Hi. I’m new to milling my own flour. I have a MockMill 100 and purchased various wheat berries to use primarily for bread baking. I’ve made a few unsuccessful loaves using different recipes…all have been undercooked in the middle and also cratered during cooking. I’m not sure what the problem is. I have adjusted the recipes to accommodate the fresh milled berries instead of store bought flour. Also, for one of my attempts, I used sprouted hard white wheat berries and that loaf was particularly bad. Any advise on would be helpful. Also wondering if there is something to be done differently if you use purchased sprouted wheat berries as opposed to unsprouted wheat berries. Thanks for any help.
When I transitioned to home-milling, I didn’t find a difference in flour performance except that my home-milled flour was a tiny bit more thirsty than the flour produced by Breadtopia’s large stone mill. Are you also transitioning to using whole grain flour exclusively for the first time as well as home-milled? The whole grain aspect may be the bigger learning curve.
Either way, it sounds like maybe the dough is over-fermenting – I’m going off the “cratered during baking” description you give. Whole grain flour ferments faster than refined flour, and sprouted whole grain flour even faster.
If you’re following a recipe that gives time parameters, try to ignore them in favor of looking at the dough, and keep in mind that there will be fewer bubbles on the surface of a whole grain dough, even if it is very developed and webby inside.
If you haven’t already seen this blog post, it may be a helpful read for understanding different flours.
Here is a blog post with a lot of whole grain dough process photos that show when I end the bulk fermentation and the final proof, some home-milled flour and some not.
More process photos - this blog has a 100% home milled yecora rojo bread and the comparable process on a 50:50 version with bread flour.
All home-milled, mix of sprouted spelt and not sprouted hard red spring wheat.
Here’s a loaf that is all sprouted wheat, but sifted and milled by Breadtopia.
Thanks so much for your help including all the resources you’ve shared. I had not seen some of them before. I’m gearing up to attempt bread baking again. I took a bit of a break out of feeling frustrated with poor results and also we were experience an extreme heat wave here in Colorado that caused me not to want to use the oven…(no AC here). In the meantime I have been reading two books…Flour Lab…and Beard on Bread. Both have been helpful. There is so much to this beautiful art…and I upped my learning curve by attempting to bake with a sourdough starter, fresh milled flour of varying types (hard white wheat, spelt, sprouted hard white wheat) in addition to having to adjust time for high altitude baking (I’m at 55oo ft). The other thing I have been trying is partially using my stand alone mixer dough hook to do some of the kneading. I think it’s just too many new things at once that caused the flops. I’m determined to make some great bread though and may attempt some today. I’ll keep you posted.
It definitely helps to change one variable at a time. Enjoy that cool weather!