Yesterday I had time to spare, so I decided to stock back up on ramen. And decided to experiment a bit with barley, since I loved the ramen of Mugi to Olive in Ginza.
Since the shop did not have any barley flour, I decided to grind the grain myself in my spare espresso grinder, the standard Sage grinder (this is probably why it was so difficult to work with lol, since I did not think about sieving the barley flour afterwards).
Top noodle is a pretty standard 35% hydration noodle with only bread flour and high gluten flour for a iekei style ramen I'm planning this weekend. Purely put there for comparison.
Bottom one is the 33% barley, 65% bread flour and 2% high gluten flour noodle. Boy, this was not fun to make. I started with a 35% hydration but the dough just. Kept. Falling. Apart. in the roller.
So I added a little bit of extra water, put it in a vacuum bag, kneaded it and let the dough rest some more.
I had to do that 2 more times, I have no idea what the hydration is right now. I cooked them after resting and they get sticky fast, so it will be a short cooking time. Or maybe I'll try putting some of them in the oven at 60°C for a short time.
Flavourwise, I like them, but I will have to experiment some more with the making of these noodles by sieving the flour. Because i can't put myself through the pain of that many crumbling sheets of dough anymore.
by Milkandcookies1
1 Comment
From my experience with bread I can say you definitely always need to increase hydration significantly when working with whole grain flours, even more so when freshly ground. Bran is thirsty stuff! I think you’re on the right track with the idea to sift it, this would get the coarsest bran particles out. You could also start with pearl barley which I believe has much of the bran removed already.