Yesterday I had time to spare, so I decided to stock back up on ramen. And decided to experiment a bit with barley, since I loved the ramen of Mugi to Olive in Ginza.

Since the shop did not have any barley flour, I decided to grind the grain myself in my spare espresso grinder, the standard Sage grinder (this is probably why it was so difficult to work with lol, since I did not think about sieving the barley flour afterwards).

Top noodle is a pretty standard 35% hydration noodle with only bread flour and high gluten flour for a iekei style ramen I'm planning this weekend. Purely put there for comparison.

Bottom one is the 33% barley, 65% bread flour and 2% high gluten flour noodle. Boy, this was not fun to make. I started with a 35% hydration but the dough just. Kept. Falling. Apart. in the roller.

So I added a little bit of extra water, put it in a vacuum bag, kneaded it and let the dough rest some more.

I had to do that 2 more times, I have no idea what the hydration is right now. I cooked them after resting and they get sticky fast, so it will be a short cooking time. Or maybe I'll try putting some of them in the oven at 60°C for a short time.

Flavourwise, I like them, but I will have to experiment some more with the making of these noodles by sieving the flour. Because i can't put myself through the pain of that many crumbling sheets of dough anymore.