You’ve listened to Sue’s workshop; or heard Sue speak at a seminar, home school curriculum fair workshop, or a Saturday cooking class; or your friend/neighbor/spouse convinced you that milling your own flour and making your own bread is what you need to do for you and your family, AND you want to get started – THIS IS THE PLACE TO START!
WHAT YOU NEED TO START
* A Grain Mill (required)
* A Mixer (optional)
* Cookbook
* Wheat (required)
* Other Ingredients (optional)
* HELP! (optional)
* Pricing (estimate to start)
FIRST, THE MILL
You need a mill to make the fresh flour to reap the benefits of the whole wheat. You need a mill: electric or manual. The electric mill will allow you to mill faster with less effort, and produce finer flour. The manual mills will work when the lights go out; but will take longer, more effort, and produce a coarser flour.
Nutrimill OR Wondermill – We recommend getting an electric mill, either the Nutrimill or the Wondermill . You can pick it up at our store, OR we can ship it anywhere IN THE CONTINENTAL USA.
Don’t want an electric mill? We carry three different manual mills:
The Country Living Grain Mill The Country Living will grind the finest of the hand mills; but not as fine as the Whisper Mill. It also costs more. Takes about 15 minutes to grind 7-8 cups of flour (enough for our three-loaf recipe).
Wonder Junior Hand Mill Deluxe
Family Grain Mill System
COOKBOOK
If you need recipes specifically for fresh, whole wheat flour, get our “Bread Becker’s Recipe Collection. Everything in it is tried and true.
Want to know more about the healthful benefits of grains? Get “Grains of Truth” by Donna Spann Donna explains 13 different grains, and includes a few recipes on how to use them.
MIXERS
The ingredients for bread can be mixed in a large bowl, AND the dough can be kneaded by hand. BUT, few people will take the time to make a lot of bread, by hand, every week! Get a mixer if you want home made bread part of your lifestyle.
It must be a heavy-duty mixer; whole wheat flour is very thick (it has all the fiber in it that they take out of the store-bought bread!). Newer American made mixers will not hold up (according to our customers who have tried them). The older (10+ years) Kitchen Aid will work if you can find one. But, why not get a mixer designed for the job? The mixer can be used for your general mixing needs as well as making bread dough.
The Ankarsrum Original Assistent (Electrolux/Magic Mill Assistent)- This is the closest thing to a commercial mixer you can buy. It’s made by Ankarsrum of Sweden. It can mix and knead up to 9 loaves worth of dough at a time. The Ankarsrum uses a roller and scraper assembly to mix and knead the dough in a manner that is closer to hand kneading.
YOU NEED WHEAT
To make a yeast bread, you will need hard red or hard white wheat. For pastries, pancakes, biscuits, or any baking powder/baking soda recipe, you can use a soft white wheat (the hard wheat can be used for these recipes, but the soft wheat will be lighter).
If you can, get a bucket of hard red wheat AND a bucket of hard white wheat. Experiment, see which type your family likes best. OR, get a bucket of one type and ask for a few pounds of the other. The red has the “nutty” flavor we all associate with whole wheat. The white wheat is milder than the red, and is more suitable for breads with toppings or fillings, or where you don’t want to taste as much of the bread (our Ruben Bread and Turkey-Sausage Bread are stuffed; pizza and coffee cake have toppings; French bread and cakes taste better with white wheat).
Click here to shop these items in our online store or sign up for a class and get started today!