Wheat Grinding For Beginners

December 19, 2014 By JulieLeave a Comment

How do you make flour out of wheat?

A few years ago, I wouldn’t have had an answer for you as I’d never heard of anyone outside of the history books making their own flour. It wasn’t until after I made the decision to live a more self-reliant life that I learned about grain mills. But still, not having a mill of my own, I didn’t have much knowledge to share.

So, recently, when a wonderful opportunity arose to try my hand at making flour, I jumped at the chance. As part of the Grain Mill Wagon Challenge, I was given a WonderMill Grain Mill and challenged to make 3 recipes using whole grain flours milled by the WonderMill.

You’ll hear more about how I fared during the challenge later, but for now, let’s take a look at why you should consider making your own flour and how you go about doing it.

What Are The Benefits?

If this is the first time you’re hearing of someone grinding their own wheat, the question that comes to mind is Why do it? Why not just buy flour from the store?

Cost, flavor and variety are a few of the benefits, but more importantly, grinding wheat kernels, known as wheat berries creates flour of optimum nutrition and freshness.

Nutritious Flour

To understand why grinding wheat berries creates a more nutritious flour than store-bought flour, let’s take a minute to talk about what a wheat berry is. Colleen of the blog, Five Little Homesteaders gives us a biology lesson in her article, Types of Flour: Understanding Different Wheat Flours…

The wheat berry has three parts: the germ, the endosperm and the bran. I found this graphic to be very helpful.

  • The endosperm makes up a large portion of the interior space of the wheat berry. This is the part of the wheat berry that makes up white/all purpose flour.
  • The bran is the exterior portion/lining of the wheat berry.
  • The germ is the embryo or section of the berry that will sprout if planted.

As mentioned above, all purpose flour is made up entirely of the endosperm section of the wheat berry. The bran and germ have been stripped away and separated to make white flour.

White flour and most whole wheat flour found in the grocery store is nutritionally inferior to flour from home ground wheat berries due to the processing. Marleeta F. Basey, author of Flour Power: A Guide to Modern Home Grain Milling explains in an article for Mother Earth News…

When compared to freshly ground whole-wheat flour, white flour is way less nutritious. Even white flour that has been “enriched” still shows significant losses in 15 of 22 nutrients. Under the U.S. government’s mandatory “enrichment” program started in May 1941, certain vitamins and minerals that are deemed potentially deficient in the American diet are added to flour and related products. In fact, white flour contains more of these synthetic nutrients than were present in the original grain. No attempt, however, is made to replace the most important component lost in milling — insoluble fiber. Few people realize that the “whole wheat” used in many commercially packaged products (with the exception of such companies as Bob’s Red Mill, King Arthur Flour and Arrowhead Mills) is processed exactly like white flour. The nutrient-rich, darker-colored bran, germ and endosperm are mechanically separated then recombined into “whole wheat” according to a formula that varies by brand but that rarely mimics Mother Nature’s balance.

Fresh Flour

Once wheat berries are ground into flour, they lose their freshness and nutritional value pretty quickly. Daisy of The Organic Prepper blog explains in her article, Wheat Berries: The Real “Whole Wheat”…

…within 24 hours of being cracked open and ground, 60% of the beneficial nutrients in a kernel of wheat have vanished due to oxidization. Within 3 days, more than 80% of the nutrients are gone. I know that in my own kitchen, I’ve had bags of flour that sat on a shelf in my pantry for months at a time.

Not only does flour lose its nutritional value, it begins going rancid very quickly – 3-6 months for whole wheat flour and approximately a year for processed white flour. Rancidity occurs when the oils begin to oxidize. Not only do foods made from rancid products taste less appealing, the rancidity is actually quite dangerous.

Knowing this, you have to ask yourself, how can a bag of flour that has travelled from the processing plant to the grocery store where it sat on a shelf for an unknown length of time be nutritionally better for me than fresh flour I could make at home?

Which brings me to another point: When you’re building your food storage, wheat is the way to go. Properly stored in ideal conditions, wheat lasts a long, long time (up to 30 years) versus the shorter shelf life of flour.

Which Type of Wheat Berries Should I Use?

When I went to purchase wheat berries, I found out that there are several types available. Confused, I had no idea which type I needed. After some research, I learned that wheat is categorized based on hardness, color of the kernels and by planting time. In the United States, there are predominately six classes or types:

  • Hard Red Winter—wheat withmoderately high protein content; good choice for breads and hard rolls.
  • Hard Red Spring—one of the hardest wheats which results in a high protein content; good choice for rolls, croissants, bagels and pizza crust.
  • Hard White Winter—the newest class of wheat and similar to hard red winter; good choice for whole wheat bread, pan breads, and flat breads.
  • Soft Red Winter—alow protein wheat; good choice for general purpose flour
  • Soft White Spring—similar to Soft Red Winter wheat but with a slightly sweeter flavor; good choice for cakes and pastries.
  • Durum—thehardest of all wheats; used to make pasta

I recommend you go ahead and experiment a little. Use all one type or combine types to get a texture and flavor you love.

Where To Buy Wheat Berries

If you have a health food store near you, it will probably sell some type of wheat berries. I found hard red winter wheat berries at both Whole Foods and Earth Fare. If you need a small quantity, immediately, this is the way to go.

For the best prices and larger quantities, an online source may be your best option. Amazon.com carries just about everything and yes, it even carries wheat berries. I purchased a 5-pound bag of soft white here. You can also buy wheat berries from food storage companies (like Emergency Essentials) in cans and buckets—already packaged for your long-term storage needs.

How To Grind Wheat Berries

When I first heard of people grinding their own wheat, I thought that’s gotta be complicated. The truth is, with an electric grinder it couldn’t be easier.

  • Step 1: Measure the amount of wheat berries you need.
  • Step 2: Turn on the wheat grinder.
  • Step 3: Pour the wheat berries into the wheat grinder and wait.

In less than 5 minutes, you’ll have fresh, fluffy flour.

Simple, right?

In addition to electric mills, there are manual mills available. These aren’t quite as easy but they would be definitely useful if you are without power for any length of time.

How Much Wheat To Grind For One Cup of Flour

The first time I ground wheat, I used a 1:1 ratio—1 cup of wheat berries for 1 cup of flour—and I ended up with more flour than the recipe called for. Turns out there is a guideline you can follow: One cup of wheat berries yields approximately 1 ½ cups flour. And if at anytime, you end up with too much flour, like I did, no worries. Put it in the freezer for future use.