Making Home Ground Wheat Bread by FLAG

I love homemade bread, rolls, buns, bread sticks and muffins. The smell of homemade breads bring back many memories of my childhood and of my grandmother. My grandma Pearl is the one who took the time to teach me how to make whole wheat bread. I remember being in her kitchen and kneading the dough until the gluten was worked properly. She taught me what it felt like to have the right texture to have a good bread. We used to use large juice cans to make the bread. The loaves came out round. I always thought it was fun to have the bread as the same shape as bologna. Since those days that she has taught me, I have purchased my own wheat grinder and bread machine. I use my Bosch mixer to kneed my bread now since I have a large family and have much to do. I love the idea of being able to have my memories of my grandma, give future memories to my children and have my family eating healthy. Plus meals taste good with some type of bread and they are so inexpensive to make. If you are a busy person, which most people are now a days, there are recipes that can be made and frozen for future meals. I try to do all my baking on one day and freeze the bread for those busy nights I have to get dinner on the table fast and out the door again. There are many types of bread, rolls and tortilla recipes that our family really enjoy. If you don’t have experience making bread or rolls from scratch like many people, I would suggest using store bought white flour. When using white flour it is easier to work the gluten. I suggest that you make your first few loaves with just white flour. When you gain confidence with making white bread, add half fresh ground whole red or white ground flour. When making bread from all whole grain flours it is a little heavier bread and the gluten needs to be worked longer. Once I got confidence in myself, I have had great success with making whole wheat breads. I have been making homemade bread for many years and from time to time I have a batch that has a mind of its own and doesn’t quite come out the way I would like it to. Fresh ground whole wheat flours are not the same as wheat flour from the store. Store bought wheat flour is missing many nutrients. They take out the bran. Some flour companies do fortify their flours to give them nutrition. Wheat flour should be used as soon as it is ground up. If not used with a few days a lot of the vitamins are gone. That is why it is important to grind only the amount of grain needed for a recipe. Besides, when making bread it is great to have warm flour to help your bread rise quickly. Grinding your own flour will come out warm from the friction. You can make a successful bread if it is not warm too. Some recipes are also designed to make bread by hand. I started out making bread by kneading it by hand. It does take longer than a bread machine. Most people who start off getting food storage and preparedness items, don’t spend the money on a Bosch or other type of bread machine. My first investment was a wheat/bean grinder. I eventually purchased my Bosch. They are expensive but are worth it in the long run. I use it daily and have had mine for about 15 years now. Having a Bosch has made my life easier in the kitchen. I have a large family and it takes little time to make bread or other dinner rolls. Be patient with yourself in getting to know the feel of the bread and what the proper elasticity the dough texture should be. You can over work the gluten. Don’t give up if your first few tries are a flop. Find someone who has made bread and ask them to show you how to make it. I have had a couple people show me how they make bread. By watching a couple people and reading how to make bread in a book, I learned many techniques and insights. There are many You tube videos that can help you. It is interesting how people will make their bread a little different and still be successful. In time you will come up with your own technique and style. I do my own thing with making bread. You will come up with your own. The steps are the same but I roll my loaves of bread different than my friend does. Our bread still comes out the same. There is an art to making bread. It is easy to gain this skill with store bought white flour. The gluten can easily be worked to the proper elasticity with white flour. Store bought white flour should not be stored in large qualities in your food storage program. The oils in the flour will go rancid. Plus the nutrition in store bought bleached white flour is not very good. All the important parts of the wheat have been taken out. That’s why they have to “enrich” it with vitamins and other things that go with the bran that they want to make other things with. Take your time and learn what works well for you. There is nothing like the smell of fresh bread out of the oven. I usually make a batch that will give me one more loaf than I need. Inevitably I will take the bread loaves out to cool and everyone will want a piece of warm bread. We almost go through a whole loaf before any of the bread has even cooled! FLAG PS by Burn I can tell you that FLAGs bread is extremely good! I’m one of the first to get a piece of a loaf out of the oven! I wish I could bottle that small. It would be wonderful! Semper Paratus Check 6 Burn