Kernza

[Timpanogos Slim]

I was curious about Kernza after reading the Pizza Today article linked in this thread:

https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=84105.0

I'd never heard of the stuff. You can read about it at http://kernza.org

Basically it's an intermediate perennial wheatgrass that is under development as a grain crop. Currently, there isn't much available and it is pretty expensive. Yields are about 30% of what you would get from dwarf wheat in the same dirt, but it requires hardly anything in the way of irrigation, fertilization, or pest control. And allegedly if you get a stand of it established, you can harvest it for maybe 50 years.

I read somewhere that they hope to have grains that are 50% of the mass of commercial hard wheat strains within 10 years.

So i bought some grain from Breadtopia to mill. The grains are in fact really thin. Like slightly chubby grass seed. I'll have to take some pictures for comparison.

They say it is the grain crop of the future but i expect it will be the grain crop of the future for semi-arid land since it can put down roots 10 feet deep.

Initially, my all-grain A-22 was mostly just spitting out the grains mostly unscathed. The adjustment arm on these is, well, adjustable, so went for broke and set it to where i can actually get the stones to touch. Based on galling where the arm is attached to the mechanism, i think someone had previously backed it off to prevent that from ever happening.

Even so, if you sift it through a 50-mesh the extraction is comically low. I will just re-blend everything that made it through the 30-mesh and call it good. What doesn't make it through the 50-mesh feels soft and fibrous rather than the farina grit you would see from hard wheat or spelt (or durum).

No comments on flavor yet, though in the linked article they say it has caramel notes i think? I will probably make some pancakes and see how they are.

[barryvabeach]

Let us know what you think about the taste.   I had a few A-22's and some had some marks on the adjustment lever - not quite sure if users had adjusted the arm or it just got knocked around.   

[Timpanogos Slim]

Made some pancakes.

roughly:
2T sugar
2T corn oil
1 medium egg
1/2t salt
roughly 3/4c kernza flour (without the flaky bran, but i did mix back in everything that made it through the 30-mesh but not the 50-mesh)
roughly 3/4c whole milk

I would agree that it's nutty with notes of molasses.

I also note that, with 100% of the flour being the sifted whole kernza, these pancakes were light and fluffy and i did not detect any grittiness.

I make my bread with about 13% 50-mesh hard white wheat and 13% 50-mesh spelt and i certainly do notice the, ah, rustic texture of that flour in my bread. And i like it, at that concentration.

So my presumption is that i was probably correct that most of what wasn't making it through the 50-mesh was fluffy fibers pulverized out of the kernels, probably carrying a lot of starch as well.