding wheat.

I have a question that my internet searches can’t seem to find an answer to. When making bread with whole wheat flour, should fresh milled whole wheat be treated differently than store bought whole wheat flour? For example, should I adjust the hydration for fresh milled? I’ve read (and this seems to be the case with me) that fresh milled makes the dough rise faster, but I keep running into problems with the 100% whole wheat sandwich bread in Peter Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads and Artisan Breads Every Day books. I just made a loaf last night with some Red Fife wheat, and it is quite dense. I’m pretty sure I over-proofed a little bit, but the dough also seemed quite “grainy” due to the bran in it. I did notice that the Red Fife wheat berries seemed a bit smaller than other wheat berries I’ve used. Maybe this lead to a higher bran to endosperm ratio?

Any input is appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

It is, as you've read, more thirsty. There are a couple of ways to soften the bran and get better rise. The easiest is just a long cold ferment overnight. Alternately, you could sift out the bran, make a mash out of it with hot water, then incorporate in. This is a pain, so I don't do it. Finally, until I started using a cloche, I never got an oven spring I was happy with. Now I preheat it in the oven to 525F and let it soak a bit, then add the bread and put the lid on the cloche, then cut the temp to 450F. After 30m, remove the lid and cook to internal temp of 195-200.

Home-milled flour, whether one uses a stone mill or an impact mill, includes every bit of the grain; including the germ.

Commercially produced flour is mostly roller-milled, which means a "whole wheat" flour is actually reconstituted from the various fractions of endosperm and bran produced by the roller mills, without any of the germ.

Flour fineness also matters. Some commercially produced flours are finer than my Komo mill can produce. Others, like Hodgson Mills, are coarser than I mill my flour. That kind of variation in flour fineness makes it tough to pronounce any definitive answer.

Large milling companies can blend a variety of source grains to achieve the traits they want in the finished flour. You and I typically work with just one batch of grain at a time, so we have to live with whatever that particular grain's strengths or weaknesses might be.

For best results with whole wheat flour, whether store-bought or home-milled, there are three things that seem to help the finished bread:

Adequate hydration - This will vary from one flour to another but the finished dough should be moist and somewhat tacky.
Autolyse - I'd recommend anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes to allow the bran to absorb water.
Extended mixing - txfarmer, a once-prolific member here and an extraordinary baker, recommended mixing whole-wheat doughs for upwards of 25 minutes to produce a dough that would expand well and have a tender crumb.

Paul

Another thing to consider when following a recipe is that commercially milled flour in the US uses wheat berries (for example) that are soaked in water to a 14% hydration level for easier milling. The 14% hydration used to appear on the flour bag, not sure if it still does. European milled flours generally aren't soaked and have a 0% hydration level.

Dave

I'm not sure, if 0% is technically possible. Afaik the wheat should be harvested between 15%-20% (?) moisture. Or something similar. The water content in the grains stored before milling will for sure not drop to 0%.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure, the European mills add also some water to make the separation of endosperm, germ and hull easier. If you take a closer look at different data sheets of European flours, they always have a certain humidity level. Usually 14% - 15.5% Unfortunately only few mills make the measurements and publish them.

Thanks for the info, sparkfan. I did not know that about European harvesting.

I haven't spoken to any US millers in a couple of years, but was told the soaking was to facilitate separation, as you mention.

The harvesters seem to want the driest plants, not only to work well with the machinery, but most importantly to avoid having the grain sprout, activating enzymes. I honestly don't know what moisture level that would be.

Dave

Thanks for all the feedback! I’m in the process of making two whole wheat sandwich loves side by side right now. One with KA whole wheat flour, and one with fresh ground Palouse hard white wheat. I immediately noticed that the Palouse wheat ground much better than the red fife that I used the other day. The bran on the red fife did not grind well. We’ll see how these two loaves compare later tonight!