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Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Corona Mill for whole grain bread-store what you eat and eat what you store

I wanted to try something different and also use up some old storage food so I got my trusty Corona mill out and dusted it off. I like to practice doing different things with it like grinding different grains and beans to make new recipes I've read. Over the years I must have downloaded a hundred cookbooks and recipe books. I have a good selection on making different breads and I had a craving for some whole wheat bread. It was time to rotate some grain. I have about 10 pounds each of hard red winter wheat and triticale in the pantry that needed used up soon. I found a very simple wheat bread recipe and I substituted half the wheat with the triticale. Now, the Corona isn't made to make flour of the fineness that you buy in the store. It was originally made to grind corn which is a staple in Central and South American cooking. In other words it grinds coarse. This is fine and after running the grains through the Corona three times I had the desired size of grain I wanted. It is equal in size to the grains in real whole wheat bread you pay too much for at the grocery store. You can set the "tightness" of the grinding plate faces incrementally as you go from very coarse to the finest it will grind.
Triticale is a hybrid grain. Its a cross between wheat and rye and the grains even look like wheat. In the raw the grain looks just like a light colored wheat grain. Not at all like hard red winter or spring wheat. It has a different taste, somewhat like rye bread, that my wife and I both enjoy.
I don't have a regular grain mill that is capable of making flour but thats not a real big problem for now. I'll probably pick up one of those hand powered "country living" ones. I don't like the idea of having to depend on anything electric for when things go south. Who knows how long till powers restored? I buy whole wheat flour by the 25 pound bag and keep it airtight and cool so it lasts a good long time. I only use a little of the store bought flour to give anything I bake a little body. The recipe called for 3 3/4 cups of flour but I used about 3/4 cup and the whole grain made up the difference. I still have about 1 1/2 pound of the ground grain left over for more baking. It keeps well in the refrigerator for a few days. It came out very good and we ate well tonight.

 Heres the set up. I switched the round bowl to a square bowl to better catch the grindings.

 This is the bowl of grain after the third setting and grinding. The mill face is set as tight as it will go.

 This is a close up of the ground grain.

 Clean up. There was very little waste-about half a teaspoon of grain and flour.

 Yum.

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