Milling what grain best replaces bread flour

[sjm1027]

Milling whole grains,

I purchased a mill and now need to know what grain is best to replace my KA bread flour.
Thanks

[homebreadbaker (Paul)]

Here is an answer to a similar question on this forum:

Create AP Flour from whole grain

“AP Flour” like the white all purpose flour that you can buy in a grocery store is not created by sifting stone ground whole flour. It is created by milling wheat with a modern roller mill, an industrial mill created to mill very fine and specifically to separate all the bran and germ away from the endosperm (starch) in wheat. White flour is essentially very finely milled, 100% endosperm with effectively zero bran and germ. If you home mill (using a countertop stone grain mill) whole berries an…

What I wrote in there applies also to white bread flour like KA bread flour.

Unless I am misunderstanding your question, the main take-away from that answer is that you are never going to get anything at all like roller-milled white bread flour from a countertop stone mill that yields a whole grain flour. If you just want to be milling the same kind of wheat that KA uses, you can buy some hard red wheat berries, but the flour you mill at home in a countertop stone grain mill is not going to be anything remotely like the white flour you get from KA. It’s just a totally different thing. It tastes different, performs different, requires different preparation techniques.

[sjm1027]

Thanks, I guess I didn’t think it was that cut and dry. I wanted to purchase 25 pounds of hard white, hard red and blend with other flour to make my sourdough bread. I was hoping to stop buying bread flour and mill my own bread flours.
Thanks

[homebreadbaker (Paul)]

You absolutely, totally should do that!

I am of the opinion that whole grain bread from home milled flour is far better (taste wise, nutrition wise) than what you get baking with store bought white flour.

But if you have never baked bread with whole grain flour before, don’t do it expecting that the home-milled, whole grain flour is going to be a drop-in replacement for roller-milled white bread flour. It’s just a totally different beast and you have to make allowances for those differences in your techniques.

There are a lot of good articles about baking whole grain bread on this site. Here are a few:

100% Whole Wheat Bread

Traditional Whole Grain Sourdough

Whole Spelt Sourdough Bread

How to Get an Open Crumb with Whole Grain Sourdough Bread

Whole Grain Sourdough Rustic Country Loaf

[SingKevin]

I preface this by admitting that I do not have a home mill. However, I like to experiment with different flours and have bought milled flours from here and elsewhere that I believe are representative of what you will get by home milling.

I can’t disagree with anything said above, but I will add the I find baking with good milled whole wheats from the Breadtopia store or similar to be much easier that baking with large commercial brands of whole wheat flour. Because I find it easier, I tend to use a higher percentage of whole wheat and this helps with the flavor of my bread considerably. Red Fife is a personal favorite.

Also, if you really want to replicate KA flour (excluding the malted barley flour they include in many of their flours), using flour sifters (such as those in the Breadtopia store or available on Amazon) will get you pretty close.

[Jacky97 (Florence Bellamy)]

Try the Red Fife grains. Milled as fine as I could get it, at home in a recipe, I found this to behave like bread flour! I did not use any enhancements to make the whole wheat rise. It rose all on its own and is very tasty.

[sjm1027]

Thank you! Did you sift it at all?

[MSweazey]

I understand what SJM is asking. I got a mill for Christmas a couple of years ago, and was very excited about milling my own flour since I lived about 20 minutes from Bread Beckers, an excellent baking supply store near Atlanta. I went down, bought a bunch of wheat berries, milled it, and then baked my first loaf. Not surprisingly (in hindsight), if I would have thrown it (had it not been too heavy to lift), it could have been lethal!

Strangely, all of the answers, including when I returned to the store, to my question of creating healthier, whole wheat flour similar to what I was used to were obtuse to say the least. (And they seemed tinged with a bit of a “why on Earth would you want to replicate that evil processed stuff anyway” attitude.)

I know that, before the advent of highly processed commercial baking, people were milling their own flour and baking loaves that weren’t heavy, dense, and all dark whole wheat. It seems that it could be a fairly straightforward answer to “How can I make the bread I did with KA flour from my home-milled flour?” but it seems like some are very reluctant to give that answer. (I’m not casting aspersions on people in this forum or judging the quality of the answers, I’m just relating what it can feel like to be that newbie miller.) The trauma of that first loaf has faded, and I’m about ready to pull the mill off the shelf because, honestly I live in a new house where it is easier to get to, and I now live in Amish country so I am inspired. Hopefully, I can figure it out!

Cheers,

Michael

[sjm1027]

Yes, that is exactly what I was trying to ask. I would hope there is a way even if it’s sifting flour to make my breads taller without going back to KA’s bread flour

[MSweazey]

I think one thing that can be done is to add gluten to the flour to give it more structure so that it can hold more air when it proofs. When I start playing around again, I’ll keep you updated on how mine are coming out.

[sjm1027]

Good idea, Thanks I will try extra gluten as well and post.