TIPS

Bread bakers will want to pay attention to their hydration percentage and will definitely need to increase it. Freshly milled whole grain flour tends to be on the “thirsty” side and will absorb more water in artisan bread applications. For this harvest year of Amorojo, our hydration for a 100% loaf made with this flour is 85-90% hydration. However, for more general baking and pastry applications, you may find that it does not absorb as much liquid as an All-Purpose flour, so you may want to hold off on some of your liquid such as buttermilk or cream in scone recipes and add back in as needed, for example.

BAKING APPLICATIONS

It is a wonderful, stand-alone bread flour and will create loaves with superior flavor, crumb, color and volume. We are milling this as a 100% extraction, whole wheat flour. We also love incorporating it into all different types of baking. Start by substituting up to 50% of your All-Purpose flour with this whole grain flour. You will love the rich flavor and color it adds to muffins and cookies, and you will be surprised at how delicate they will be in texture. Freshly milled whole grain flour is nothing like supermarket whole wheat flour. You can bake with it in the same manner, but with more delicious, tender outcomes.

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TYPE OF WHEAT Heirloom Red

WHEAT VARIETY  Red Fife

PROTEIN   11%

RED FIFE

Hard Red Spring

*Sadly we have not been able to source quality Red Fife for several years. However, we have a custom crop of French Renan that we are madly in love with. Check out the store page here for some details: https://gristandtoll.com/product/french-renan-flour/
Red Fife is a landrace wheat that comes to the United States from Canada. In the mid 1800’s it was the dominant and most highly regarded bread wheat, but was gradually replaced by modern hybridized varieties. A woman by the name of Sharon Rempel saved this wheat from being completely lost to us. Because of Sharon’s efforts and dedicated growers in Canada, there is now enough seed to share with interested farmers in the United States. Bakers are known to become obsessed with this flour due to its phenomenal flavor and color. We are milling this as 100% extraction, whole grain flour to give you the maximum experience of what makes this grain so special.

TIPS

Red Fife is a beautiful, stand-alone bread flour, but it does not have the same gluten strength as modern wheat varieties. Don’t expect as much oven spring with a 100% loaf. As with our other hard wheats, you’ll need to increase your hydration percentage in bread baking and pasta making, but again not as much as with modern wheat varieties. If you’d like to pair it with a stronger wheat for better oven spring, we recommend our Hard White because its mellow flavor profile will allow the Red Fife aromatics to come through.

BAKING APPLICATIONS

Red Fife is very versatile. Naturally, we love it for bread, pizza and flatbread, but that flavor and color translate beautifully into all types of baking. Please don’t shy away from using this flour for pastry. We love Red Fife for pie dough, biscuits and muffins almost as much as we do for bread. The flavor and texture will astonish you.

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TYPE OF WHEAT Soft White

WHEAT VARIETY  Sonora

PROTEIN   9%

SONORA

Soft White

Sonora, a landrace variety, is believed to be one of the oldest wheats grown in North America and is one of only two wheats boarded onto the Slow Food Ark of Taste. We are still tracing its California origins, but documentation shows that it was brought from Sonora Mexico in the late 1700’s and followed the trail of California’s missions up the coast. At one point in California’s history, it was the main wheat variety grown throughout the state. It has virtually vanished from our state, but enlightened smaller scale farmers are planting it once again. The real beauty of Sonora lies in its sweet, nutty, rich flavor and creamy golden color. We feel what makes it so special would be lost if we tried to sift out the bran and germ, so we are milling this as a 100% extraction, whole grain pastry flour. Sonora’s pale color and fine texture make it a very stealth way to incorporate whole grains into your daily baking repertoire.

TIPS

Even though this is a whole grain flour, baked goods made with Sonora will be on the delicate side. Pastries like biscuits, scones and pie dough can even be a little fragile when using Sonora 100%, not at all like commercial whole wheat flour. As always with stone milled flour, some recipes may need a little extra liquid. We find it an easier solution to hold back a small amount of flour, which can be easily folded back in if needed.

BAKING APPLICATIONS

As a soft white wheat, Sonora does not have enough protein to be used as a stand-alone bread flour, but our testers have made excellent artisan loaves with a ratio of up to 60% Sonora and 40% of a higher protein bread flour (such as our Triple IV or Red Fife). Sonora really shines as a pastry flour. You will want to integrate Sonora into all of your muffin, scone, biscuit, cake, pie dough, and cookie recipes. It makes wonderful pasta, pizza dough and flat breads as well.

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TYPE OF WHEAT Hard White Spring

WHEAT VARIETY  WSU

WSU

Hard White Spring

Our current Hard White is a variety developed by Washington State University, and grown in Washington. It mills to a very fine particle size with a beautiful creamy color and flavor profile. While we will always pine for the excellence that was the variety called Star, this will be the first in a lineup of white wheat varieties we’ll be milling as we continue the search for Star’s replacement.

TIPS

Watch your hydration with this flour, but don’t over hydrate. Normally, we are at 83% hydration for our 100% Grist & Toll whole grain sourdough loaves and we would suggest 83-85% hydration for this variety as a starting point.  This hard white is not a strong as Star. While we still make 100% loaves of bread from this wheat, the oven spring is not quite as powerful as what we expected with Star. For bakers using commercial yeast, you should increase your liquid (water, milk etc) at least 15% from what the recipe calls for. The same will hold true for pizza dough and pasta – normally we suggest either holding a few tablespoons of flour back before adding eggs and other liquid ingredients. In some recipes it’s easier to add some flour back in than it is to adjust eggs, water or olive oil.

BAKING APPLICATIONS

You can use Hard White in any baking application you would use a hard red wheat, but it’s not quite as high in gluten strength as our Hard Red. It’s protein and gluten properties make it strong enough to be a stand alone bread flour, and it’s also great for pizza and pastry. It’s fine, light color and texture mean that it’s a good chameleon wheat as well: interior bread crumb will be lighter and more golden instead of brown, and its flavor won’t overpower other flours should you choose to blend with other varieties like rye or spelt.

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TYPE OF GRAIN Spelt

SPELT

Spelt is an ancient relative of wheat. It was one of the earliest domesticated grains with crops dating back perhaps as early as 5000 BC.  It has enjoyed a somewhat quiet existence, mostly in European countries, not touched as much by cross breading or hybridization, taking a back seat to its modern wheat cousins. Though Spelt is not gluten-free, it has a different molecular structure and is more water soluble, which means its nutrients are more easily absorbed by the body. It’s very high in protein, fiber and B complex vitamins. Spelt gives pastries a soft and tender mouthfeel and is more extensible rather than snappy in bread dough.

TIPS

Though our  Spelt is 100% whole grain, it’s one of the easiest flours to sub for AP in most recipes. It will keep textures soft and tender while adding a richer more golden color and a smooth nutty flavor. Spelt baked goods will not be “white” in appearance, but the flour’s softness lends itself well to a wide variety of recipes without demanding changes in hydration or other ratios.

BAKING APPLICATIONS

Spelt is known for its nutty rich flavor profile. It makes delicious bread, but be aware that its gluten properties are more fragile than wheat’s, which means that working a spelt bread dough too much will have the adverse affect of breaking down its structure rather than building it, so don’t over-knead. In pastry applications, Spelt flour delivers the most melt-in-your-mouth texture. Because of this, we love it for muffins, scones, cakes and quick breads. It also laminates beautifully, so it’s a natural as part of a flour blend for puff pastry, croissants and galette dough.

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TYPE OF GRAIN Rye

GRAIN VARIETY  Gazelle

PROTEIN   12%

WHOLE RYE

The cultivation of rye does not go back as far in history as some other grains. It came to America with European settlers in the 16^th century. In addition to its distinctive flavor and color, rye contains high levels of dietary fiber in its endosperm, not only in its bran as is common with other grains. Because of this, rye baked goods generally have a lower glycemic index.

TIPS

Rye has higher enzyme activity, which is why many people love it for their sourdough starters.  It can move the fermentation process along a little more quickly, so keep that in mind specifically when baking bread with rye. The gluten structure of rye is much weaker than that of wheat, so breads made mostly of rye do not expand and trap air as much as wheat breads, and the doughs can be more dense and sticky.

BAKING APPLICATIONS

We think we know rye, but we really don’t. It is generally associated with dark European, caraway studded breads. However, rye adds such interesting flavor and character that we hate boxing it into a specific corner. Do we love it as a 100% loaf of bread? Absolutely! But, we love it so much that we include rye as part of our flour blend in almost any yeasted application from sourdough hearth loaves to pizzas and flatbreads. And we can’t sing its praises enough for the malty, fruity quality it brings to pastries. We put it in everything, and we’re not joking: chocolate chip cookies, pie dough, pancakes, crackers, scones, shortbread, and crepes. It’s also becoming a pasta superstar ingredient.

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TYPE OF GRAIN Corn

VARIETY Heirloom Yellow

POLENTA

We are currently sourcing California grown, certified organic corn.  Our polenta  has a much more coarse texture than our cornmeal and will knock you out with its dreamy texture and rich flavor. It is virtually whole grain: we hand sift just to remove the large pericarp (the seed coat) particles.

TIPS

You can cook our polenta using only water and its freshness and texture will blow you away. You really don’t need to dress it up dramatically to make it taste special. However, we are never ones to scoff at gilding the lily, so feel free to use milk as your cooking liquid for added richness and depth, or add a splash of heavy cream and grated parmesan at the very end. If you ever make your own ricotta cheese, save the whey: cooking your polenta in whey will turn you into a kitchen rock star. Follow the normal ratios for a soft polenta: 1 part polenta to 4 parts liquid.

COOKING APPLICATIONS

Cooking freshly milled polenta is a completely different experience, especially since our product is mostly whole grain. That means we haven’t removed the corn flour. Because of this our polenta, while chunky in texture, has a creamier mouthfeel than others and depending on how you cook it, and almost rich soufflé-like texture. It cooks a little bit faster than traditional brands (less than an hour) and has an undeniable fresh, sweet corn flavor.

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TYPE OF GRAIN Corn

VARIETY Heirloom Red

CORNMEAL

Always check our shop pages for the specific corn variety being milled as it changes quite frequently in our desire to highlight different heirloom varieties.  Whether it’s red, blue, pink, yellow or white, our cornmeal is a showcase for flavor and makes a compelling argument for seed saving and diversity.  No matter the source, our cornmeal is known for a delicate texture and rich aromatics.

TIPS

Heirloom corn varieties tend to be a little more starchy than modern corn. Don’t be surprised if you need to increase your liquid ingredients significantly. Mixing a batter and then allowing it to sit for about 5 minutes will help you judge whether or not to add more liquid before cooking or baking.

COOKING APPLICATIONS

Fresh stone milled cornmeal has a pronounced sweet corn flavor. It will take your cornbread recipe to a whole new level. Because the flavor is so much more expressive, it is fun to incorporate into many more baking recipes than we normally would. There really isn’t any application that you can’t incorporate a little fresh cornmeal into with big flavor and texture payoff: muffins, scones, pie dough, butter cookies, pancakes, waffles, yeasted bread – you name it. We officially give you permission to have fun.