Homemade bread, the hard way

In my striving to be emergency prepared, I started thinking about buying whole wheat and grinding it myself. Last year I purchased a hand grinder (cheaper and less reliant on potentially non-existent power) and found a big sack of hard red wheat berries on sale at Walmart last month. I figured it would be better to practice making bread from hand-ground wheat before I actually needed to, so I gave it a whirl. The grinding was tougher than I thought it would be, but the breadmaking was easier.

Thankfully I had a bit of help grinding the wheat (actually, the whole family took turns and it took about 20 minutes to get six cups of flour). Electric grinders can be nearly $300, so it looks like my arms may be more toned by summertime.



After grinding the wheat (I even threw some steel cut oats in there and made a bit of oat flour), I followed a basic wheat bread recipe. I didn't use loaf pans, so rolled it out (again with help) and made a roll out of each loaf.



The recipe I used made two nice loaves, which were really tasty!

The bread was pretty dense, as I used all wheat flour (and a little oat). For a lighter bread, next time I will use a little white flour along with the freshly ground wheat. Now I know I can make bread from scratch using freshly ground wheat, which is very satisfying. I also ground a little extra and am storing it in the freezer, and have been using it. It's a lot cheaper than buying whole wheat flour and contains a lot more bran, so I think it's better for you too.