Remember in children's book "The Little Red Hen" when she said, "Who will help me carry the wheat to the mill?" and her friends replied, "not I" said the goose; "not I" said the cat; and "not I" said the dog. Being the city girl that I am, I never fully understood how the heck the Little Red Hen got soft fluffy flour from golden grass-like stalks of wheat. YouTube to the rescue! Now I know and so can you. Join me as I begin my journey baking bread with fresh ground wheat AT HOME MY WAY!
Guess what parts are left in the flour you buy at the store?
Back in the day (pre-1900's), most towns had their own grain mills - like in the Little Red Hen story. People took wheatberries (threshed from the stalks of wheat) to the mills and got the wheatberries ground into flour for baking. Once commercial flour started shipping all over the country, wheat mills went by the wayside.
This is the flour that my grain mill produced! It's gorgeous and fluffy and pretty amazing stuff.
Once I got home from work, nearly 11 hours later:
Recipes at the Top: Chit Chat at the Bottom
No Knead Bread
Using Fresh Ground Wheat
(Printable View HERE)
"No Knead means no kneading! It means stirring with a spoon like you do a bowl of brownie mix. That's what I'm talking about!"
- 3 cups Hard White Wheatberries (wheatberries aren't milled yet) (This will make about app. 4 1/2 cups of flour. You only need 3 1/2 cups of freshly milled flour for this recipe.)
- 2 teaspoons table salt
- 1 1/2 cups warm/hottish water ("hot but no hurt")
- 2 1/2 teaspoons Active Dry Yeast (instant also works)
- 2 Tablespoons honey (any granulated sugar would also work)
Instructions (super, super easy but as usual I tell every little thing):
1. Grind 3 cups of wheat on the finest setting (which will make quite a bit more flour than is needed).
2. Measure 3 1/2 cups of freshly ground flour into a bowl. (Save any leftover flour separately. I keep mine in the freezer.) Add 2 teaspoons table salt to the flour and stir.
3. In a measuring cup, add 1 1/2 cups warm/hottish water ("hot but no hurt") and stir in the yeast and honey. Let the water/yeast/honey sit for about 10 minutes to "proof". You should start to see bubbles/foam forming if your yeast is alive.
4. Pour the foamy water/yeast/honey mixture over the flour/salt and stir well to fully incorporate, scraping down the sides to get it all mixed well. Cover the dough bowl with plastic wrap (I use a Walmart bag) and refrigerate for at least eight hours (longer is fine).
5. After at least eight hours, remove the bowl from the fridge and uncover. Sprinkle the dough in the bowl (risen) with some flour.
6. Place a dutchoven pot with lid in the cold oven and preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
7. Create a ball of dough (still in bowl), lift, form a ball, and gently push/ squeeze the edges of the dough ball over the outsides and back underneath so that you are stretching the top surface of the dough ball. A tight surface is what you are after. Once the dough ball is a good tight ball, place it on a sheet of parchment paper dusted with flour (tight surface of the dough ball is the top). Let the dough ball rest while the oven is fully preheating.
8. Once the oven is preheated, give it another 15 minutes so that the inside of the dutchoven is also hot.
9. Using a sharp knife or razor blade, cut across the dough ball (1/2" deep or so) making score marks to allow the bread to expand as it bakes. Make any sort of decoration you want.
10. Lift the parchment paper holding the dough ball and place into the very hot dutchoven, replacing the lid. (Any overlapping parchment paper hangs outside the lid.) Bake / Set a timer for 35 minutes.
11. After 35 minutes, remove the lid. If not brown, continue baking until it is brown / like another 5 minutes or so. (My bread was completely brown.) Remove from the oven and carefully lift the bread with the parchment paper out of the pot. (I had to use a spatula because my paper was tearing.)
12. Let cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing.
Slicing: I slice homemade bread with an electric knife. A sharp bread knife also works. I store homemade bread in a gallon zip bag or under a cake plate.
Now, was any part of that difficult? Nope! Is the bread delicious and does your house smell like the Little Red Hen lives there? You betcha!
Ok - now the Chit Chat!
FYI - I am not affiliated with any of these companies. Any sources are simply resources that I have found as options to purchase.
It wasn't until after I knew more about freshly ground wheat that I made the connection back to The Little Red Hen and that beloved story that I must have read to my girls hundreds of times. The Little Red Hen must be so proud of me now. :)
However, to be honest, the more I read about grinding wheat at home and baking with it, the more complicated it sounded. However, I found myself wanting to do it anyway!
I bought a Grain Mill (wheat grinder) over a year ago. I decided 2026 was the year to open that box and get started, New Year's weekend, I did just that. Five loaves of bread, a homemade pizza and a batch of peanut butter cookies later, and I'm hooked!
Why mill / grind your own wheat? Can't you just get flour at the store?
NUTRITION is the #1 reason for me.
Freshly ground wheat is made up of three parts:
- The bran (full of fiber and nutrients)
- The germ (where the oils, vitamins, proteins and mineral are located)
- The endosperm (the starch)
- The endosperm (the starch)
"Of the 44 known essential nutrients needed by our bodies and naturally obtained from food, only 4 are missing from wheat; vitamin A, B12, and C, and the mineral iodine." Sue Becker
Why are the bran and the germ removed? The bran and the germ cause the flour to become rancid after time decreasing the shelf life of the flour. By contrast, the wheat itself (before being ground into flour) can last literally thousands of years!
There are lots of articles about this and since I am not a food scientist, I will let you do your research on it. The main source that I used for this info was Sue Becker at www.BreadBeckers.com. Sue has lots of videos about this subject. She is entertaining, passionate and is a real mom and an actual food scientist who saw the differences it made in the health of her own family.
Personally, I believe that any food we eat which is closest to its original form is better for us. No brainer for me. Any actual health improvements are a bonus!
Personally, I believe that any food we eat which is closest to its original form is better for us. No brainer for me. Any actual health improvements are a bonus!
This is the grain mill that I purchased. It's a Nutrimill Classic.
Where do you get a grain mill?
The fact is that brand new grain mills aren't cheap. But investing in your health is rarely cheap, is it? However, I recently found one at a thrift store that was marked $15. I snatched it up even though I already had a new one in the box at home. Just couldn't help myself. lol. I may pass it along to a family member or just keep it for a backup. The thrift store thought it was a mixer but it doesn't mix. It grinds wheat, corn, beans, and rice. A mixer can make the cookie dough but the grain mill grinds the wheat. So, just knowing what you are looking for, is a good idea!
A variety of grain mills are available on Nutrimill.com (I made my purchase during Black Friday specials and saved $100 on it). You can also find a variety of brands on Amazon and other online retailers like www.PleasantHillGrain.com. You can even get a wheat grinder attachment for a KitchenAid mixer. There are options so do not rule this out because you are "blinded by the price". lol
Are grain mills electric or do you need lots of muscle?
Grain mills are available as manual or electric. Mine is electric and works like a charm. Its a little loud but the thing is grinding little hard kernels of wheat so of course that's going to make some noise.
Back in the day (pre-1900's), most towns had their own grain mills - like in the Little Red Hen story. People took wheatberries (threshed from the stalks of wheat) to the mills and got the wheatberries ground into flour for baking. Once commercial flour started shipping all over the country, wheat mills went by the wayside.
Hard White Wheat.
What are wheatberries?
Wheat berries are the little kernels found on stalks of wheat. Grinding wheatberries produces flour. Commercial flour sifts out the bran and the germ and creates the pretty white flour you find at the store. Flour in the store is either unbleached or bleached. Yep - w/ bleach! True story: I once washed my flour cannister and got such a strong, overwhelming smell of strong bleach that afterwards, I was done with bleached flour. Last time I checked, ingesting bleach was bad for a person.
What about whole wheat flour/bread?
Whole wheat flour found at the store and whole wheat bread sold in stores does have some of the germ and bran found in wheat. It definitely is a healthier option! However, the longer shelf life of that flour and/or bread causes many of it's essential nutrients to be lost. Plus, you know that bitter taste you get from store bought whole wheat bread? Yea...😒 Bread milled with freshly ground flour doesn't have any of that! That bitter taste comes from the oils contained in the wheat germ becoming slightly rancid and that bitterness is the price paid for the longer storage times required ship it all over the place.
Where to buy wheatberries?
There are lots of sources for wheatberries.
Pelouse Brand - I ordered a combo variety from this company (hard white, hard red, and soft white).
Amazon - You can also get Palouse wheatberries at Amazon.
Azure Standard- Another great source is the online company Azure Standard although I haven't tried ordering from that company yet. This company has dropoff locations around the country and you basically go pickup your stuff at your closest pickup point.
4 Generation - I have not yet tried but I believe their wheat comes in food safe buckets ready for long term storage.
Local farmers / farmer's markets - I found a local farmer with organic wheat about an hour's drive away so I can buy wheatberries for a much better price than I can get it online. Local is usually always going to be your best option if you can find it.
You might also be able to get it at natural type groceries stores or farmer's markets in the bulk section.
What kind of wheat do you need to get?
- Hard white and hard red wheat are used for yeast breads.
- Soft wheat is best to use for pastries and biscuits, pancakes, pies, things like that.
Can I just replace the flour in my recipes with fresh ground wheat 1:1?
- Apparently there is a little learning curve to using fresh ground wheat and I'm going to try some recipes and see what happens.
- Fresh ground wheat is extra thirsty and so definitely needs a good rest time (15-30 minutes) to fully drink up the liquids in your recipe before kneading and/or baking.
How do you start baking with it?
Honestly, there is a ton of info about using fresh ground flour and that is what scared me off from it. I started with one recipe for no knead bread which I found at www.GrainsandGrit.com (Felicia has super informative videos with actual recipes to try.- HERE is the YouTube video for Felicia's No Knead Bread. I tweaked Felicia's recipe a little plus I only used hard white wheat.) I didn't notice a single difference in the bread that I made without Felicia's stretch and pulls so I eliminated those steps - so its even easier! I incorporated a long fridge time like I already do in my regular no knead bread and it worked great.
Also - I'm not a professional bread baker nor professional bread eater so just having good (simple/easy) bread was all I was after. If it was a little dense, I could toast it. If it was a little wonky in shape, that wouldn't matter. I wasn't looking for a Blue Ribbon. I just wanted good healthy bread and that is what I got!
This recipe is super easy! In fact, I managed to mix it up before I left for work. I allowed myself an extra 20 minutes and got it done no problem!
My morning prep before work looked like this:
- I had the three cups of wheatberries measured and ready before I went to bed - placed near the grain mill. I had the grain mill on the counter ready for action.
- I dumped in and ground the three cups of wheat while I was packing lunches.
- I added yeast and honey to hot/warm water in a cup, gave it a good stir.
- I added 3 1/2 cups of freshly ground flour and 2 teaspoons of table salt to a bowl, stirred well and then dumped over with the water/honey/yeast. I stirred this dough with a wooden spoon.
- I covered the bowl with a Walmart bag and placed it in the fridge. Fingers crossed! (How bad could it be?)
- I washed the spoons and measuring cup and placed the leftover flour in the freezer.
- Done!
- I placed the dutchoven in the (cold) oven, started preheating to 450 degrees and got the dough bowl out of the fridge.
- I sprinkled the now risen dough with some of the leftover flour, formed the dough ball in the bowl (so not to dirty the counter) and then placed it on a piece of parchment paper to rest while I changed out of my office clothes. Efficiency is where it's at! LOL
- After fully preheated, I scored it, and baked the bread in the covered pot for 35 minutes.
Done - It was beautiful! It was delicious! I'm thinking 90% of the bread I now make will be made with this recipe!
Let me know if this interests you or if you already grind your own flour. I'll keep you posted on the additional recipes that I make. This journey has just begun for me and I'm super excited to see what a difference it makes in our health. I obviously get lots of joy from doing old fashioned things so I'm looking forward to doing more stuff like this AT HOME MY WAY!
Stay tuned. 2026 is on the ground and running!
Enjoy!
Gina
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