Jackie's Natural Foods Co Op

Just a reminder that co op pick up is this Saturday (5/27), from noon - 2 pm at my home. 🏡 🌾 🍞

GETTING STARTED ON THE REAL BREAD JOURNEY (from Bread Beckers)

Over the past few weeks, I have had the opportunity to share the message of healthy eating and real bread on several different platforms. The response has been amazing, perhaps even overwhelming, but nonetheless exciting!

We have had so many questions about how to “get started” making real bread we thought it would be a good idea to include some information in this month’s newsletter.

We realize that many of you are veteran bread makers and may not need this information, but for those who are new to this world – WELCOME! We look forward to helping you on your life changing, Real Bread Journey.

Years ago, we put together a Basic List of Getting Started Items that we hope will be helpful to you. These of course are just suggestions but can serve as a starting point to help you determine what best suits your needs. You can find all of these items in our store or online at www.BreadBeckers.com.

We explain each of these ingredients in much more detail in our famous Red Recipe Collection cookbook (item #00052) and in The Essential Home Ground Flour Book by Sue Becker (item # 09876) or as a video on our BreadBeckers YouTube channel and even as a Podcast on Sue’s Healthy Minutes. So you can either keep reading here or follow the links below to learn more.

Grain Mill – WonderMill or Nutrimill

First and foremost, you will need a grain mill, or some way of turning these amazing grains into flour for baking. We love machines that are multifunctional but for flour milling we prefer a dedicated mill. There seems to be much interest these days in mills with stone milling heads but we actually prefer ones with stainless steel milling heads. They are cleaner and faster to use. We sell two mills with what is known as micronizing stainless steel milling heads – The Wondermill and the Nutrimill. Both do a great job of making flour but our preference is the Wondermill for design and ease of use.

For emergency back-up we do have the non-electric Wonder Jr Deluxe hand mill.

Wheat

There are 2 basic types of wheat – hard wheat and soft wheat. Hard wheat has a higher protein content than soft wheat and is preferred for making yeast breads. Soft wheat is higher in moisture and lower in protein than hard wheat so is perfect for converting your white flour cake and cookie recipes to freshly milled soft white wheat.

We carry 2 varieties of hard wheat – hard red and hard white. There is some slight nutritional differences but mostly the difference in in flavor. Hard Red wheat has a beautiful color and a rich “nutty” flavor. White wheat is more bland in flavor.

I personally love the flavor of hard red wheat as do most people and I do most of my bread baking with hard red wheat. I do enjoy the milder flavor of hard white wheat for such breads as pizza dough and garlic rolls. Hard white wheat is in limited supply this year due to some crop failure. But under normal circumstances I enjoy having both hard red and hard white on hand.

I often make biscuits and occasionally cakes and cookies so I do like having a bucket soft white wheat on hand as well.

At Bread Beckers all of our wheat and other grains and beans are packaged with CO2 in food grade 6 gal buckets to protect from moisture, bug infestation and rodents, so are perfect for long term storage. No further precautions are needed for storage. The 6 gal buckets are the most economical way to purchase your wheat and other grains and beans.

We also offer all of our grains and beans in 1 gallon pails or 2 lb bags. These are first packaged with CO2 into the 6 gal buckets before packaging down to these smaller sizes. So again, no further precautions are needed for storage other than storing the 2 lb bags in some type of storage container.

Gamma Lids – are a must for replacing the normal bucket lid on the 6 gal buckets of grain that you will be using. This gives you a screw on lid that makes going in and out of your bucket of grain so easy and ensures the bucket gets closed properly. You only need a gamma lid for the buckets you are using. You do not need one for every bucket in your storage. When you use all of the wheat/grain from your bucket with a gamma lid, just pour your new bucket of wheat/grain into your bucket with the gamma lid.

Gamma Lids are available in 6 different colors. I try to color coordinate my most frequently used grains with the corresponding color of lid. For example – red gamma lid on my bucket of hard red wheat.

Ezekiel Mix and other grains and beans

There is nothing like freshly milled flour for all of your baking needs. We sell most every kind of grain or bean you might want. I’m southern so I love corn for making my cornbread. Dent corn or popcorn can both be milled in the Wondermill for corn flour. You haven’t tasted cornbread or corn muffins until you make it with freshly milled corn. Kamut is an ancient grain that is great for pasta or simply boiled and eaten whole. Spelt is another favorite ancient grain. I love its sweet, nutty flavor for both yeast breads and muffins or pancakes.

Ezekiel Mix is probably on of our most popular and my favorite mixture of grains and beans taken straight from the Bible in Ezekiel 4:9. We have a recipe for Ezekiel Bread in both our Red Recipe Collection cookbook and The Essential Home Ground Flour Book by Sue Becker. We offer all the grains and beans called for in 1 recipe, premixed for you in a 1 qt bag. We also sell the equivalent of 3 recipes of the Ezekiel mixture in a 1 gal pail that makes it so easy to substitute Ezekiel flour in other baking applications such as muffins, pancakes, cookies and one of our favorites, brownies. Simply mill what you need into flour for the recipe you are making

We carry both certified organic wheat, grains and beans as well as non-organic.

Honey

For most of my baking I prefer honey as a sweetener. It is the only truly unprocessed sweetener. All of our honey at Bread Beckers is raw and unpasteurized. We have several varieties but the most economical for baking is what we call Bakery Honey. It’s a blend of different honeys allowing the cost to be a good bit less than most other varieties of honey. We sell it by the gallon, which may seem like a lot of honey but you will use it up faster than you think once you start regularly making real bread. We do sell 1 and 2 lb containers of some of the varieties but again the 1-gallon jug will be the most cost effective.

Sucanat and Honey Granules

In cakes and cookies, I often prefer evaporated cane juice sweeteners. They are much less processed than regular white sugar or brown sugar. They are easy to substitute 1:1 in recipes such as cakes and cookies that typically call for a fair amount of sugar. I substitute 1:1 sucanat for brown sugar and 1:1 honey granules for white sugar. They are less sweet than the commercially refined sugar and lend a mild flavor that we actually prefer.

Olive Oil

I use olive oil for most of my baking. It is certainly Biblical. But of course, you can use whatever oil you prefer. But you do need to know that not all olive oil is created equal nor is it always what the label says it is. It is an industry that lacks integrity. We sell our extra virgin olive oil in 3L and 5L cans that we import from Greece. The oil comes from reputable, small independent farms. The oil is regularly tested and is some of the best quality extra virgin olive oil especially for the price. A general rule of thumb when shopping for olive oil is to make sure it is bottled in the country of origin.

Yeast

For yeast bread, our Instaferm Instant Yeast is sold in a 1 lb vacuum sealed package. It is much more reliable and economical than the small individual packages of yeast sold in most stores. It can be added along with the flour in any bread recipe whether you are kneading by hand, or using a bread machine or mixer. Once opened it should be stored in the refrigerator and should remain active for about 1 year.

Redmond Real Salt

Salt makes any food taste better. Unfortunately, like most nutritious whole foods, in the food industry it is usually refined by heat treating and stripping the natural minerals out to sell to other industries. So, we highly recommend unrefined salt and have chosen the Redmond Real Salt brand.

Sunflower Seed Lecithin

Lecithin is a natural emulsifier and will give your yeast breads a softer texture. You can certainly make great bread without it, so it is definitely an optional ingredient. Most lecithin sold commercially comes from soy which is often genetically modified. So, we chose a sunflower seed lecithin. (it is currently unavailable as it is sourced from Ukraine)

I hope this information is helpful even to you veteran bread bakers.

Remember: We explain each of these items in much more detail in our Red Recipe Collection Cookbook (item #00052) and in The Essential Home Ground Flour Book by Sue Becker (item # 09876) or as a video on our BreadBeckers YouTube channel and even on Sue’s Healthy Minutes Podcast. To better understand the ingredients and their application needed for each type of bread you can simply follow the YouTube links below.

For yeast breads:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sCDVxxj0gk&t=8s

For cakes, cookies, muffins and other quick breads:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtUB-rjR4-A

For Ezekiel Bread and other great grains to use:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_PjRbrm2kM

Getting Started Items: Ezekiel Mix & Misc. Grains In an effort to help you get started making your own breads at home. We would like to encourage you to watch this video. Here, Sue shares about a variety of ...

🍯 🐝 We have LOCAL, raw and unfiltered honey available through our co op. 🍯🐝

This message is from Bread Beckers for anyone who ordered honey through them on their co op order:

Our honey supplier just informed us of an immediate price increase, which will affect the honey to be delivered on the South co-op in May. We apologize for any confusion, aggravation or hardship. But, this is a significant increase we cannot absorb.

If you don't want the honey on your order, you can delete it by setting the qty to zero "0", or email us and we will remove it for you. [email protected], with subject "DELETE HONEY" and specify which honey you want us to remove.

Thanks you for your understanding.

Sincerely,
The Bread Beckers Inc

That’s us! 👇

Attention all SOUTH CO-OP groups:
It's time to place your orders! Please make sure that you get your orders in by the 18th for May delivery!

Not currently in a co-op?
If you are located outside of the Woodstock, GA area and would like to join a co-op, please check out the information located on our website, by going to https://www.breadbeckers.com/blog/co-ops/.

Buckets or bags? 🌾

From the Bread Becker website:

We get questioned all the time from customers, asking why they should (or should not) purchase grains in bags when they are available.

When we package grains in the 6 gallon buckets, we also flush the buckets with CO2 gas in order to kill any bugs or bug eggs that may have come in, from the fields, when the grain was harvested.

BUT, we do not package the 50LB bags here - they come directly from our supplier in Montana and we do not have any way to do any preventive treatment. The grain is packaged in a heavy duty paper bag, which is very economical if you know how to package it yourself. Buy the bagged grains ONLY if you have a way to package and store appropriately, and soon after your purchase. Bags are NOT suitable for long term storage since they are easily penetrated by bugs, pests, moisture, etc. For those reasons, we can not and do not, guarantee the bags to be free of bugs!

This is the sign Brad has in the entrance to the store!

These are a few photos of the Bread Becker warehouse, where they pull and pack your co op order.

Welcome to all of our new co op members! Our order cycle is now open, so check your pantries and get your orders in by 4/19.

John and I (and 2 of our daughters) recently visited the Bread Becker store in Woodstock, GA. Brad Becker gave us a personalized tour of the store and warehouse. I will share a few pictures!