Do you mean imitate the stuff that I have in a packet that comes from Korea or home made crispy breadcrumbs?

If i make my own, I whazz up the bread and bake it in a low oven to dry a bit.

I do the same as Islay.

I prefer homemade breadcrumbs over store bought, but when I'm looking for panko I'm looking for panko so I'm not sure what I'd be hoping for as an improvement.

What methods have you been looking at?

I do mean panko. I always make my own breadcrumbs as they're so much fresher and I can control the content and humidity. There is a good brand of store bought panko we get, including whole wheat which is nice, but I'm going to be using a lot this season, and I thought it might be nice to bake and make my own.

What I'm looking for is a recipe, preferably whole grain, though I could learn on white, as well as a method for making it into the actual panko pieces.

Of course, when I asked, I as feeling lively and adventurous. This morning in the damp and gloom I'm feeling like all those lovely packets would like to come home with me...

Just the shredding disk? I can do that. I thought the pieces wouldn't be big enough but I guess the soft bread makes the difference. That sounds easy enough!

The milk bread is the key, I think, and I can look up recipes and adapt from there. If nothing else, I'll learn something in the process!

So, okay, realistically, by the time I figure it out, I'll probably have bought from the store, but it's an exciting journey anyway. :)

Many thanks, JWVideo!

But the milk bread for panko crumbs in Japan is not baked as such, it's electrocuted between large metal plates. Weird!

Nothing weird about it. That's just a factory production technique to make mass quantities of milk bread without browned crusts for shredding into commercial white panko.

According to a neighbor from Japan, they do not do that for tan panko and lots of Japanese make panko at home with just a box grater and the regularly baked store-bought milk bread that comes with crusts.

One thing I have found to be to be weird about panko is how passionate -- and sometimes outright nasty --- some folks get in online discussions on this side of the Pacific in arguing over whether the mass-produced white panko is the only "truly authentic" panko. Who would have thought?

Well, arguing over bread crumbs shields one from the tragedies of the real world, I suppose.

I can't tell the difference between mass produced and Japanese American homemade, which is why I started thinking about it. Unfortunately, I don't currently have a Japanese American cooking friend IRL to ask. :) Whatever. The stuff in the bag with the Scottish name works fine for me. :)

I looked at the panko at TJ's today. Very different from what I'm used to. It did look like it was grated on an ordinary grater. The kind I get is much bigger pieces and kind of long trapezoids.

Since I'm GF I just toast some bread, blend it up and cook it in a pan with a bit of butter until golden brown.

I'm Panko dependent. Have been for years. It is often the first thing in my luggage when traveling, before sox, lol.

DH backed up over my luggage one trip at arrival. Sounded like gun fire. Pow. It was everywhere. Salvaged some. Failed horribly trying to make my own but one local bakery had a white soft loaf, when slowly dried, crust removed, was an ok replacement.

2 seconds in a spice grinder with a pinch of corn starch is a great coating for sweet potato fries. 2-3 tbsp with a bit of olive oil and some fresh garlic, herbs, lemon is a super sprinkle over baked fish fillet. Never gets soggy even sitting for an hour before using.

The whole wheat one was odd, tasted sour. Bought by mistake. Soggy.

Soggy, eh? Sounds like bad packaging. Also, when I've run into whole wheat bread with an "odd ... sour taste," the culprit has usually turned out to be old whole wheat flour. As whole wheat flour ages, the "essential oils" start to go rancid. I'm recalling ascientific discussion of this from Cook's Illustrated or ATK. Something in the context of whole wheat pancakes maybe? However, I'm not finding it at the moment

Grainlady told us about that--the oil is in the parts that are removed to make white flour, and it goes rancid pretty quickly. That's one reason for milling it fresh. When I remodelled I had to through out a bunch of flour and work on quadruple cleaning the canisters to get the rancid smell out. My theory is also that all those whole wheat breads that have honey or other sugars in them are trying to cover up slightly rancid flour. When I mill wheat, inc. hard red, the flour tastes sweet and the bran, etc., just tastes a bit earthy.

I think the company stopped making whole wheat panko! Maybe because of the quality issues Sleevendog mentioned. I loved it. Even my picky eater, who won't touch whole wheat bread, liked the chicken fried with WW panko. Mine was perfect. Neither soggy nor sour.

Not 'soggy' out of the package. It did not hold up to added moisture like the white. Gummy and earthy as one would expect from a brown bread. Results were not as crisp. It wasn't rancid. Just not a good replacement in the same recipes I use the regular one for. Fine for maybe a meat ball or meat loaf or any 'beefy' recipe calling for bread crumbs. Just too strong and overpowering for a crab cake or cod cake.

Didn't think to use it for chicken. We would probably have liked that. Using mostly the thighs and often heavily spicing the coating, it may have been a good starting point...did not know it was no longer made.