Rice Flour (Revisions for FINE Flour in BOLD)

Several years ago I was diagnosed with Gluten Intolerance. At the time it was next to impossible to find gluten free products without going to some annoying and pretentious Whole Foods type store and taking out a second mortgage on your house to pay. The stuff is still more expensive than "regular food", even though "Gluten Free" is a dieting trend with huge, bold letters advertising as such.

So, in a moment of ingenuity (while working on a soon to come Instructable) I made my own rice flour.

***Disclaimer***

The "fine flour" method is an all day process. Don't cave and pay extra for the convenience of a quick product.

Rice (whatever brand, flavor, etc. you like best)

Scale

Blender (you'll need one that is powerful enough to crack grains)

Cheese Cloth

Sieve (Sifter)

Timer

Small Space Heater (use extreme caution and supervision if you opt for this method)

Patience

Measure out one pound of flour

COARSE FLOUR

Pour in blender and close

Pulse on high for about 5-7 3 second burst

Put blender on highest setting (you'll notice a vortex will form in the center)

While blending you will have to rock the blender to continue pushing the rice into the blades (I find that holding the base and blending unit firmly together ensures proper engagement of the gears)

Blend approximately 3-5 minutes (Really doesn't take very long to get to an acceptable "flour" like consistency)

FINE FLOUR

Soak the rice at least 7 hours (I've found that if you can easily break a rice kernel with your thumb nail then you're good enough)

Drain and spread evenly across your cheese cloth (any other clean and absorptive fabric will do)

Set out 1 hour

Work half a pound at a time through the blender (due to the higher moisture content the rice will clump easier and clog the blades)

Pour out of blender into your sieve and sift into a dry container (I repeated the sifting 3 times)

Return any clumps and larger rice chunks to the blender for further refinement

Place parchment paper on counter and sift flour evenly across the paper

Set out 90 minutes with small space heater (Or lowest heat in oven, Or dehydrator, Or carefully on stovetop) [The last process is meant to lower the moisture level further to prolong shelf life, and there are a number of ways to achieve this. Use your preferred method here]

For my purposes the less than fine particle size works well enough.

1 pound of rice will make 2 cups of coarse rice flour.

The "fine flour" is visually and texturally similar to commercial flour.

1 pound of rice will make approximately 2 cups of fine rice flour.

Finally attempted making something other than granola bars with my flour... a less than successful chocolate chip cookie was spawned. I never noticed the graininess of my flour. After all it had been part of a texturally more complex recipe, now it had become the largest, hardest particle in a mass of sugar, butter and an egg.

Really need to reduce the size of the final product if I'm to continue more culinary adventures with my $2 flour.

Much more success with this finer flour, barely noticeable (a few larger pieces survived, my sifter could be smaller). The coarse will still work for the granola bars simply because I can make exactly what I need in a few minutes.