Rinsing/soaking whole grains/seeds?

[jedovaty]

Hi:

Do you all rinse/wash whole grains/seeds before cooking/baking with them?  If so.. what if you want to grind them into flour?  Goes for anything, oats, buckwheat, wheat, etc.  Mine all appear to be rather clean and well sorted, but.. just making sure.

Thanks!

Edited April 18, 2020 by Smithy
Capitalisation (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Just now, jedovaty said:

Hi:

Do you all rinse/wash whole grains/seeds before cooking/baking with them?  If so.. what if you want to grind them into flour?  Goes for anything, oats, buckwheat, wheat, etc.  Mine all appear to be rather clean and well sorted, but.. just making sure.

Thanks!

 

I wash rice but I don't wash oats or farro.

 

[chromedome]

19 minutes ago, jedovaty said:

 

Do you all rinse/wash whole grains/seeds before cooking/baking with them? 

It kind of depends. If I'm using the grains as an add-in in a loaf of bread or something, I'll usually soak them so they won't be hard and chalky when I bite into them. With seeds, it's more or less a by-feel thing. If they're pleasant to eat as-is, I"ll likely leave them whole. Otherwise I might pulse them in my rotary-blade spice grinder just to bust 'em up a little.

Unless you're buying some kind of grain that often contains pebbles and/or other debris, what you're rinsing off is basically just flour that has been "milled" through friction. If you're making flour anyway, there's no point in trying to remove it.

[MokaPot]

I eat steel-cut oats a lot. I never wash/rinse those.

 

Brown rice seems a lot "cleaner" than white rice. When lazy, I have cooked brown rice without washing. Seems OK to me (unwashed brown rice).

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I misspoke:  last when I cooked farro I did wash it.  Because the recipe told me to.

 

[jedovaty]

Got it, thank you all.

This whole idea came up because I've been rinsing buckwheat and oats before cooking it, but, I was not when making flour from them or the wheat berries I have.  If I roll the oats, and should I rinse them before or after rolling, etc (rhetorical question).  I've found the occasional stone or twig in the packages. 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

31 minutes ago, jedovaty said:

Got it, thank you all.

This whole idea came up because I've been rinsing buckwheat and oats before cooking it, but, I was not when making flour from them or the wheat berries I have.  If I roll the oats, and should I rinse them before or after rolling, etc (rhetorical question).  I've found the occasional stone or twig in the packages. 

 

What brand of oats?  I use Bob's Red Mill.  I haven't seen any foreign matter.

 

 

[jedovaty]

7 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

What brand of oats?  I use Bob's Red Mill.  I haven't seen any foreign matter.

Not commercial brands, rather direct from farms here in California.  So far only with wheat.  The farms from WA seem to produce a much cleaner package than CA.  I only recently purchased oats and buckwheat in bulk (unrelated to covid, been planning to do it since February).  Back when I roasted coffee, on very rare occasion I'd find a twig or stone or slate in the greens, too.  Somehow always spotted before going into the grinder, thank goodness!

[JoNorvelleWalker]

6 hours ago, jedovaty said:

Not commercial brands, rather direct from farms here in California.  So far only with wheat.  The farms from WA seem to produce a much cleaner package than CA.  I only recently purchased oats and buckwheat in bulk (unrelated to covid, been planning to do it since February).  Back when I roasted coffee, on very rare occasion I'd find a twig or stone or slate in the greens, too.  Somehow always spotted before going into the grinder, thank goodness!

 

Direct from farms maybe you should wash the grains.  I have only used commercial products.

 

[jedovaty]

So... rinse, let dry, grind into flour? Hmmm.  I may be too lazy for that.  Maybe we all need a little dirt in our diet 🤓