>...
>I would like to make my own whole wheat pasta using one of those
>automatic
>extruder machines. Before I buy one, can anyone tell me if they have had
>success using a pasta machine with anything other than semolina? I'd
>like to make pasta using a variety of whole grains, but I haven't been
>...
I have made pasta with upto 80% whole wheat flour(sometimes I use pastry
flour). I don't think I have used all whole wheat flour, but I may have.
My recipies are basically those that come with the machine. Instead of
eggs and oil, I puree raw spinach and spices in water, and add it to the
dry ingredients. It has always worked well for me.
One other note is that although a pasta extruder is an easy, albeit noisy
gadget, you may want to look at a manual pasta cutter. I have both and
have decided that the pasta is better if it is cut. I only use the
extruder for round noodles(which the making of is a far from trivial task),
and if I want very thin spaghetti(which is very difficult to make under any
circumstnaces).
Also, as was noted in another post, the pasta extruder is an effort saver
and not a time saver. In either case about an hour of time is required.
The pasta extruder must be attended. As was also noted in the same post,
the pasta from an extruder often sticks together, which I have had some
success in solving, but I usually do lose a small but noticable amount of
the pasta when making it with a machine. Once the pasta has been extruded,
it doesn't seem to be suitable to be put back in the machine. The sticking
problem seems to aggrevated by whole wheat flour, but I am not 100%
positive about that.
So I would say that if you play with a recipe and experiment with a
machine, any pasta extruder should work. There are, however, two types,
and the difference seems to aesthetic. The type that I has has a plastic
piece that isolates the dough as it is being kneaded, and then is removed
when the pasta is extruded. It has metal structure on the extruding
portion of the machine, is very powerful, and very loud. The other type
rotates in an appropriate direction to keep the dough from bieng extruded
and then reverse direction to extrude the pasta. It is a simpler machine,
but doesn't look as durable. In all types, you put in the die you wish to
produce the pasta. If you can get a pasta machine from a store with a
liveral return policy, then you could see what you like.
On the other hand, if you are physcially able, and only want a few types of
pasta, I think a pasta cutter would work better and with less initial start
up time.
Ralph
"I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and
express it in numbers, you know something about it"
-Lord Kelvin
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