harvest

Billy Carter's wheat has been cut. Fred Miller is harvesting now. And here's a picture (above) of our turkey wheat which Looking Back is planning to harvest by early next week (barring weather). Below is a picture of that wheat shortly after it was sown. I took the picture (below) when I was visiting the Haines in December. Kenny just sent me the above shot of what it looks like six months later.

2012 wheat harvest begins

2012 wheat harvest has begun. Grower, Kenny Haines informed me yesterday that Billy Carter of Carter Farms in the Sandhills of NC began cutting his TAM 303 this past weekend. TAM 303, though a sad moniker for this regionally adapted hard red winter (bread) wheat (one of USDA-ARS wheat breeder Dr David Marshall’s varieties), was the first of the wheats that our bakers tried when the prospect of working with NC grown grains first surfaced. It’s been over three years since that initial meeting when us bakers pulled chairs into a circle and began discussing the concept of working directly with NC growers. Outside the confines of our bakeries, where fermentation times, hydration, and dough performance rule,  we could entertain the idea-- the possibility-- of working with bread flour grown in the Carolinas. That first meeting took place just after the profound spike in the price of wheat-- later coined the 2008 Wheat Crisis-- which was a big impetus for us,  pushing us to consider stepping outside our comfort zone and take a good long look at our reliance on commodity flours. Even still, it was not until we actually tried the flour made with NC-grown TAM 303 that the momentum for this project gained ground. And now here we are, this many years later, actually doing it. 

Kenny said our Turkey wheat (a heritage variety) and NuEast (another of Dr Marshall’s regionally adapted modern varieties) are just turning from green to a golden hue. Once harvested, samples of the grain will be tested for protein, falling numbers (a test that indicates if there is any level of sprout damage), micotoxins, moisture, and test weight. Joe Lindley, of Lindley Mills in Graham, NC, has offered to do thorough lab testing on the grain. I want to give a big thank you to Joe for this offer, as he continues to show his commitment to NC growers and bakers alike. He is producing an NC-grown TAM 303 roller-milled flour, a foundational flour which is the perfect compliment to the stone ground flours Carolina Ground is turning out. We certainly have it good here in the Carolinas.

from the ground up,

Jennifer Lapidus

We're Milling!

bread from Annies Bakery made with our whole wheat Turkey wheat
the mill in action
samples headed for area restaurants
aren't they cute! baby mills!!Billy Carter farm in Eagle Springs, NC. Our rye (Wrens Abruzzi) in the foreground and TAM 303 wheat in the background.

Things take place instantaneously, but there's a long process to be gone through first.

Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn

We are actually making flour. Yes, we are milling! Flat Rock Village Bakery, West End Bakery, and Annies Bakery are our first bakery customers, and Over Easy Cafe is our first restaurant. In fact, Over Easy is featuring a pancake this month using our flour (and I hear they're selling like hot cakes!)

It's amazing how simple it is to take grain and mill it into flour. When we conceived of this idea-- a mill that could connect bakers with farmers in the Carolinas-- it seemed like such an obvious thing to do. Why was no one else already doing this? But of course pretty quickly I discover all of the obvious reasons why. It's not nearly as simple as apples to apple sauce, and yet once we got there-- clean grain that meets the parameters of a baker-- grain to flour is so simple.

I think it worth mentioning-- since it took us from mid-February to mid-March to simply get the mill mechanics operative-- that some of the challenges we were presented with in launching this mill had to do with the lack of manufacturing in this country and the deficiency that this has caused in terms of skill level in our population. It was really difficult for us to find someone who could help us with our motor-- someone who understood the mechanics of a large (15 hp) motor and the frequency and the Rpms and how all of this interacts and relates to the speed of the grind (because the mill originally had a European motor on it). So now, we not only have the mill running-- which means we are rebuilding local manufacturing-- but we have also honed the skills of those around us, and (I think/hope) engaged their interest.

Anyways, I am going to attempt to post more-- to let you all know how this unfolds. Not just grain to flour, but flour to bread and pancakes and however else our amazing bakers and restauranteurs use our flour.

from the ground up,

jennifer

8th Annual Asheville Artisan Bread Festival

So we are finally at the place where we expected to be (months and months ago)-- which is at the interesting realm of problem solving/tweaking that is specific to this kind of start up-- how to get the machinery running properly, determining the most efficient and effective flow, and for us right now-- how to keep flour dust from flying in our faces-- literally. But we’re at least thankful that we are actually able to make the flour dust that is flying in our face. [The reason for the dust-in-face-situation seems to have something to do with changing over from European motor to US motor and from European 50Hz frequency to US 60Hz frequency and how this boils down to RMPS which seem to be resulting in a 44% stronger ventilating current running through the machine. Ja´n our technical advisor at Osttiroler (the make of our mill) in Austria explains, the wind pulls the flour out from between the stones, cools the flour and throws the flour out, but because of our increased ventilating current, it is throwing the flour with increased velocity. The upside is that this is a solvable problem void of personality, politics, or red tape.]

While we are working on getting the kinks out of the system, bakers are gearing up for the 8th Annual Asheville Artisan Bread Festival which will take place on Saturday, March 24th. The theme of this year's festival is “Local Grain, Local Flour, and Local Bread.” Thom Leonard, a professional baker for more than 35 years, and currently a consultant for Heartland Mills, will be presenting workshops on milling and baking with local wheat. Professor Stephen Jones, a world-renowned wheat geneticist and breeder from Washington State University, will be lecturing on the local-grain movement and recent results in the breeding of organic grain and a perennial wheat.

In addition to Leonard and Jones, we will be presenting at the mill, and sharing the stage with Sharon Burns-Leader of Bread Alone Bakery, a highly esteemed bakery in New York that has made a strong commitment to using local NY-grown flour. Dr Jones will also join in the conversation with tales of folks nationwide reclaiming their local grain economy.

For more info: http://www.ashevillebreadfestival.com/

Main Street

I was in Pittsboro a couple days ago for a CFSA staff meeting. During our meeting, I wrote the words, “slow money” on my hand to remind me to contact our slow money lender as soon as I returned to Asheville to give her an update on the mill. We closed our meeting with a group lunch at Angelina’s Kitchen, http://www.angelinaskitchenonline.com/. The food was amazing—fresh, local, flavorful-- and the atmosphere felt more like a community center than a restaurant. During lunch I looked down at the words on my hand and then remembered reading about Angelina’s Kitchen in the Abundance Foundation’s website, http://slowmoneync.org/our-loans. This place had received one of NC Slow Money’s first loans. I mentioned this to our group and Angelina, who happened to be sitting one table away doing paperwork, chimed in. She said that getting a slow money loan was so much more than just getting a loan. It was building community. Her small business loan came from real people. Her lenders chose to invest in her business because she adds something to this community—and so everyone benefits. She and her husband have their business; Pittsboro gets this wonderful restaurant; and she is supporting local growers, buying their produce, meat, cheese, and even flour. And she dishes up the most delectable food.

When I told her that our mill, Carolina Ground, L3C had recently received the first Western NC Slow Money loan, she lit up. With brimming enthusiasm she told us how she had gotten rye flour that had been grown by Bobby Tucker and milled by baker Abraham Palmer of Box Turtle Bakery, http://www.boxturtlebakery.com/. And then she disappeared, swiftly reappearing with slices of apple cake made with this flour for all of us to taste. Delicious.

Yesterday I called our lender. I told her we had hoped to be milling by now, but had hit an obstacle having to do with electrical, though we’re addressing it and hope to be milling soon enough. We had planned on beginning the first payment on our slow money loan this month, as it is the first of the year. I told her I still wanted to go ahead and make our first payment. She thanked me for calling. She said it meant so much to her that I was keeping her abreast of our progress. And she said she was not attached to beginning payment in January-- that getting this mill off the ground is what matters most right now.

This is what it looks like when we move our money from Wall Street to Main Street.

a plea for an angelic electrical engineer...

We, of course, expected to at least be milling test batches of flour by now, but alas, we have hit an obstacle (after clearing a good many along the way)... something to do with amperage and voltage...the terminology continues to ring in my ears even when I sleep-- 480/600; 110/220; 208; three- phase; step down; transformer; sub-panel; bus duct..on and on... and all I really want to hear is the simple, slow rotation of our mill...

What we need-- what would be AMAZINGLY helpful-- is if there were an electrical engineer out there that would be willing to volunteer to meet with us and offer his/her opinion as to the best route to take to get the proper juice to power our mill. For the sake of good and local bread, rustic pastries, and even NC-grown malt balls, please if you are out there, email me. A couple years back a woman reached out and said if we needed help, her husband is an electrical engineer. I have scanned through both of my notebooks and cannot find her contact info. If you are out there, please contact me.

feeling ground to a pulp,

jennifer

a few more pix

the present

the past

the past