Mochiko Sweet Rice Flour
how do you get fresh wheat?
You buy them as wheat kernels or "wheat berries". You can get it locally, order it online from a retailer, or get it straight from a farm. There's a pretty good list here:
It’s hard for bakers to source flour right now. But there are small farmers and millers all over the world who have both grains and flour available.
challengerbreadware.com
It lasts between 10 to 30 years, depending on how you store it:
How to Properly Store Grains Long Term Paleo diet gurus argue that people should not consume grains because 10,000 years is not long enough for the human digestive system to adapt. That is a rather extreme viewpoint, especially when you look at growing evidence that grains have been part of the...
readywise.com
There are many different types of wheat to choose from (soft white, hard red, emmer, einkorn, etc.). This is a fairly new game for me, as I usually just stick with AP flour & sometimes bread flour, which is typically bleached & enriched to make it shelf-stable:
More on the history of flour here:
flour.com
The problem with grinding your own wheat is that it has oil in it, which causes it to go rancid in a few days, which is why mills have to grind & then treat the flour to make it shelf stable. Grinding at home using wheat kernels produces fresh wheat, which has several advantages:
1. It has more nutrition in it, so it's healthier
2. It has more flavor
3. It smells better
4. Because you can buy it in bulk & store it for a really long time, you get food security (#preppers lol)
I don't really know enough about milling at home to know if this can replace AP flour for all of my baking. Been doing a lot of reading lately:
Ready to learn how to make homemade whole wheat pastry flour with a home grain mill? It's easy, and there are so many uses for freshly-ground pastry flour... from muffins and flatbreads to cake and cookies. Watch, listen, or read to learn what kind of wheat you'll need to make DIY pastry flour...
traditionalcookingschool.com
But because $1,200 magically came into my life & I'm fortunate enough to be able to work remotely during these crazy times so that I still have an income, I decided to blow some of it on the mill. There are a lot of residential milling machines on the market; the Mock Mill in particular has a new-style design that uses stones (two stone discs, like a sandwich with the grain in the middle) to crush the wheat berries into a very fine flour. It comes in a residential & "pro" version, with either a small motor or a big motor. The base unit starts at $279 & the high-end unit is $659. I went with the top-end model, the Pro 200:
A POWERFUL MILL Freshly-milled flour at any time with the Mockmill Easy to operate Simple to clean Stepless adjustment of the settings…
mockmill.com
Justification, because I am a nerd:
1. It has a mega 12-year residential-use warranty
2. It has an output of 200 grams or 7 ounces per minute, so no waiting around forever for it to work
3. It can run non-stop because it has a cooling system built-in
4. It is easy to clean (just run some white rice through it, that's it!)
5. It is super convenient to use, due to the hi-speed & easy cleanup, which means (1) it's earned a permanent spot on my admittedly limited counter space, and (2) it will get used on a near-daily basis
Contrary to external appearances, I'm actually not that skilled of a cook, I just like convenience tools (Instant Pot etc.) & have gotten good at checklists (which is more or less the secret to doing anything, really). So the more I can make myself apt to use something because it's quick, easy, and convenient, the more I'll actually make stuff with it because I don't have to set things up & do a bunch of work. Proactive laziness FTW!
So far I have milled flour, corn, and rice. The corn makes the machine get stuck, but after watching a video on it, you have to do big things like seeds on the a rougher setting & then run it back through on a finer setting, that way the stones don't get stuck trying to grind hard stuff that's too big to fit between them. The list of stuff you can grind is pretty awesome:
1. All 7 types of grain (wheat, rye, oats, barley, corn, brown & white rice, millet and the respective subtypes such as spelt)
2. Kamut
3. Quinoa
4. Amaranth
5. Triticale
6. Dry legumes
7. Durum
8. Beans
9. Buckwheat
10. Chickpea
11. Corn
12. Lentils
13. Oil seeds, if done together with dry grains
14. Peas
15. Sorghum
16. Teff
17. Spices & herbs (anise, annato, coriander, cumin, dill, fennel, mustard, peppercorns, red pepper flakes, salt, etc.)
18. Probably some more stuff I haven't discovered yet
This machine is actually a pretty big piece of the kitchen self-sufficiency program I've been working on over the years. It started back with a coffee grinder...I'm not a coffee guy, but the Krups grinder did an excellent job grinding spices. The latest model actually has a removable cup, which makes it even more handy:
I got into dehydrating & then started grinding up some of my own stuff, especially after taking a spice-cooking class & realizing how much flavor I was missing out on. Then I discovered Indian food stores, which sold bulk spices for cheap! Huuuuuge flavor difference when stuff is freshly-ground! I eventually sprung for a good mortar & pestle as well. Over time I collected a few more gadgets, like a Philips Smart Pasta Maker (very interested to see how fresh wheat extrudes on that bad boy) & a cast-iron tortilla press, so that I could use flour bought in bulk (just picked up a 20-pound sack of flour from Sam's Club for $7) to make stuff at home.
I'm super excited to use the ground corn this weekend for stuff like polenta, grits, cornbread, and corndogs. Lots of projects for wheat (breads, tortillas, cookies, etc.). I'm curious to see if I can replicate Mochiko's Sweet Rice Flour as well, for things like mochi, sesame balls, etc. as well.
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