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Friday, January 13, 2012

Time to move on I think.

Trying to make bread with sprouted wheat flour

After filling a gallon jar with dehydrated sprouted wheat berries last week, I spent this week trying to bake a good loaf of bread with them...most of which went out to the chickens, cause they were a total failure. *sigh* I've never had so much trouble baking bread before but as you will see below, this week has not been a good week in my kitchen.

Wheat Grinder

I used to grind my flour with this hand crank grinder. I still have it and love it, but last fall my Mom took pity on me, and how busy I was with canning and trying to keep things going in the garden, barn & house by giving me an electric grinder that had been my Grandma's.

Trying to make bread with sprouted wheat flour

It has been such a blessing the last few months, and made it easier to keep up with making bread in the busy times, as well as saving my arm for churning butter instead of having to crank out the flour for bread. LOL Thanks Mom for this wonderful gift! :)

Trying to make bread with sprouted wheat flour

I ground the sprouted wheat into flour with the electric grinder, it seemed to take a little longer, but came out just fine, looking like flour to me.

Trying to make bread with sprouted wheat flour

I made the bread and got it into the pans...and it looked beautiful. I could tell it was a little different when I was working with it, but it was looking good...so I had high hopes.

Trying to make bread with sprouted wheat flour

They were quickly dashed when I got the bread out, and tried to get it out of the pans. It stuck more...and with the flour making the bread more fragile, it broke apart easily...so didn't get out of the pan looking very well. It also wasn't done in the middle...although that's hard to see in this photo. :(

Trying to make bread with sprouted wheat flour

In order to get the middle done, the outside had to be over brown...which doesn't make for a very good loaf in my opinion. I prefer a soft, moist loaf of bread...and this wasn't going to be that way. There was a big hole in the top of it too, right under the top crust. Needless to say, not a good loaf.

Trying to make bread with sprouted wheat flour

I tried baking a good loaf of bread with sprouted wheat flour several times this week, and this one was editable...but that's all I could say for it. It too was drier, and crusty and smaller than normal.

Needless to say, I'm ready to move on...I hate to say give up exactly, because I can't say for sure I won't try again to make a loaf out of sprouted wheat flour, but...for now I'm going to try to forget about it, and learn to make sour dough bread. Hopefully it will turn out better for me. LOL

Maybe I can use the sprouted wheat flour (if I make more...since I used the gallon jar I had made last week, playing with dough this week) for other things that doesn't involve yeast...or added to sour dough, or soaked dough to have a flour to keep the dough from sticking to the counter, that is more healthy...but for now, it's going on the back burner so I can move on to something else that will hopefully work better for me.

For me, sprouted wheat used for bread baking took longer to bake, which means the bread got dried out more and had a thicker harder crust. It was hard to tell when it was actually "done" cause I couldn't go by how "brown" it was, which doesn't make it a good fit for my kitchen...least not for bread.

Hopefully I have better luck with sour dough...which is the next "class" I'm going to go through on gnowfglins.com. I've really enjoyed the classes so far, and even if this one section of the class didn't work for me...I've still gotten a lot of other good things out of them. I've not exactly done everything in the classes yet...and kinda skipped around some, but...I'm having fun when I get the time to play...even if I do have major flops from time to time. LOL The cheese I've tried has been yummy at least, I'm especially loving the cream cheese cause I found a chicken dish that uses cream cheese that is my new favorite way to have chicken now...so I gotta keep that cream cheese on hand! LOL

Sorry for such a long post and all the photos...just wanted to update everyone on how things went with my sprouted wheat of last week...even though they didn't go well. Hopefully if you try it yourself, you will have better luck. If you do...let me know what you did, so maybe I can do it too, I do hate to totally "give up"!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!:-))

6 comments:

  1. You succeeded with getting a whole lot further than me, Deb. Can't claim it as failure! I've never even tried it. And I am floored by the sight of those wheat grinders! Wish you'd do a post about those grinders - where you get, and what kind of, grain you've used. Sounds like fun! Bet it makes all the baking taste lots better, too! Hang in there! Have a great weekend!

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    1. I'll try to keep in mind to do a post about the grinders in the next couple weeks...on one of the days I have nothing to say, which seems to be a lot lately. LOL Thanks for the idea. :)

      As for grain, I've only ever done wheat in them...don't use many other grains in flour form so far, should try to branch out I suppose...but I'm kinda slow at changing. LOL I do love being able to grind my own wheat though! :)

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  2. Anonymous9:06 PM

    It makes "breaking bread" easy. (:-))

    Dad

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    1. LOL yeah, it was real easy...darn stuff. :)

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  3. She just wanted to spoile the chickens. They come up to the door and ask for it, now - since they got it so often this week!

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  4. At least you have chickens to get it to, so it didn't go to waste. You're very patient though, as I wouldn't keep trying. *lol*

    http://multipleblessings.wordpress.com/

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