How do you soak grains?

[brendafromtenn]

For those of you who grind your wheat, how do you go about soaking your grains?

 

O.K. this may be REALLY stupid, but do you soak them BEFORE you grind them or AFTER you grind them?

 

Please don't laugh.....:001_huh:

 

Blessings,

 

Brenda

[Ritsumei]

I'm just starting to learn about the whole soaking thing, so I'm no kind of expert. But I've got a local friend who's giving me pointers. She leaned me her book, Nourishing Traditions, which is interesting. Anyway, here's what I'm doing at this point.

 

1. Grind the wheat.

My grinder is small & cheap, and it doesn't grind very finely, so I don't always do all the flour the recipe needs. But whatever part I'm doing in wheat I grind.

 

2. Put it in a bowl with other dry ingredients, and add the water & any honey the recipe calls for. Also, I add about 1 T lemon juice for every cup of water. Mix it all up and cover tightly.

 

3. Ignore it over night.

 

My friend will also soak in milk, but she has raw milk & I use regular store bought milk, and I haven't figured out exactly what the practical difference is, so I'm still too chicken to try that. But the water is working pretty well. I did biscuits the other day that called for milk, but I was only doing part wheat, so I substituted some water for part of the milk. They turned out pretty tasty.

 

Good luck!

[Ritsumei]

 

Here and here are some blog posts I found about it. They are what originally sparked my interest. I thought this was really thought-provoking.

[brendafromtenn]

This was just want I needed! I can not thank you enough.

 

Just to give you a background, we have been grinding our own grain for 6 years. But now all of the sudden, I am having trouble digesting them. So, someone suggested that I soak the grains prior to cooking them.

 

But I just could figure out how....

 

NOW, I get it!

 

And I LOVED the article on the Bread of Idleness.....Awesome

 

Thanks again,

 

Brenda

P.S. Raw milk is great! We have used it for years too. Find a farmer that you trust, and you shouldn't have any trouble at all.

[crowscreek]

I really like the Passionate Homemaking blog!!

 

Thanks for sharing!

:)

[Blueridge]

Oooo! I just posted a link a while ago to a free (today only) download on bread baking from the Urban Homemaker. It has her instructions for soaking flours in it...called the Two-Stage Process. HTH!

[Ritsumei]

I think that the biggest hurdle is going to be my DH... he's really skeptical & skittish about the whole milk thing. He's got some nasty (non-food) allergies & is a pretty picky eater, and he's just not excited about the whole raw milk thing. Though I may try getting some and playing around with making yogurt & buttermilk & soaking in milk, maybe make some butter just cuz it sounds like fun. Maybe some time & exposure will help him be more comfortable. In the mean time, I'm figuring out what I can with the grains. It's very interesting, and so far it's a very delicious experiment! I'm ending up with really wet grain, after I soak it, and so there's a lot of regular white flour that goes in, but I figure that partly good is better than all bad, and so I'm just going with it. Experience is a fabulous teacher, and I have so little right now!

 

I was just thinking that I might have to go back and print out the Bread of Idleness article for future reference, and to have it handy to mull over.

 

But today, I'm teaching a cookie decorating class. All white flour, white sugar, and food coloring today, LOL!