Homemade bread

Yesterday I baked some bread using hard red winter wheat that we'd milled ourselves. It took less than an hour to get a little less than 4 cups of flour using our Victorio grain mill. By the time we finished milling, our arms felt rubbery and tired! That hand-cranked grain mill sure gives a great workout.

I used a bread/roll recipe that I've made several times already. It has always given me delicious, light and fluffy dinner rolls, but I have had a bit of trouble with it when I made a loaf. Yesterday was the first time that I'd used only whole wheat flour to make the bread, and I was worried.

The result: kind of dense, heavy whole wheat bread. I've been searching for some help in troubleshooting my initial problems with this type of bread. Firstly, I haven't made 100% whole wheat bread made with home-milled wheat berries. Secondly, I never know when enough kneading is enough.

I've figured out that there might have been a few problems. First, I may need to increase the amount of vital wheat gluten that I added. I added 1.5 teaspoons per cup of flour, as instructed on the box, but I might need to add just a pinch more per cup.

I may need to knead more. I think I only knead for a few minutes, so maybe I should increase that and be more aggressive. Maybe throw the dough down a couple times onto the counter.

Finally, I may need to learn to add LESS flour. I'm always tempted to add more because the dough seems wet, but I completely forgot that with the recipe I use, I should not be looking for a completely smooth dough ball. I should have left it slightly moist.

Well, that was yesterday's bread-making adventure. I'll try to remedy the three problems I've outlined in the next run, and we'll see if my 100% whole wheat (made with home-milled wheat) experience gets better.