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this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2026
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Chapotraphouse
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You're an OG, thanks so much. I've found some livestock feed stores within an hour by car from my location selling 20kg bags of grain (wheat, rye, corn, millet) for some 10€ each, which is bonkers cheap per calorie. I might just have to get into this stuff!!
haha, for sure. it's one of those things where it's both cheaper and, in most cases, you're ending up with a higher quality product due to whole grains being more shelf stable than flour, so your just-processed flour is far superior to the expensive flour you could get in the high priced magic food rich people store.
if you're already a baker and we're talking about wheat, you're going to want to adapt your "all purpose" flour recipes to need more water, because you're effectively working with whole wheat (except even better, because nothing has degraded).
there's also lots of different strands/types of wheat which have their own flavor profiles. winter wheat vs spring wheat, common, durum, hard red, soft red, hard white, soft white, etc. certain ones have lent themselves more towards certain end products, but i wouldn't get caught up in all that. like, whatever wheat you can get, you probably want to know what it's classified as just so you know what has historically excels at, baking wise, but really, just get what you can get, and make whatever you want with it.
Well, I'm actually not a baker yet, but part of the reason is precisely because I feel dumb using shitty store-bought flour or buying premium flour at 3+€/kg.
Since I'm abusing your knowledge and time and patience, I'll push it one more step: baking. Do you just use a normal oven? Like, the normal electric home oven under the stove. Or do you have something special? I feel like said ovens are too big (hence slow and a lot of air so drier too) for baking individual loaves. I've seen influencers using dutch ovens inside a normal oven to preserve the moisture which makes sense, but makes me wonder if there's something more efficient than that.
Eventually, given time and space, I'd like to build a big ass earthen oven outdoors and make baking mornings on weekends where I bake loaves and food for all week. I've seen some firewood earthen oven designs that look very enticing. But right now I don't have the space for that
yeah, totally basic appliances over here, though i also agree the standard oven is inefficient. earthen outdoor ovens for baking i think is the move if you have the space. i'd like to go in that direction and i've known people out in the country that do that. but if you're space limited, there are enhanced ovens (convection ovens) that bake faster by circulating the air inside to make it uniform in temperature and ultimately waste less heating time and energy. there are commercial convection ovens that are much smaller in footprint than a standard residential oven where you could have a lot more being baked simultaneously, but they have more significant electrical wiring requirements (i believe) and they are crazy expensive. like $2k-10k USD.
there are smaller, home sized toaster ovens that supposedly have convection oven capabilities, but i couldn't say if they actually work for real baking where the temperatures get pretty hot (above 450F).
though, you could use a kitchen gadget that is big here in the US called an "air fryer" which is basically a micro-sized convection oven. i have not used or purchased one, but apparently people do bake bread in them. (https://airfryeryummyrecipes.com/bake-bread-in-air-fryer/)
the thing about a more normal oven (or an outdoor earthen one) is you can quickly add a reservoir of water mid way through to create steam at certain points during the baking process. you don't need to do this, but the funny thing about baking your own bread is you start learning and experimenting with little tweaks to enhance the end product. allowing the dough to proof longer, adding water, shape then resting, and i don't know how adaptable the air fryer gadget is to some of these things. also, a larger oven opens the door for things besides bread that you make with dough. pizza/calzones/stromboli, not to mention all the ways you can shape bread like ciabatta for cool sandwiches, sliceable loaves for basic sandwiches, peasant loaves, bagels, croissants, etc. there are so many directions you can go with basic dough (flour, salt, water, yeast).