This may not be a surprise to you, but I grind my own wheat into flour. I’ve been doing it for about 6 months and I just love the way my breads, muffins, scones, pancakes, waffles…anything that requires flour tastes! The only drawback to freshly ground wheat is that for 6 months I’ve been getting bricks for bread when I’ve tried making it in my bread machine.
What makes a “great” loaf of bread? It depends… but definitely not one that is so dense it has a brick like texture. Height is important too. It’s hard to compete with fluffy store bought bread; so fluff is another important thing to consider when having kids. One of the main reasons for making my own bread is that I get to control the ingredients… so in order to achieve a store-bought texture, height, and fluffiness without added chemicals… it can be very difficult. Then they say that baking is a science… they are not kidding!
I used to have a $50 machine that worked fine but all I could do (at most) was 50% whole wheat loafs; otherwise, I would have bricks for bread. When I purchased my Nutrimill grain mill, I was determined to make 100% whole wheat bread only using the fresh flour. The ONLY way to achieve that was by baking the loafs in the oven. The process does take a bit longer and requires a bit more work; but eventually, we’ve achieved great loafs of bread. The only problem: the oven heats up my kitchen!
In July, I purchased the Zojirushi Bread Machine (I had been eyeing it for months!). I was determined to achieve a 100% whole wheat loaf with freshly ground flour in spite of the mixed reviews and many discouraging posts about this online. Sadly, the bricks continued to come out of the bread machine. How could a $250 bread machine with two paddles that everyone LOVES not be able to do this? Very frustrating to say the least.
For months, I’ve searched the internet for recipes and custom programs to set my bread machine to bake the perfect loaf. The Zojirushi Bread Machine has a “Homemade” setting which allows you to alter the settings to suit your taste. I am happy to report that the perfect loaf came out today!
Note: The only adjustments I made is to the baking cycle. I don’t know if there is a way to adjust machine temperature or not. I leave it in its default temperature.
I am only familiar with programming Zojirushi Breadmachines not other brands.
Here are the custom settings:
Preheat—18 min.
Knead—20 min.
Rise 1—45 min.
Rise 2—50 min.
Rise 3—off
Bake—38 min.
Keep warm—off
Here is how you program a Zojirushi Bread Machine.
100% Whole-wheat In My Bread Machine!
The following recipe will work in your breadmachine after you’ve created a custom program.
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups hot water
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 3TB oil
- ¼ cup honey
- 4 ½ cups fresh milled flour
- 1 tsp. gluten
Make a small well in the middle of the flour and place:
- 1 Tbs. Yeast
- Bake on programmed settings.
Instructions
- Make sure paddles are in place.
- Add water, salt, oil, honey, top with flour, gluten then yeast in the pan of the bread machine.
- Select your cycle and bake!
I’m sorry, I have model BB PAC20
Hello will be trying your recipe but I use sprouted flours/ any idea if this will work?
I have a Zo and have ruined four loaves so far 🙁
I am sorry. I have not tried this with sprouted flours.
I had great success with this recipe and the custom program you provided for the bread machine (minor modifications). I have the same machine and miller, so this worked out great. I also sifted 1/3 of the flour, added an egg (removing 1/4 cup water), and added 1/4 tsp powdered ginger. Ginger is suppose to “start” the yeast faster, the egg (lecithin) helps to catch the gas bubbles, and of course the sifting removes a bit of the fiber. Grinding it to the finest setting really improved the texture. Thank you for all your work!
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Hi there, I have just made a grain mill purchase and am looking for a bread machine like yours. I am anxious to try your recipe. My dilema, though, is that my husband is diabetic. I’m wondering will this recipe work with less honey? If so, how much can I get away with? thank you. Debbie
You only need a little honey or sugar to activate the yeast. you can reduce it to 1 tablespoon for a whole loaf.
If I wanted to try a couple loaves with 1/2 Organic Unbleached White Flour would everything else in the recipe stay the same? What should I change if anything? Thank you. I’m so glad I found this site. I had a Zo like yours before and sold it for $40 because I couldn’t do anything with it that was worth eating. I’m at it again though.
Thank you so much!!! Have had our Zo for many years, but could never get a good loaf (the crust was always too hard). Tried your recipe, and bingo! Hurrah! Can’t thank you enough! Didn’t have enough whole wheat flour, so subbed some ground flax meal, unbleached white– turned out great. Thanks again for sharing your ‘tricks.’ So grateful! Blessings to you!
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P.S. I did not use fresh milled flour, and subbed about 3 cups unbleached white flour, 1 c. whole wheat flour, and 1/2 cup ground flax meal. Also didn’t have the gluten, but it turned out delicious w/ all the above modifications. Just purchased more whole wheat flour, so going to try it as written. Thanks again!
Many thanks for all your hard work & sharing the details. I set my Zo w/ your exact custom settings. I ground Einkorn wheat in my Wondermill & made the bread. Mine came out a bit dense & gummy (although still edible). I weigh my flour to cut down on error (130g/cup), so I used 585g for this recipe. I wonder if I should adjust the flour amount? But I wouldn’t have a clue which way to adjust it? Thanks for any help, and thanks for your website!!!
I would try to adjust it down to 550g and mill it at finest setting. Start there.
Hello!
I just stumbled upon this recipe today and decided to give it a go. I also mill my own flour (Blendtec Kitchen Mill) and have a 2lb Zojirushi (Virtuoso) bread machine. Sadly, my loaf turned out half-risen and very dense anyways 🙁
I programmed the machine the way you suggested, put the ingredients in the machine and let ‘er rip. However, when I was adding the ingredients I couldn’t help but wonder what type of wheat (hard/soft/red/white) did you use? I have hard red and hard white but the hard red has already been opened so that’s what I went with. What grind did you use? I went with medium-fine, as I usually do with bread flour. What type of yeast did you use? I had rapid-rise and bread-machine yeast but assumed you probably meant the latter so that’s what I went with. What type of oil did you use? I had medium heat refined coconut oil so that’s what I used, although I doubt the type of oil used would make much of a difference in a bread. What type of salt did you mean? I used plain old iodized table salt although I do have uniodized coarse sea salt, so again I just didn’t know what to do in this situation. You may have already answered some of these questions in the hundreds of comments following your recipe but I don’t have all day to sift through them. Maybe you could revise your recipe to specify some of these components? PLEASE?
Thank you!
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Hi, I’ve used both hard white and soft white. I always grind it to the finest grind possible. I use olive oil although what you use doesn’t matter. Rapid rise is fine and the salt doesn’t matter. it’s all part of the chemical process. Enjoy
I see that you have a homemade setting for gluten free bread. Can you share this and a recipe?
Hi Jessie. I do not have a gluten free bread machine recipe. I haven’t found one that yields a good loaf in the machine. I usually bake one by hand because it’s a single step of mix and bake. I use Bob’s Red Mill Bread mix: http://amzn.to/2ktCiPn I hope this helps! 😉
Made this tonight and came out great! I’m so thankful cause I was starting to question my purchase of the Zoj since my first 2 loaves from their recipes came out so-so. I used unsifted King Arthur organic 100% ww flour and 1 packet of yeast (which says it’s about 2.25 tsp) and no problems! Thank you!
I”m so glad you are happy with it now Heidi!!
I’m excited to try your recipe but I don’t mill my own flour, if I use store bought does it still need the gluten? Thanks!
If you use white flour (all-purpose) or bread flour, you do not need the gluten added. If you plan on purchasing whole-wheat flour at the store, you will need the added gluten. I hope this helps!