Even grandma knew: Semiolina tastes delicious and is healthy! Not only is it rich in vitamins, minerals and trace elements, it also contains hardly any fat, sugar or saturated fatty acids. It also provides a lot of fibre and is filling even in small portions. The grains are particularly valuable if they contain shell parts and germ. This is often not the case with conventional products from the supermarket.
Buy semolina? No, thank you. We make our own semolina. In this article, you will learn everything you need to know about how you can easily make semolina yourself at home - and thus also benefit from the healthy advantages of the grains.
How is semolina made?
Semolina is a by-product of the milling of grains such as wheat or spelt. After the initial grinding of the grain kernel, it breaks down into flour, semolina grains and husk parts with germ.
Classical semolina consists of 0.3 to 1 mm starch granules held together by protein structures. In addition, there is also fine semolina, so-called "haze", whose grain size is between 0.15 and 0.3 mm.
At the end of each milling step, the semolina is separated from the remaining flour particles by sieving. The harder the grain, the higher the semolina yield.
Grits: the crème de la crème of grains
From about 100 kg of durum wheat, 50 to 70 kg of durum semolina can be obtained, depending on the degree of milling.
Depending on the type of grain, milling and sieving techniques, semolina is a very individual product. For the typical texture of semolina porridge, you need semolina with an even grain size, as little fine flour as possible and coarse layers at the edges. Wheat, spelt and einkorn, but also maize, millet, buckwheat, barley and oats are suitable for making semolina.
By the way: semolina is also available from wholemeal. However, since the flour part is always separated, it is never possible for all the components of the grain to remain contained.
What is the difference between hard and soft wheat semolina?
Hard and soft wheat are different types of grain. They differ simply because durum wheat (lat.: Triticum durum) is grown in summer and common wheat (lat.: Triticum aestivum) in winter.
Hard wheat semolina for doughs, pasta and couscous
Hard wheat is characterised by a high protein content and a firm structure. It is resistant to biting and cooking. Soft wheat has a lower protein content. It also contains significantly less gluten than durum wheat and therefore cannot bind starch - it is washed out when cooked.
Hard wheat semolina is excellent for the basic recipe of elastic doughs, which are mainly used to make pasta, especially classic Italian pasta. Couscous is also made from this wheat. Durum wheat can be bought in organic shops.
Soft wheat semolina for soups and as a dessert
The soft, floury grains of soft wheat are easier to grind than those of durum wheat. As a result, less starch is destroyed during the milling process. Semolina made from soft wheat is not only used in soups, desserts or semolina pudding - it is also suitable for thickening and thickening dishes such as sauces and soups or as a binding agent when baking bread.
Which semolina is suitable for what?
Before you start making your own semolina, you should consider what kind of dish you want to conjure up with it. Not every type of semolina is suitable for all dishes. Soft semolina, for example, is ideal for desserts such as semolina pudding or semolina porridge, while durum wheat semolina is ideal for heavy dishes such as pasta, dumplings, baked goods or soup ingredients such as dumplings and semolina dumplings.
If you are in the mood for polenta, maize semolina is the best choice. Polenta bianca (white polenta), which is particularly popular in the Veneto region, is made from a lighter variety of maize semolina according to the original basic recipe, while the Swiss version, bramata, is made from coarse-grained maize semolina. However, you can also prepare polenta from millet, rye or spelt semolina without any problems.
If you want to make your bread dough fluffier, we recommend semolina from rye or spelt.
If you are looking for an alternative for desserts, you can also use buckwheat, barley and oats instead of wheat semolina.
Top semolina from Oberkulmer
Have you ever heard of Oberkulmer red-grain semolina? No? Then it's high time you did. This spelt semolina has everything you expect from a really good semolina: regional, organic, single variety and particularly nutritious due to the gentle processing. Of course, we also use this variety for our Hot Breakfast Bowls. The advantage: The mixture does not have to be cooked for a long time - just boiling it once with water is enough. Your semolina breakfast has never been on the table so quickly!
With these instructions you can easily make your own semolina
To make your own semolina, you need a grain mill, a flour sieve with 0.3 mm holes and a flour sieve with 1 mm holes.
And this is how you proceed:
- Mill the grain, for example wheat, in the grain mill on a fine to medium setting - depending on how fine you want the semolina to be.
- Sift out the ground material using the flour sieve with coarse perforations. You can use the rejects like bran or coarse meal or grind them again on a fine to medium level and add them to the semolina.
- Sift out the remaining ground material with the coarser flour sieve. You can keep the rejects and use them for baking, just like extracted flour. The particles that are larger than 0.3 mm but smaller than 1 mm make the semolina. Tip: If you want it to be coarser, you can also use flour sieves with holes of 0.5 mm and 1.5 mm.
- The further processing is quite simple: If no other preparation time is noted in the recipe, boil the home-ground semolina for five minutes and let it swell for five to ten minutes.
This is how long you can use the semolina.
The semolina will keep for up to three weeks. After cooking, you can store it in the fridge for two to three days.
Cooking semolina porridge from homemade semolina - here's what to look out for
If you grind semolina yourself, you will usually get a less homogeneous result than you are used to from bought semolina. Make sure to sieve the ground material properly. If too much fine flour remains in the semolina, the semolina may become "mushy" and tend to burn. If you have too much coarse particles in it, they may not become soft and you will have hard pieces in the semolina.
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