Drying Fresh Wheat Grain and making a starter with the fresh ground wheat berries 7/02/2011

I spread the wheat berries on a clean towel today outside to let the wheat berries dry.  I have no idea if they are already dried enough or not.  I do have some stalks with the wheat berries attached from yesterday, and from what I have been reading, they are already dried when you can shake the stalk and hear the wheat berries rattle.  Mine do sound like that.

I called the farmer and his wife again today to thank them for the wheat and talked to the farmers wife for awhile about the wheat berries.  She said she had asked her husband what kind of wheat was planted and he will check and see what kind of wheat that I have now, and if it is soft or hard winter wheat.  I also asked the farmers wife how to know when the wheat berries are dried enough to grind.  She said she really doesn’t know, but her husband has some kind of moisture meter to know when the wheat is ready to be harvested.  She said she thought the wheat wouldn’t be harvested until it was dried.  She is going to check with her husband about this.  I also told the farmers wife if I was successful in my attempt to make pizza out of the wheat berries, I would have them over to market to try the pizzas.

Picture of wheat spread out.  I brought it back inside this evening and will take it back outside tomorrow.

I ground some of the fresh wheat berries and added a little fresh squeezed lemon, a little orange juice and a little water.  At least I would think a good starter could be made from the fresh wheat berries, I was fortunate enough to get from the farmers yesterday, because the fresh wheat berries should have good wild yeast on them.

Norma