I recently received 5 lb of Red Fife berries when I bought a Mockmill 100 from our Breadtopia hosts. I love the Mockmill but I’m equally enthusiastic about the Red Fife. I’ve used it a few times in different doughs now at (baker’s percent) 30-40% with 5% medium rye along with high gluten bread flour, 70-75% hydration, and 20% native levain. The included pics are of the first loaf I made with freshly milled Red Fife at 40% The results bring rave reviews from family and friends and I’ll definitely be ordering more Red Fife berries.
That looks awesome, @cliff.swanson! I love my Mockmill 100 and I keep a 5# bag each of rye berries, turkey red and/or red fife berries (I really like them both equally so it just depends on my mood and whim of baking) and white wheat berries in my freezer. Before grinding in my Mockmill I just let them come to room temperature to make sure there’s no condensation on them before putting them through the mill. Apparently you can ruin your mill stones if they get wet so I err on the side of caution and after measuring out my whole grain I let it come totally to room temperature before proceeding with my recipes. I haven’t tried the seeded bread yet. I need to get some seeds before indulging in a seeded loaf, LOL! I’m sure your bread tastes great. It looks awesome!
Leah
Thanks for your comments, Leah. I’m very happy with my Mockmill as well.
I’ve always put sesame, pumpkin, and sunflower seeds in most breads I make. I think theflavor and texture they add are very satisfying, not to mention the nutritional benefits as well. Some folks roast and/or pre-soak seeds, but I’ve not found that simply adding them into a dough without either procedure works just fine for me. I mix the flours and water and let that dough autolyse for 40ish minutes, then fold in the seeds with the levain, salt, and a little honey.
Have fun,
Cliff
I happen to love sesame, pumpkin and sunflower seeds! A trip to the store will be needed in the near future, LOL!
Leah
Great! I buy all of them in bulk from the local Whole Foods.
My typical bread doughs are 500 grams of flour in total, and to that I fold in about 75 g (~1/2 cup) of each of the seeds.
Have fun,
Cliff
That’s a really nice looking loaf.
I also have a Mockmill 100. I love the flavor of the fresh-milled red fife. I use it for almost all of my bread baking. I find it has enough gluten to give a good oven spring and relatively open crumb, but without any of the bitterness that often surfaces in conventional whole grain hard red wheat.
Thanks for your comment, Paul. I have never used hard red wheat so find your perspective on its flavor profile interesting. Thanks for sharing.
Cliff
Hard red wheat is pretty much the standard from which roller milled bread flour is made. Your “high gluten bread flour” is hard red wheat. When it is roller milled into conventional white flour, all of the bran and germ is removed and the only thing left is the starch. It’s very easy to work with and the bitter flavor I mentioned is in the germ and bran so you don’t get that flavor with white flour which is mostly a sweet flavor (because starch is basically sugar). But it’s also not the best from a nutritional standpoint.
Although it’s more challenging to get good results, for nutritional reasons (and also because I enjoy the more complex flavors available), I’m on the whole grain bandwagon. If interested, you can see the basic whole grain bread method I use (which is mostly fresh milled whole red fife) in this Breadtopia recipe post:
I am learning a lot here at Breadtopia, thanks to everyone sharing thier work, and… always makes me hungry and so many things to try like this loaf. I am especially interested in the whole grain bakes, and very intrigued by the 100% rye bakes (sometime down the road). I do not have the MockMill, just the Kitchenaid adapter to grind with, or cobble up a quern stone 
thank you @cliff.swanson
Tim
Thanks for the post, Paul. You’re certainly right about the bread flour being hard red wheat. I mistook the original reference to mean whole grain rather than roller milled.
I also habitually perform long cold bulk ferments but not to the degree outlined in the recipe you included. I think I’ll try my hand at something like 60% Red Fife soon. 83% hydration! WOW!
Cliff
Thanks for your comment, Tim.
Have fun,
Cliff
Whole grain flour tends to be “thirstier” than roller milled flour, so 83% hydration with 100% whole grain flour is not as un-manageable as it might sound. I’d guess it would be equivalent to maybe something around 70% hydration with white flour.