White Flour Project - Second Milling

For the few and the brave following this march to insanity, I did a second milling of white flour today.

This time, I followed the same process as in the first milling run, but after removing about 20% of the bran weight, cranked the mill down to its finest setting and milled what remained.

I then sifted through my #100 sieve (0.06" openings) and got a tiny bit of pure white flour.  I returned what remained in the sieve to the mill and remilled it (at the same setting).  After six passes this way, small flecks of bran began to sift through and I stopped the process.

What did I get for this? Pure white flour.  Looking at it and feeling it, I am unable to tell it from my King Arthur All Purpose - which may be good, or not.

For this I paid a price.  I was only able to get 15 oz of flour from 2 pounds of wheat berries.  What was left behind was not all bran, but it was milled to a silky texture.  I believe the French term for this is remoullage.  And that's certainly what I did - I remilled it.

Again, we wait.  Despite folklore on "within 72 hours or then it must be aged" the explanation that I accept about flour aging seems not to support this practice.  If we are trying to get oxygen to bond with certain molecules in the flour, I don't know why they would get an exemption from this for 72 hours.  Be back in 4 weeks...

Anyone with suggestions on how I might change my process to get a higher yield is most welcome to comment.  After all - I'm just making this up as I go along.

Now I really must get to milling the high extraction flour for my bake this week.

Happy Milling!