Wheat is Flour: Grind it Fresh
It’s easy to make whole wheat flour
by grinding the entire grain – bran,
germ and endosperm – into a fine meal. All you need is a few cups
of wheat berries and a simple hand-powered kitchen grain grinder. Clamp
it to a worktable, and invite a group of children to become millers. They’ll
all beg to go first, and the whole process will build their enthusiasm
for baking and eating whole wheat bread.
Hand milling wheat with a classroom of children can turn into a great
team effort with many educational benefits in addition to producing fresh
flour.
As each turn of the grinder adds to the growing mound of flour, it also
provides good physical exercise and a chance for young learners to practice
counting skills. Watch them all line up behind the mill and approach
the job of doing ten turns of the handle with different degrees of speed
and
delight. After each young miller has a turn at the handle, he or she
moves to the position of care-taking the bowl to make sure the flour
doesn’t
spill over. All the while, the participants get to smell and taste the
freshly ground wheat as it comes out of the mill. Once the bowl is filled,
make it into a 100% whole wheat loaf of bread. Try setting
some aside and sifting out the bran and germ to see how white flour is
produced.
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