BreadFlour

Issue 2:

Contents

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2 — WelcomeThe editor says hello!

4 — The beginning of breadA look at the early days of our daily bread andits impact on culture.

10 — Hedley Poplar / Denver MillsMeet Andrew Charlton, farmer, and Mark Abel,miller, who have found a beautiful andsustainable way to work together to createproducts that make happy and loyalcustomers.

19 — Skærtoft MølleIn Southern Denmark, this family owned farmmills its own flour and teaches the Danishpopulation to appreciate great bread and goodingredients.

36 — Flour in bread makingA look at the some of the most common breadflours—wheat, rye, and barley—and theirbread making properties.

44 — Recipe variationsUsing the information we have gathered aboutflour, you are now ready to vary the basicrecipe from issue 1. These two variations willget you started with your experiments.

51 — Viipurilainen kotileipomoA small bakery in the Finnish town of Lahtirelies on Finnish rye and direct cooperationwith the farmers producing it.

61 — Exotic flour ideasWhen you are bored with wheat or just want toexperiment with something new, here are Ideasfor other kinds of flour—some more and someless exotic.

64 — Introduction to HOME millingMilling your own flour is the surest way to getfresh flour with all its nutritients intact.

69 — Grow your own wheatIf you want to know where bread comes from,what better way to find out than creating yourown wheat field, for example on your balcony?

Photo credits on page 74

WELCOME

ABOUT THE MAGAZINEBREAD IS A MAGAZINE FOR LOVERS OFBREAD. If you are a serious home baker,dream of becoming one, or just enjoy readingstories of real people making the best bread inthe world, this magazine is for you.

In each of its editions, the magazineexplores a specific topic related to breadmaking—such as flour (the topic of thisedition), fermentation, heat, and shapingtechniques—while keeping the stories ofcraftsmen at work at its center.

ABOUT THIS EDITIONAS RICHARD BERTINET SAID in his interviewin the first edition of Bread, ”to make greatbread you have to make great dough.” And tomake great dough, you have to know aboutflour: learning about how different grains

behave as flour in your dough, choosing theright flour for the job, and adjusting the formulaaccordingly make a big difference in yourbread making.

This is why—and for a chance to learn moreabout where flour comes from—this secondedition of Bread is dedicated to flour.

WE WILL BEGIN OUR ADVENTURE right fromthe beginning: the breadbasket of England inNorth West Norfolk, where Andrew Charltongrows his organic wheat. Following the wheat’sjourney, we then move to the windmill lookingdown to Andrew's fields where the cereals areground to flour using ancient practices.

A visit to Skærtoft Mølle, an organic farm,mill—and much more—in Southern Denmarkwill further increase our understanding of whatgoes into making a bag of flour of the bestquality.

We will also learn from bakers who turn

flour into bread: what they value in great flour,and why they like to know where it comes from,whether buying the flour from a mill or milling itthemselves.

Bringing all this information together, we willexpand our recipe from the first edition withvariations using different flours—naturallybacked by enough information for you to startconducting your own experiments.

If this sounds like a blast, let's get started!

SHARE AND TALK BACKAS ALWAYS, I encourage your feedback andwould love to see you spread the magazine toyour friends and family—or anyone as intobread as you and I are!

Thank you for reading!

—Jarkko Laine, editor and publisher

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A warm welcome to the second edition of Bread, the magazinefor lovers of bread! After the introduction in the first edition, wenow move our attention to the most important ingredient in greatbread—flour.

READING OPTIONS

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To help you read your magazine in the way you prefer,starting from this second edition, as an experiment, BREAD willbe published in two formats: the PDF version familiar fromedition one and a Kindle version specifically made for handhelddevices.

OPTION 1: PDFIF YOU LIKE YOUR MAGAZINE IN FULLCOLOR AND FULL SIZE on your computerscreen, this PDF edition is for you.

Keep reading.To make sure you don’t lose your position

when clicking on links (any text that looks likethis is a link), it's best to download themagazine to your computer and open it in aPDF reader. such as Adobe Acrobat or Previewif you are on a Mac.

If your PDF reader supports a full screenmode, using it will make for the best and mostfocused reading experience.

OPTION 2: KINDLEIF YOU LIKE TO TAKE YOUR MAGAZINE WITHYOU when you go to bed—or on a long buscommute—for example, a laptop (not tomention a desktop computer) is a ratherclumsy choice.

For this purpose, I have created a Kindleversion that you can buy from Amazon to readon your Kindle or your iPad or iPhone using thefree Kindle application.

To learn more about the Kindle version,click here to jump over to Amazon's Kindlestore.

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the BEGINNING of BreadIt is hard to think of a food that has had as great an impact on

the western culture as bread. With a history dating back to thedawn of agriculture and the first great cities of the fertile crescent,it has fueled entire civilizations.

THE VERY FIRST OF LOAF OF BREAD wasbaked long before the invention of writtenlanguage, so it's no wonder tracing back thebeginning of bread is a tricky task requiring alot of digging and shoveling—and quite a bit ofguesswork.

Bread has been around for a long time. Buthow long exaclty?

OUR FIRST HUMAN ANCESTORS were hunter-gatherers. They spent most of their dayslooking for food: berries, roots, small animals—whatever they could find and catch. From timeto time, they found wild grains andexperimented with them. As they noticed thateating grain as is wasn't a good choice forhuman digestion, very soon—probably—theyturned to simple forms of milling.

Archaeologists have found that simple millstones were in use already thousands of yearsbefore the beginning of agriculture. They couldbe used for grinding all kinds of things,including grains such as the wild varieties of

barley and wheat.

IN HIS BOOK, Bread—A Global History,William Rubel suggests that once the earlyhumans had learned to make a coarse flour,there is no reason why they couldn't have usedthe flour to bake a simple—probably quite flat—bread on stones or on the embers of theircampfires.

He suggests we shouldn't look down at theneolithic societies but acknowledge theircreativity. For example, still today, bread inRajasthani villages is made with a technologynot far from that available to those living in theneolithic period:

"In Rajasthan flour is milled in the morningof baking, sifted through a coarse sieve, thenmixed with water, kneaded and made into athin disk that is baked on a terracotta griddleheated by cow dung until the dough is set. It isthen transferred to the emberss where itfinishes baking." Rubel writes.

Without conclusive evidence, all we can say

is that it's definitely a possibility: all the toolsrequired for turning grains into flatbreads(rocks and fire) were all available for them ifthey happened to know what to do with them.

And why wouldn't they have?

TRADING A HUNTER-GATHERER lifestyle forthat of agriculture some 12,000 years ago wasone of the biggest changes in the history ofmankind so far. It was big enough to inspire thewell-known confrontation story of Cain, the firstfarmer, and Abel, his hunter-gatherer brother,in the Jewish Bible or the Christian OldTestament.

Despite the bitter nature of that story, forbread—and western civilization—this was a bigleap forward.

AROUND THE WORLD, agriculture wasinvented at least four times independently ofeach other. In asia, it started with rice. In theAmericas, corn was the dominant crop. And inPapua, farming began with beans. While these

”Panem depsticium sic facito. Manusmortariumque bene lavato. Farinam in mortariumindito, aquae paulatim addito subigitoque pulchre.Ubi bene subegeris, defingito coquitoque sub testu.””Recipe for kneaded bread: Wash your hands and

a bowl thoroughly. Pour meal into the bowl, addwater gradually, and knead thoroughly. When it iswell kneaded, roll out and bake under a crock.”—Marcus Cato, De Agri Cultura (160 BC, English translation by W. D. Hooperand H. B. Ash, 1922).

are all ingredients for a great dinner, they arenot bread crops like wheat and barley whichformed the basis of the agriculture first in theFertile Crescent and later in Europe.

ThE RISE OF AGricultureTHE FERTILE CRESCENT, also known as thecradle of civilization, was a crescent shapedslice of land stretching from the Mediteranneansea to the Persianl Gulf. The area was naturallyfertile, with the Euphrates and Tigris riversirrigating wild crops, such as emmer wheat,einkorn, and barley.

By 3,000 BC, the Sumerians had a verydeveloped agriculture. This created a surplusof grain, that—while maybe leading to a lessvaried diet—brought stability and freedresources from the daily work of producingfood. This way, bread built cities, such as Uruk—the first major Sumerian city with apopulation of 30,000 bread eaters, states, andentire cultures.

From these times, we already have writtenmentions of bread, such as the passage fromthe Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2,000 BC) where, asRubel says, "what lifts Enkidu from the level ofbeast to that of a civilized man is eating breadand getting drunk."

SOON AFTER SUMER, Egypt became anothergreat nation fueled by bread. Egyptians lovedbeautiful artifices, many of which have survivedto this day. Looking at the many Egyptianengravings, paintings, and ruins of productionbakeries, we clearly see that bread was an

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important part of every day life as well asreligious ceremonies.

Bread and beer were offered to deities, andanyone who could afford them, consumedthem as a part of their normal diet.

Still, we don't have a recipe. Someexperimental archaeologists are trying toreproduce what could be original Egyptianbreads using barley from the region as well astools and techniques believed to have beenaround at the time. Still, we might never knowhow close tot he original they will get.

Bread Arrives in EuropeFROM EGYPT, the craft of bread makingmoved first to Greece and then, with Greekbakers bringing their world famous skills to thenew world capital, to ancient Rome.

Along the way, the recipes get moredetailed. Not nearly as detailed as the recipeswe use today, but more detailed nonetheless.Paintings became more detailed and realisticso that thanks to this, we have a pretty goodpicture of what bread was like in the firstcentury: not very different from what we eattoday.

RUBEL WRITES: "Thanks to the tragedy ofVesuvius' eruption in AD 79, besides charredloaves we can see via a well-preserved wallpainting a late Roman bakery with golden-huedloaves stacked on shelves behind the counter—a style of display familiar today. From thepainting it seems clear that these are leavenedbreads. [...] Ultimately, loaf breads are loaf

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breads and the chemistry of dough is fixed.What they ate then and what we eat now neednot have been different at all."

MAKING WHITE FLOUR means throwing awaya big part of the grain, so it's easy to see why itquickly became a sign of wealth: throwingaway most of the grain and eating bread madeof only the whitest flour was a luxury mostcouldn't afford.

Therefore, in Rome, and through the middleages, although Galen and other influentialmedical writers favored white breads as thehealthier choice, most of Europe was living ona diet of very dense, dark bread, mostly madeof barley and rye, instead of the moreexpensive option, wheat.

Today, we know that wholegrain bread isthe healthier choice, but these prefencesdefined 2,000 years ago still more or less guideour thinking on what great bread is like:

"White bread was favoured over branbreads, with the exception of the occasionalneed for bulk to help pass too compacted astool. Loaf breads were favoured overflatbreads. Wheat was favoured over all othergrains." Rubel writes.

The specifics of our favorite breads such asthe baguette or Pain de Campagne came later,fashions come and go, but we can safely saythat the general principles of bread makinghad been figured out.

Bread was born.

THE TITLE FOR THE EDITION is ”The Art ofBread” and it works as an introduction to ourjourney in finding what makes great breadgreat.

The magazine features interviews with threeamazing bakers: Richard Bertinet who inspiredme to start baking, Larry Lowary who runs asmall bakery on his backyard on Whidbey

Island, and the profoundly thinking home bakerand miller Phil Agnew. It also contains aninterview with Chris Young from the Real BreadCampaign in which he talks about bread andits rightful place in our society today.

If you are new to baking bread, the firstedition also gives you a quick overview to thebaking process and provides the basic recipe

we will use as a basis for our experiments inthis edition and every recipe from here on.

TO GET YOUR COPY, visit this page.And to be notified of every upcoming

edition as they come out, subscribe now—ifyou haven’t done it already.

DID YOU MISS THE FIRST EDITION?

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If you missed the first edition of Bread when it came out inMarch, no worries: you can still get your copy of the magazine.

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HEDLEY POPLAR AND Denver MillsIn Denver, Norfolk, a trusty old windmill stands next to the

fields of Hedley Poplar where Andrew Charlton grows the grainthat the mill then turns into tasty flours. These neighbours are amatch made in heaven.

IN THE COUNTY OF NORFOLK, the breadbasket of England, Andrew Charlton runs hissmall farm, Hedley Poplar. On its 93 hectaresof land, he grows wheat, barley, oats, rye,spelt, and oil seed rape.

Near the Hedley Poplar fields standsDenver windmill, now home for Denver Mills, asmall business with a goal to showcase thehistory of milling and to do it in a way that isfinancially sustainable.

The current Denver windmill was built in1835 to replace the earlier postmll on the samesite. After over 100 years of active use, windmilling ended in 1941 after a lightning struckone of the sails of the mill. A long period ofneglect followed, but slow restoration workbegan in 1975. In 2000, the fully restored millwas opened to the public.

SINCE 2008, Lindsay and Mark Abel havebeen running the mill as a business that sellsthe flour from this hertage mill—and bread andpastries made of it—but also organizes

courses and events to keep the craft of breadmaking alive. They describe Denver Millls as"The last commercially operating Windmill inNorfolk and centre for craft baking andtraditional cereal, milling and flour technology& training."

The Abels' plan to make the mill a self-sufficient business that pays for the mill'smaintenance without depending on outsidefunds was working well until an accident inOctober 2011 broke the mill sail, leaving themill out of use.

And now, with the windmill's owner, NorfolkHistoric Buildings Trust, planning to not renewthe five year lease that the Abels have had forthe mill, the mill is once again fighting newobstacles.

—IN APRIL 2012, I talked with Andrew Charltonabout his business, organic farming, and hiscooperation with Denver Mills.

Mark Abel from Denver Mills also answeredmy questions about the windmill, flour, andrunnng a business to keep the tradtion alive.

Andrew CharltoNjarkko: To start the interview, can you tell a bitabout your story. How did you come to runHedley Poplar?

andrew: I AM THE SON OF A FARMER.I studied agriculture in college, but my

father’s farm was very small and I couldn’t takeover, so I had a long and varied career doingmany things: I was a food buyer. I worked inthe civil service for a while. I did many thingsuntil one day an opportunity came along to renta very small farm—just two hectares, initially.

And then, twelve years ago, I got a chanceto move to this farm which is much bigger, 93hectares.

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jarkko: Growing up watching your father takecare of his farm, was it clear to you from ayoung age that you would be a farmer yourselfone day?

andrew: I HOPED TO BE.To be honest with you, I didn’t think I’d ever

get the chance. So when it came along, it wasa very big surprise, and I grabbed it with bothhands.

GIVING UP HAVING TO WORK FOR someoneelse is the best thing that’s ever happened tome.

It's a combination of huge job satisfactionand being able to see the results of your workat the end of the day, or the end of the year, orwhatever it may be.

It’s the working environment. Strollingacross the yard to start the work in themorning. There is no commute or anything likethat.

And I guess it’s the opportunity to work withnature.

jarkko: Can you tell a bit about your farm andyour everyday work? I guess seasons matter alot?

andrew: THE FARM IS PARTLY ORGANIC andpartly conventional.

From July all the way through the autumn,while we are cultivating land and then sowingthe next year’s crop, the business has a verybig labour demand. It’s rare for me to take a

day off then.

jarkko: So, no summer vacation for you?

andrew: [laughs] WELL, I TAKE MY SUMMERvacations around this time.

And then, hopefully, by early November,we’re finished getting crops in the ground, andthen concentrate in looking after the cropsthrough the winter and into the spring, as wellas on maintenance of machinery and keepingthe place clean and tidy, and paperwork, andthings like that.

LIKE ANY BUSINESS, I’m completelydependent on the help that I have of peoplewho will work with me.

I have people who come on to the farm todo hand-weeding of crops for, say, six to eightweeks, and there are people who come and doa few hours every week of the year for me.

jarkko: I see.There is one question I like to ask people I

interview for Bread: What is the craft, or skill ofa good farmer you have to master to be goodat what you do?

andrew: IT'S MANY FACETED.From a management angle, farming is

about getting things done to crops. To sowthem, to harvest them, to fertilize them, to weedthem, whatever it may be. Getting things doneat the right time. To ensure that you canenhance the yield.

It’s also a question of managing the soil tobe as beneficial as possible. And again, that’sdown to timeliness and avoiding going for theland at the wrong time.

There is also the question of understandingand working to ensure that we produce whatour customers want in terms of quality, priceetc.

And, in this day and age, you can’t escapeit: this is a very massively regulated industry.So you need to ensuring that your paperworkand all your compliance, all yourdocumentation is kept up to date and isavailable for the very many inspections in thecourse of the year.

jarkko: I guess organic farming adds to theamount of regulation quite a bit?

andrew: OH, MASSIVELY. Absolutely massively.Organic farming is unbelievably complicated toregulate. Very very complicated.

Some farms—you know—can be perfectlygood farmers but they actually cannot managethe complication of organic regulation.

jarkko: Would you say organic farming is over-regulated, then?

andrew: IT’S OVER-REGULATED in as much assome of the regulation overlaps andduplicates, which is wasteful.

Some regulation is necessary to protect theconsumer, and that’s absolutely, criticallyimportant. Ultimately, consumers have to have

confidence in the product that we produce.

jarkko: Speaking of organic farming, what’s thedifference? Does it make a difference for theend result: the crops you grow and the flourand bread they later become?

andrew: AS YOU ARE PROBABLY AWARE,there is an absolutely huge and fierce mediadebate about what organic means, in terms ofwhy someone would choose to buy organicfood.

What we can be sure and certain of is that itinvolves a production system that is kinder tothe environment, involves more naturalmethods of production, and manages soilfertility naturally.

What we can’t be sure of—and there arehuge debates that rage about this—is whateffect that has in terms of taste, nutrition of thebread that, in this case, results from it. All Iknow, and the customer at the mill knows isthat the crop and the bread they produce isexcellent.

I mean, I get my bread from there [DenverMills]. I’m going there in a few minutes to makea delivery of wheat, and I’ll make sure I take aloaf of bread back with me. The quality of theproduct is outstanding. Whether that’s down totheir milling process, their baking process, theskill that they have, that they are working insmall batches, or the quality of the wheat Isupply, to be honest, we really don’t know.

jarkko: Maybe it’s a mix of all of them.

andrew:COULD BE… I think that’s a definitepossibility.

I guess it’s one of those things where ifsomething works, don’t worry too much aboutit, just get on with it. I hope it doesn’t soundnegative, but it does work and that’s all we cansay really.

jarkko: It seems that you have a very goodcooperation going on with Denver Mills. Howdid you get started in working with them?

andrew: I HAD TRIED TO SUPPLY the millbefore, but the previous owners really weren’tinterested. They just wanted to buy thecheapest material that they could.

When Mark and Lindsay took over the mill—three, four years ago—they were working withsome business advisors that I had worked withpreviously. And they basically put us in touch.And we found that we could work together.

WE ARE BOTH VERY SMALL businesses andthere were opportunities where we couldsupport each other.

For example, the Denver Mill site is veryvery crowded, and I’ve got a little bit of spacehere, so we have been able to move all thecleaning operations for the grain, and put thatin the yard here. So I actually do that for them. Isupply them with a clean product that goesstraight into their milling machine. They don’thave to worry about cleaning it.

Little things like that, we’ve been able towork together. And it just makes life so much

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"I guess it’s oneof those thingswhere ifsomething works,don’t worry toomuch about it,just get on withit."

simpler and more manageable for us both.

jarkko: Is this kind of cooperation the key formaking it as a small business in a world ruledby big agriculture corporations?

andrew:AS A SMALL FARM, you have to acceptthat, because you are more flexible in thebusiness, life can sometimes be more figglythan it can for a big farmer.

But you are supplying a market that the bigfarmer really isn’t interested in because it’s toomuch trouble for them. As long as you areprepared to work with the customers and builda good relationship with them, I don’t believebeing a small farm should be a disadvantage.

You can turn it into an advantage and youcan be thankful that you don’t have to carry themassive cross the big farmer would carrybecause you don’t need huge machines andvery big work forces.

—MARK ABELjarkko: Can you tell a bit about yourbackground and how you came to run DenverMills?

MARK:WE FOUND OURSELVES at Denver as aresult of looking at an entirely different project!

With—amongst other things—heritageengineering and community developmentexperience behind us, we were looking to setup a facility whereby some of the dying

traditional Norfolk skills could be maintained tobenefit both the craftsmen and the public, andin many ways even more importantly, futuregenerations.

jarkko: But you ended up taking over thewindmill. Can you tell a bit about the mill as it'soperating today?

MARK:DENVER MILLS IS JUST another flour mill.It just happens to be that last one in Norfolkthat can still work and so is priceless as aheritage asset.

By the way, lets just confirm the word"heritage": It has come to mean just "the past"to the majority of people. But the Oxford givesthe definition “valued objects and qualitiessuch as cultural traditions, unspoiledcountryside, and historic buildings that havebeen passed down from previous generations”and that’s what we mean.

It’s the progression of learning andunderstanding.

WINDMILLS WERE AGRO-INDUSTRIALmachines that supplied the raw ingredient ofsustenance—flour.

With the advent of "factory" roller milling inthe 1870s, the role of the mill and the generalperception of flour changed dramatically. Theold stone grinding facilities could not make thenew "white" flour nor produce in the volume ofthe roller mills. Take Denver as an example:250 tons a year equates to about a ton a dayfor a five day week (if there was enough wind)

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whereas Heygates roller mill a mile away inDownham Market can run at something like1,500 tons a week!

The old stone mills went over to animal feedproduction (powered by steam, oil and finallyelectricity) which were then rendereduneconomical by the hammer mill.

Roller milling is a largely a science, stonemilling predominantly an art; it is important tome to understand products and processes sowe can both produce the best product andshare that knowledge and experience.

jarkko:Can you tell a bit about your setup andall the different mills you have at Denver Mills?Do you have a favourite or are they likechildren, where picking your favourite wouldn'tbe fair?

MARK: WE GOT A BIT OF A SHOCK when wetook over here. The windmill was not"completely restored into fully working order" asit was supposed to be. In fact, it was almostinoperative so we immediately had to look atother alternatives.

Like the vast majority of heritage mills,Denver had been buying in and re-bagging

flour but we had a fundamental policy of onlyselling flour milled on site whenever possible.

We were very lucky in being able to acquirea pair of late (probably just post war) BarronDreadnaught vertical stone mills. These werean attempt to make a production line stone mill—in the early part of the 20th century they werebelt driven, the latter ones had electric motors.

We also use a French SAMAP stone mill. Ithas conical stones (like the original quern) andwas designed for large restaurants and smallbakeries to mill as required and is currently re-commissioning a Blackstone vertical stone mill.

WE ARE CONSTANTLY EXPERIMENTING andfine tuning to get the optimum output fromeach. Different varieties—let alone differentcereals—behave very differently, and ambienttemperature and moisture can change thingsfrom day to day.

jarkko:Also, I'm curious to hear more aboutwhat the work is like. What is the real craft of amiller? And what are the normal work days like,making flour at Denver Mills?

MARK: THE WORK IS PHYSICALLY very hard—my daughter Sally and I worked out that oneday last year we lifted 6 tonnes between us byhand!

We are constantly looking at ways we canuse contemporary machinery to ease the load,but at the end of the day the only way ofgetting grain up the mill is sack hoist orconveyor!

The first year we milled about four tonnes.Last year we hit about 32 tonnes, all for thebakery and shop on site.

This year we had everything set up todouble that with external sales, but the inabilityto use the windmill has made that impossible.At the moment I am about 10.5 tonnes short onlast year's figures, let alone what we hadplanned this year.

We have set a cleaning plant up at PoplarFarm (we work in partnership with farmerAndrew Charlton who is an absolute gem) andhave mixers, cleaners and conveyors in theprocess of refurbishment.

The work is immensely frustrating but alsovery exciting—there is no typical day, you learnsomething new each one.

jarkko:What defines good flour? If a baker hasthe choice, what characteristics should one golooking for?

MARK: FIRST, LET'S DISTINGUISH betweentypes of flour: Roller Mills (think of giantmangles—up to 30 or 40 pairs) separate thegerm, bran and endosperm at the beginning ofthe process and make white flour just from theendosperm. (Around 84% of the wheat berry isendosperm, 14% bran and 2% germ).

The white flour is then blended andprocessed (in the UK, all white flour has tohave additives by law) to produce a productthat is consistent in appearance, performanceand taste (or lack of it!).

Stone Ground flour has a single pass

between two stones so the whole of the berry isground up—hence whole meal. It’s a coolerprocess producing a very different product inappearance, nutrition and—above all—flavour.

FORMULA FLOUR DOES A GREAT JOB inproducing a consistent product with theChorley Wood Process—it's an efficient way ofmaximising output—and without it we could notfeed our population (go back to the scales ofproduction above).

Real bread is more filling and satisfyingthan Chorley Wood bread. It is moreexpensive, but as so often found with modernfood products, it has the same or even greatervalue; it may cost more but you need less, it ismore satisfying and you end up with lesswaste.

If you want a quick easy way of eating, useroller milled flours—you will be safe.

If you want to enjoy your food to the fullest,go for proper stone ground (if its "proper", thewholemeal will have discernable flecks of bran,the dressed or white will appear coarser andrarely dazzlingly white) and if you want to reallyunderstand your baking, experiment withdifferent varieties and cereals.

We produce and use wheats, spelt, barleyand rye and are constantly experimenting:What does triticale flour taste and behave like?Should know next harvest!

WE START OUR INTRODUCTORY bakingcourses explaining that it is not magic: onceyou have the basics of what is going on, its

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"If you want toenjoy your food tothe fullest, go forproper stoneground and if youwant to reallyunderstand yourbaking, experimentwith differentvarieties andcereals."

90% confidence.I was horrified when I first tasted a scone

made with our biscuit (plain) flour—yousuddenly realise formula flour has little or noflavour!

jarkko: You seem to appreciate your localsuppliers a lot. Can you tell a bit about yourcooperation with Andrew Charlton and localbusinesses in general?

MARK: WE COULD NOT DO what we are doingwithout a sympathetic farmer who is interestedin sharing in our motivation of understanding.

I believe we are in a unique position: wehave a farmer who is also an agronomist andhas worked on both sides of the food chain; wehave a baker who was trained by Rank HovisMcDougal as a food technologist and spentmost of his life working for Mars, we have anengineer who questions everything (me!) and amillwright who understands how it all works.

Only with this spread of skills andexperience can we operate, challenge andunderstand as we do.

THERE ARE MANY DEDICATED smallbusinesses who share this pride in theirproducts and these are the people we like todeal and work with.

Currently we are working with D J BarnardMeats on a range of Poplar Farm-Denver Mill-Barnard Meats spelt products: sausagesbound with spelt rather than wheat crumb, porkpies and sausage rolls made with spelt pastry,

even spelt black pudding!We are also working with Rob Butterworth

from our tea and coffee suppliers Butterworth &Son on a unique biscuit using a by-product ofcoffee roasting...

LOCAL WORKS WELL FOR EVERYONE,personal relationships and the trust thatcreates, food miles, carbon footprints, localeconomies—you win every way.

jarkko:What happens to your flour when it isready from your mills? How much of it is usedby your own bakery?

MARK: AS SOON AS I MILL some flour someblooming customer comes along and buys it soI have to make some more! I am delighted tosay that it is hard to keep up with production—we can always sell more.

We stock bread and plain wheat floursalong with spelt, barley and rye in bothwholemeal and dressed along with thesemolinas (spelt semolina makes the bestpasta you will ever taste) and brans that comewhen we dress the wholemeal.

At the moment it all goes out through thesite (bakery, shop, mail order) but that will beextended as soon as the future of the site issorted out with our landlords.

jarkko:Can you tell a bit about your business? Isuppose building a sustainable businessaround an old windmill is an art form in itself?

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WE CAME TO THIS PROJECT to make itsustainable so no more public funds wouldneed to go into it.

Don’t forget that these mills went out ofproduction because they were no longereconomic. Just because we get nostalgicdoesn’t make them commercially viable.

20-50 tonnes of flour through the windmillper year will pay for someone to run it, takepeople round and above all do the dailymaintenance—something forgotten today.

The other departments (teaching, bakery,etc.) are essential to showcase the productand engage people’s active interest.

IT IS A VERY STRANGE BUSINESS MODEL.We cannot be driven by increased custom

and turnover; 400 people is the capacity for anormal day, more than that it becomescrowded and destroys the ambience of thesite. So, we are going for the right sort ofpeople rather than just numbers.

We want people who enjoy what we aredoing and share our respect for this heritage,people who feel "included" (whether they comeonce a year or once every day) so not only dothey want to come back but they want to telltheir friends too.

We have a good bunch of regulars—whether it is for coffee, lunch, to bake, to buyingredients or just to enjoy the atmosphere.They are now coming from Ely, Cambridge,Diss, Norwich and the North Norfolk Coastround to Kings Lynn.

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MY PERSONAL GOAL is to establish a soundenough business to allow this project to workrather than demonstrate our on-going heritagethrough to the end of this century.

We now have wind, oil and electricallypowered stone milling. Let's hope that in fiftyyears time something contemporary will beadded to show the developments of ourgeneration.

jarkko: With the accident last October, thewindmill is facing a new obstacle. Has therebeen progress with fixing the broken sails andgetting the mill back to business?

MARK: THE WINDMILL SEEMS TO BE in limbo.The sails are still rotting in the Tea Garden andwater is flowing through the mills every time itrains. After seven months you would havethought that a Trust dedicated to thepreservation of heritage buildings would havedone something at least in terms of damagelimitation, but unfortunately not.

We are now being forced into costlyarbitration, but we hope the future of theproject will be resolved soon—we want tocontinue with this project and Denver Mills willcontinue one way or another.

What we have done in making theunderstanding of traditional cereals, millingand bread available to all is too important tolose.

Visit the Hedley Poplars and Denver Mills web sites for moreinformation.

If you want to help in keeping Denver Mills running, you cansign the online petition for repairing the broken sail, and keep aneye on updates on the mill's web site and Facebook page.

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skærtoft mølleSkærtoft Mølle is a family owned farm that mills its own flour,

an active educator of real bread, and a lot more. In this longinterview, you will learn a lot about flour, community, and braveleaps of faith.

AFTER MY INTERVIEW WITH Richard Bertinetfor the first edition of Bread, Richard and Italked briefly about the future of the magazine.As I told him that the next edition was going beabout flour, without a second of hesitation, hesaid there was a mill in Denmark that I must getin touch with. He spoke very passionately ofthe spelt flour produced by this family businesswith a hard to spell name and told me ”youhave to talk to them."

With this in mind, the first thing I did when Istarted working on this issue was to contactSkæertøft. At the time, I didn’t know muchabout the company, but the more I learned, themore curious I became.

SKÆRTOFT IS A FAMILY BUSINESS run byHanne and Jørgen Risgaard and their daughterMarie-Louise. It consists of a farm that hasbeen in the family for four generations, andsince 2004, a flour mill. Since the beginning ofthe milling business, the company hasexperienced steady growth and now employs

ten full time employees, sells 550 metric tonnesof stone ground flour every year, and organizesbread making courses—and a yearly foodfestival.

—I WILL LET MARIE-LOUISE, Hanne, and Jørgentell the story as they have lived it and thusknow it best.

jarkko: This magazine is built around stories ofpeople working with great bread, so I’d like tostart this interview by asking about your storyand how you have come to where you aretoday?

Marie-Louise: SKÆRTØFT—THE ACTUAL FARM—has been in my father’s family since 1892.When my parents took over the farm in 1983, itwas still just an ordinary, conventional farm withpigs.

At the time both of my parents had jobs

outside the farm: my journalist mother wasworking as a producer/director in Danishtelevision and my father as an agriculturalteacher. Later he became the vice principal ata local business college and also found thetime to get himself an MBA.

Both my parents were extremely busy withtheir jobs and careers and had no intentions tostart farming full-time. Although, I must say, thejob as a part-time farmer is really expressedmuch better in French—they call it “travaildouble”—because “double work” is really whatit is.

THE LATE 1980s were years of environmentalcatastrophes in Denmark as well as in the restof Europe, and it made my parents wonder iffarming conventionally was really the wayforward. So, when they met an enthusiasticorganic advisor who told them ”farmingorganically is really just a walk in the park” theyinstantly decided to convert to organic farming.That was back in 1991 and they—we—have

never regretted that decision for one second.During the 1990s there was an increasing

focus on the subject of traceability. Questionslike “where does our food come from, how is itmade and why”, made my parents wonderwhat actually happened to the grains theyproduced. We were quite fortunate to have agood deal with an organic mill (owned byScandinavia’s largest milling company) andreceived a price premium for our organicbread wheat every year.

The soil we have at Skærtoft is good forgrowing crops and when summers were goodwe delivered excellent wheat with protein levelswell beyond 12-13 percent. But when we wentto the local supermarket to buy organic wheatflour from that mill, protein levels were always10 pct and we wondered what had happenedto our excellent bread wheat...

AT THE TIME, I was studying agronomy at theAgricultural University in Copenhagen, and theorganic farming specialization had taken me toWales. There, I saw what can happen whenfarmers decide to take things into their ownhands—when they choose to follow theirproduce every step of the way—from field tofork, so to speak.

And my mother and I started discussing if itmight be possible to do SOMETHING with ourfarm to achieve just that. We talked at lengthsabout milling flour, touched upon the subject ofgrowing apples, vegetables, and strawberriesbut every time, my father objected andreasoned that he was no good at any of this—

and why would he want to leave a perfectlyinteresting job for this? We had to come up withsomething better!

Hanne: AND THEN SOMETHING HAPPENED.I was attending a film festival in London and

had nipped off for a little break. I was sitting ona bench with my eyes closed, enjoying theheat. All of the sudden, somebody asked:“What fingerprint will you leave on the world?” Itwas an old man, who had sat down next to meand who clearly wanted to talk. And so we did,but without me ever answering his provocativequestion. The gauntlet, however, had beenthrown.

“What fingerprint will you leave on theworld?” The question will not let go... itdemands an answer. And that answer appears,on the 15th August 2003! A landmark date inour family history.

That day, Jørgen and I are sitting in ourseparate cars, heading for our respectivemeetings, and listening to the same show onthe radio. At ten past nine, the host, aprofessional cook called Nanna Simonsen,welcomes two experts who have been invitedto speak that day: pastry chef ThorleifKristensen, owner of the Music Patisserie,Copenhagen; and the academic Ane BodilSøgaard, who has conducted research intograin at the Carlsberg brewery, and at theRoyal Veterinary and Agricultural University.

MOST OF THE BROADCAST'S two hours isspent on the incredibly bad flour and terrible

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bread which the Danes seem happy to settlefor. Part of the problem is that flour and breadare among the oldest processed foodstuffs,and are thought of as so common, everydayand unsexy that they can end up being treatedwith indifference. The result is that neither flournor bread end up carrying the sameexpectations of flavour and nutrition that areotherwise demanded from our foods.

Flour producers, bakers and the breadindustry are all getting a real hammering fromthe guests on the show. Thankfully though, theguests are able to offer alternative solutions.Bodil Søgaard outlines, with broadbrushstrokes, the formula of how to make thebest flour in the world—and both guests andhost end up completely united in the idea that ifonly proper flour was made freely available, abread revolution could be created in Denmark.

So—as Marie-Louise says—we had alreadybeen discussing any possibilities our farmmight offer us to leave a decent fingerprint onthe world. Because we were farming grain, theidea of making flour had also been put on thetable. But Jørgen hesitated. As the fourthgeneration at Skærtoft, it made good sense tobe a part-time farmer. But a miller?

WHEN WE CAME HOME that August evening,however, there was no longer any doubt: weshould give flour a go. We would try—and thiswas said modestly, of course!—to make theWorld’s Best Flour. Or get as close as possible.

It would be organic, stone-ground flour, withthe germ and bran left in.

Pure, no additives, milled only to order, andwith a naturally short shelf life.

Flavour and nutritional value would not bemutually exclusive, but would go naturally handin hand.

ONCE THE DECISION WAS MADE, thingsstarted happening very quickly. In thebeginning we worked alone, with the skills wehad. When problems appeared that wecouldn’t solve ourselves—and there were many—we looked for help, from the best we couldfind.

And so it was that on June 1st, 2004, afterten months of hard work—by us and by manyother people—the very first bags of stone-ground flour made their way from SkærtoftMølle.

JøRGEN: AND MAY I JUST ADD that we neverthought that things would end up the way theyare today.

When we made the decision to start up amill we spent the first four months intensivelyresearching and investigation how to do allthis. We also made ourselves a very detailedbusiness plan where we stated which kind oforganic, high quality flour we wanted to makeand how—as Hanne’s just said—and we alsoset out to find a way of selling our flour beforeinvesting anything but our own time.

Too many times have we experienced howskilled organic farmers have made excellenthigh quality products that they just haven’tbeen able to sell, because they are farmers

and not salesmen, and because in Denmarkyou cannot make a living from selling yourproduce from the side of the road.

This part of our research lead us to thehigh-end supermarket chain “Irma” whichresides mainly in Copenhagen and on Sealand.Their consumer segment appeared just right,so we had a meeting set up with a buyer fromIrma.

That day Hanne and I spent 45 minutes in avery small room with a furiously smoking mantelling him what is was that we wanted to doand how, and why exactly we wanted to sellour flour in Irma. He said yes.

We simply could not believe our luck.Once our sales channel was settled we

started investing real money and startedrebuilding the old cow stable into a modernmill. During that whole phase Marie-Louise wasour scientific anchor. Whenever we needed toknow something about grain and flour we senther knocking on doors at the university ormade her read up on everything availableabout how to preserve nutritional values in flourfor instance. A never-ending field of research itseems...

Marie-Louise: YES, INDEED IT IS. We know thatnow! I would just like to add that it had notbeen part of the plan from the beginning that Ishould return back home from Copenhagen tojoin the mill. I was heading towards a PhD andwas very happy in the big city. But honestly, itwas really, really hard not to becomeenthusiastically engaged in the crazy flour

"WHEN WE CAME HOMEthat Augustevening, however,there was no longerany doubt: weshould give flour ago. We would try tomake the World’sBest Flour."

adventure my parents had embarked on, andin 2007 I returned home bringing my husbandand first child with me.

JøRGEN: AND WE ARE GLAD to have Marie-Louise on board. She is an only child and it is areal treat to be able to include her in thebusiness in the way that we have. Between thethree of us we have many different skills andcover many different areas of knowledge—andbeing able to work together as a family hasbeen an unexpected but very nice add on!

jarkko: It seems to me that you are into millingfor more than just to make a living? Why flour?What about your goals for the business? Whendo you consider it successful?

JøRGEN: MAKING FLOUR IS MOST CERTAINLYabout making a living—and making money. Buthaving said that, to us it is also a verymeaningful way to spend the last decades ofour working lives. For Hanne and I that is—Marie-Louise is just getting started!

Making high quality flour gives us theopportunity to contribute to an increase inhealth and an awareness about the fact thatgood, nutritious and tasty flour is most certainlyan important and essential component of ourdaily diet—and that is very giving indeed. AsRichard Bertinet puts it: “It is not good breadthat is bad for you—bad bread is”.

And bad bread is made from bad flour. ButI’m sure Marie-Louise will tell you lots moreabout that...

Hanne: WE CHOSE FLOUR because flourcomes from grain. And Jørgen was already avery skilled arable farmer at the time. We hadbeen farming organically for 12 years when wedecided to start milling our own produce andJørgen had gathered a lot of experience inthose years.

Farming organically is not just “a walk in thepark” as the advisor so alluringly expressed it.It is quite demanding. If you let it be. Thinkingabout nature and working with nature gives youa respect for the crops you grow, that in someways challenge you even further. You takepride in what you do and you want to createthe best growing conditions possibly. So wehave always paid a lot of attention towardscrop rotations, including crops that add to soilfertility, mulching of straw etc.

In a way, you might say that our land wasready for the next challenge—providing us withthe best grain possible for flour production.

JøRGEN: WE STARTED OUT by stressing in ourbusiness plan that we would be milling our owncrops, which would give us about 40 tonnesper year. A proper self-supplying mill. Only, theflour became such a huge success that we hadreached the 40 tonnes after just 6 months onthe market.

So now we have a group of farmingpartners who deliver grain to us and we canlook back and say that the only grave mistakewe made in our business plan was the actualsize of the mill—we simply made it too small.We had no idea….

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AND THEN THE QUESTION pops up of “whendo we consider ourselves as beingsuccessful?” Now—after 8 years in the millingbusiness—we can look at our business andconclude that it is successful because we havea high demand for the type of flour that weproduce—along with the other grain products.

What is really great for us is that we havealso managed to attract the interest from thegastronomic world. Master chefs use andpraise our flour and pearls because they havethat extra layer of quality attached to them. Thisis indeed an achievement in itself.

Also, being chosen as supplier forimportant scientific health studies is of greatimportance to us.

ONE OF OUR GOALS was also to create jobsin our rural area, and we are proud to say thattoday we employ 10 people full-time.

But most importantly we wanted to create ameaningful framework for our lives. Somethingthat was not just “a job” but our life! We takegreat pride in what we do and that is not agiven. We have realised that it becomesincreasingly important to know everythingabout the whole process from “field to fork”.This is a somewhat cliché expression, but itreally is self-increasing.

The journey doesn’t end here although webelieve that we have reached a lot of our goals,but we are very happy that we dared to makethe choice of skipping our profitable jobs andrisking everything and starting up a productionof something as basic and ordinary—but yet

very meaningful—as flour.

jarkko:Can you tell a bit about your mill andyour work? What are the day-to-day operationslike?

JøRGEN: THE MILL WE HAVE is a stone mill. Ituses the same technology as when “invented”5000 years ago, only this one runs onelectricity and everything that surrounds it is abit more modern.

From the beginning, we decided to maketwo main types of flour: whole meal(wholegrain) flour and fine sifted flour. Wewanted to always keep the nutritious andflavourful germ in the flour and when makingfine flour, we wanted to keep some of the branparticles in the flour as well.

What we do in practise is that we adjust thedistance between the milling stones accordingto the softness or hardness of the kernel. Theintake is regulated in such a way that thetemperature of the stones never go above 28degrees Celsius.

When the stones are kept closely together,we make fine flour and thus grind some of thebran to very small particles below 200 micronsin size. That gives you soft and smooth whiteflour sprinkled with little brown dots. It alsogives you bread that will never be totally whitebut golden instead. Golden for taste, flavourand health.

IT ALL STARTS with finding the best grainvarieties: good ones that do not need a lot of

fertilizer, that are not susceptible towards pestsand that deliver high percentages of proteinand gluten. Since we primarily make breadflour we focus a lot on protein content andquality. Typically, high yielding crops will notgive you high yields of protein. Rather, it is theother way around.

When the crops are harvested, we start outby making the analysis that we need to make tobe sure this is the grain we are going to use.Falling number, protein, gluten etc., and lateron during storage we also check for toxins. Ifall is well, we then dry the grain to 14%

moisture (if necessary) and then leave it untilwe need it. Flour is best stored as grain.Especially if you want to keep as many of thevaluable nutrients and flavours given to grainfrom nature as possible. Once a grain isopened and the endosperm and aleuron layerexposed, flavours, essential oils and vitamins inthe grain will start to degenerate.

WE ONLY MILL ON ORDER. That means wehave no storage facilities for flour—only forgrain. It also means that the flour we deliver towholesalers and retailers is a maximum of 5days old and should therefore reach the end-users when it is no more than two weeks old.

At this age, there will still be high amountsof nutrients and flavour preserved in the flour.This means that we have put a lot of effort intotelling people that they should use their flourwhen it’s fresh. And—as a special treat—wemanaged to convince Irma that the shelf life ofthis flour should be no longer than 7 months.This was quite an achievement as the shelf lifeof flour in Denmark is normally 12 to 24 months.

WHEN ORDERS COME IN, we first clean thegrain. The cleaning process starts with takingout any particles that are either smaller orlarger than the grain itself. Then we take out allround particles and keep the kernel shapedone. Round particles are usually weed seeds.Hereafter the grain passes though a de-stonerand then enters a gravity sorter where only thegood-looking and fully developed kernels maypass through. Throughout the entire cleaning

process the grain also passes over threemagnets. The last thing we do before the grainenters the mill is to pass it though one of myown inventions: a brush and vacuum cleaner.Here all the dust that has settled on the grain isbrushed off and then sucked out by thevacuum cleaner—not an ordinarily sized one Ishould add—so that what we mill is clean grainand nothing else.

When you want to preserve flavour andnutrition in your flour you have to avoid twothings: heat and oxygen. This is the reason whywe chose the stone mill. It runs quite slowlyand the stone therefore never goes above 28degrees Celsius in temperature. This means ofcourse that the milling capacity is somewhatlimited. We now mill about 500 tonnes of flourper year, which is what the average modernroller mill produces per day!

To avoid enemy number two, oxygen, Ihave created a system where the flour ispushed by a wire conveyor from the stone millin a closed system of tubes through to thepackaging station.

In large roller mills the grains are passedthrough very rapidly moving and also verywarm steel rollers and the flour is transportedvia pneumatic air transportation systems,hereby adding a lot of air to the freshly milledflour.

Richard Bertinet stands quite firmly onnever using roller milled flour until 2 monthsafter it's been milled. That’s how long it takesfor the flour to settle and come together again,he says. Before that it doesn’t feel right and it

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will certainly not deliver the bread that hewants!

WE DO OUR VERY BEST in terms of making aproduct that is as fresh, natural and non-tampered with as possible in order to providethe end-users with the best possible startingpoint for making flavourful and nutritious bread.To obtain this, we have adjusted the wholemilling process to last the least possible time;when a grain passes through the stone mill itwill be in a sealed bag—as flour—just 7minutes later.

ALL THE FLOUR IS PACKED by hand. This ismainly because we never expected that wewould produce the amounts that we do now.We are considering buying a packagingmachine but on the other hand the handpacking does indeed have one very largeadvantage. The three ladies working full-time inthe mill act as our final quality insurance. Withtheir eyes, ears and noses they ensure that theflour bags (or indeed bags of pearled grains,kibbled, cut or flaked grain) only contain thebest product. They discover immediately whensomething is wrong—if the sieve is broken forinstance, or the mill doesn’t run properly.

This places a lot of responsibility on theirshoulders but they carry the load gracefullyand with great competence! The same goes forthe two guys working in the fields and in thecleaning area. They carry a lot of responsibilitytoo. I’m out there when they need me, but theoffice workload has increased a lot over the

years, so I trust them to do their best everyday.

jarkko:As I mentioned earlier, I first heardabout you from Richard Bertinet when I talkedwith him for the first edition of Bread. Can youtell a bit more about how you met?

Hanne: IF JØRGEN HADN'T BEEN SURFING theinternet looking for everything and anythingrelated to flour we might not have met Richardat such an early stage of our milling life.

WHEN YOU MAKE FLOUR, you also startbaking, because you have to! Once we havecarried out all of the lab analysis, we finish offwith a baking test. Because sometimes—evenwhen all protein and gluten values are perfect—sometimes nature is playing tricks on us.Sometimes the gluten is simply too weak tobake with. That will give you very tasty breadwhich is however completely flat.

Normally, you would blend such loads withother loads of grain with stronger gluten toobtain a better quality. But we decided—backin the days of the business plan—that wewould never mix individual loads in order toensure 100 percent traceability.

This means that each and every load ofgrain that we produce ourselves or receivefrom our partners has to live up to the qualitystandards we have set up. This leaves room fornaturally occurring fluctuations: We never gobelow 12 percent protein but very often above.The colour of the grain varies according to

wind, weather, and soil type, and thisinfluences the colour of the finished bread—sometimes lighter, sometimes darker.

But most importantly: we never accept grainthat cannot bake the way we want it to!

I QUICKLY REALISED that stone milled flouracts very differently from roller mill flour. It hasmarkedly higher water absorption andretention, for instance. So I looked around forexperts on baking with stone milled flour. Ijoined all the baking classes I could find, butthe real revolution happened when Jørgenfound the book Dough by Richard Bertinet onthe internet.

I read it, watched the DVD and instantlydecided that I had to join one of Richard’sbaking classes. This happened in August2004. Marie-Louise joined me in 2006 and wentthere alone in 2007.

Bertinet’s technique and discipline andmost of all his enthusiasm for making wonderfulcontemporary bread was just contagious. Hecompletely changed the way we look at breadand so after years of intense practice and withRichard’s blessing we started up the coursefacilities at Skaertoft—the stable kitchen,Staldkøkkenet—thus enabling people to cometo us and learn to bake with our stone milledflour, the Bertinet way.

IN 2008, WE ARRANGED the book launch ofRichard’s second book Crust in Denmark.Richard came over for a Master Class and thatwas when he first saw the old baking house

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"I Quickly realisedthat stone milledflour acts verydifferently fromroller mill flour. Ithas markedlyhigher waterabsorption andretention, forinstance."

with the wood fired stone oven which we werehaving restored at the time. I think it was love atfirst sight. He told us that we had to dosomething with it. Something big. And he gotus thinking...

Marie-Louise: AND IT DIDN'T STOP THERE.Next time we came to Bath, Richard sat us

down and told us his exact vision of aninternational Bread & Food Festival at Skærtoft.With an oven like that we were simply obligedto use it for making people come together andenjoy good bread and food. And then mymother was hooked too. She took that visioneven further and created the Bread & FoodFestival as it is today—with a strong focus onboth food culture in every sense of the termand across the Danish-German border, and onorganics, sustainability, fun and the joy ofbaking bread in wood fired stone ovens.

When I last saw Richard in March this year,he asked me: “So how’s the festival comingalong? Because I’ve been telling everybodythat they have to go. You know, this is not justsome small inconspicuous event you havethere. I believe we’ve created a monster...” Andhe laughed.

Hanne: WE GOT THE COURAGE to carry out aninternational Bread & Food Festival fromRichard Bertinet back in 2008, but the festivalitself has evolved immensely in scope sincethen. It is still a happy day out for the family oranybody interested in good, organic bread andfood, but if you want more than just that, you

will certainly get it!Since the focus of the festival is not bread

alone, but also food, it was the natural choiceto involve the local vocational college, EUCSyd, where young people are trained tobecome chefs, nutritional assistants andbakers—among others. So in cooperation withteachers from EUC Syd, a local Master Chefand a local food historian, we set up theframework for a competition between youngchefs from both Denmark and Germany.

Living so close to the German border wehave especially our food culture in common,which makes it natural to work and shareexperiences across the border.

To act as the judges we found some of thebest and most esteemed chefs—some of themholding Michelin stars—and put them in thejury. And now, after only three years, it hasbecome quite prestigious for the young chefsto add a winning position to their CVs and sothe stakes are not a lot higher than before.

Marie-Louise: FURTHERMORE, the Danishchampionship for nutritional assistants, calledSKILLS, now takes place on the Sunday of thefestival.

Chefs have always been recognized fortheir work but traditionally they primarily makefood for the few. Nutritional assistants however,are “out there” where it all happens. They havesuch great responsibility for the quality of thefood that is served to thousands of peopleevery day in hospitals, rest homes,kindergartens, schools and the rest of the

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ON THE FESTVAL GROUNDS:Food Culture Tent: (with room for 150-200 people) for guestspeakers, for when the jury evaluates both championship andcompetition, special events etc.

Market Tent: Approximately 25 organic producers from bothDenmark and northern Germany sell their excellent products.

Café Tent: For little breaks with coffee and cake and surpriseevents (e.g. sustainable fashion show and live music).

Nature Tent: A showroom for the local division of EPA.

Handicraft Tent: Local and regional people have theirwonderful handicrafts for sale end exhibition

Climate Tent: A showroom for the local strategy of a CO2-neutral municipality for 2029.

Out-door Activities: Sheepdog show, pancakes on open fire,face painting, straw bale jumping etc, and the top event whichtakes place on the Sunday just before closing time:

Sowing of the Children’s Field: This is where all the childrenpresent are given a bag of grain to sow themselves on a fieldnext to the festival ground. This was done for the first time in2011 so this year all the children who have kept their emptybag will come and bake bread with Marie-Louise with flourmade from the grain they sowed themselves.

public sector. But their work is never trulyrecognised and admired.

SKILLS aim at changing that and at thefestival we provide the contestants with everyopportunity to impress and be rewardedaccordingly.

Hanne: BUT THE FESTIVAL is not only aboutcompetitions, skills out of the ordinary andprestige. It is very much about bringing peopletogether to experience something out of theordinary, both in terms of educationalexperiences which our guest speakers takecare of and in terms of seeing, tasting andexperiencing all kinds of different organicproducts that are on exhibition in the markettent.

The festival is also the place where futuretechnologies meet the skills and handicrafts ofthe past. In our municipality we aim at beingCO2 neutral in 2029. This demands a lot oflocal engagement and understanding. Butmoving into a bright green future should alwaysinclude and make room for old skills. Whoknows what the future might bring?

And finally I should mention that the festivalhas a new theme every year. This year it isFabulous Bread and Food from America, andwe are welcoming Master Baker JeffreyHamelman, King Arthur Flours, Vermont, as ourguest star. Jeffrey is going to give a number oflectures on bread and flour and what it allmeans from his perspective.

SO FAR, WE HAVE HAD two great bakers as

our guest stars: Richard Bertinet—both for theopening in 2009 and again in 2011—andAndrew Whitley in 2010.

We are hoping that each year we will beable to present another visionary andknowledgeable master baker to our Danishaudience, because we consider their influenceas important and very often also mindchanging!

THIS YEAR, the festival takes place fromSeptember 1st to September 2nd from 10 amto 4 pm both days.

We are hoping to see a lot moreinternational guests this year and can assureanybody arriving from abroad that all Danesare perfectly good at English!

jarkko: Richard Bertinet praises your speltflour. What do you think makes your spelt flourso special? What about spelt in general, whyshould a baker use spelt for her bread? And ifone does, what's the best way to start?

Marie-Louise: YES, ISN'T IT GREAT that a worldfamous baker like Richard loves our spelt flour?I feel very fortunate!

And I must admit that I couldn’t agree more.First of all, spelt has all the excellent nutritionalvalues of wheat—only there’s more ofeverything. But spelt is difficult to handle in themilling industry due to it’s need for de-husking.It also has much lower yields than wheat andthus has not been of any interest to cropbreeders for many, many years.

So now we have this ancient wheat thatholds a larger proportion of vitamins, minerals,protein and flavour compared to ordinarymodern wheat. Truly a gift to any baker whowants “more”. And speaking of flavour, weknow now that flavour is best preserved whenthe flour is ground on a stone mill.

MANY PEOPLE BELIEVE that you cannot bakewith spelt alone, that you have to mix it withwheat to give it extra strength. But whenhandled correctly, spelt will deliver very nicelyindeed.

The gluten in spelt is weaker than that inwheat. This means that you should not workyour dough for too long—and take extra carewhen using a mixer. But stone milled spelt hasnice water absorption and will give you verysmooth and elastic dough if you use forinstance 1 kg of spelt (1 kg fine spelt or 700fine/300 wholemeal), 20 g yeast (7 g for anover-night fermentation), 20 g salt and 680-700g of water (or even more if you like to challengeyourself, e.g. 750 g). The resulting bread has awonderful crumb and the crust is just delicious.

Also, you should never let your spelt doughprove for too long after shaping/moulding as ittends to soften more quickly than wheat dough.Using either a couche (baker’s linen) orproving baskets will give you nice loaves thatkeep the intended shape. I make wonderfulsourdough bread with our spelt—just to saythat anything is possible with spelt and that allyou need to do, really, is to give it a go andenjoy the ride.

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This year, theBread & FoodFestival atSkærtoft takesplace fromSeptember 1st toSeptember 2nd.

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WE HAVE AN INCREASING NUMBER ofprofessional bakers coming here for bakingclasses and what we tell them again and againis that when choosing to work and bake withstone ground flour, you end up with bread thatfill people up in a whole new way. The waterabsorption is around 15 % higher and waterretention is higher too, which means that youwill actually make more bread from a givenamount of flour—if the flour has bran in it anddoes not consist of endosperm alone.

Our fine sifted flour holds about 5 % fibres,which means that you cannot eat the sameamount of “white” bread as you would havewith, for instance, ordinary white sliced bread.

When baked properly, the bread has abeautifully moist crumb and a nice crust, whichagain will give you more to chew on. When youchew you activate digestion enzymes in yoursaliva which helps you digest the breadproperly AND—more importantly—your brainactually registers that you are eating becauseyou are chewing and therefore tells you to stopwhen you are full, and not when you have hadtoo much.

I BELIEVE A BAKER or any person that bakesand serves bread to a lot of people is obligedto make bread that will contribute to bothpublic health and happiness through the joy ofeating good and nutritious bread—notdegenerate it.

Bakers and the bread industry have somuch power, it’s incredible. They decide which

Bread - Issue 2: Flour 32

kind of bread we should live on: good or bad,healthy or unhealthy?

In Denmark, we experience being part ofthe bread revolution that was initiated in sunnyCalifornia and now flows across Europe. Weneed better bread. Bread does indeed matterand when bakers no longer live up to theresponsibility given by their trade, then wehave to start baking ourselves because then—and only then—we are fully in charge.

Just look at the Real Bread campaign in theUK which promotes community supportedbakeries and provides courses in how to bakefor a living. We have learned a lot from AndrewWhitley when it comes to taking good flour andbread that one important step further and sayout loud that baking with highly refined,conventional flour will not contribute to publicand environmental health in the long run—quitethe opposite.

jarkko: More generally, maybe, what do youconsider great flour? What do you strive forwhen making your flour? Also, what should abaker look for when choosing flour to use forbaking?

Hanne: TO US, GREAT FLOUR is something thatprovides you not only with great looking breadbut also with bread that fulfils all your needsand senses: it has to be nutritious, it has tohave flavour, look good, smell nice, have thatcertain sound that only a bread with crust willgive you, and it should not go stale within 4hours after baking.

As an extra add on you have organic flourwhich indirectly make you help look after theenvironment including our precious groundwater. Did you know that 1 kg of organic flourwill spare the ground water from being pollutedby 550 litres of pesticides?

Like Marie-Louise says, I too truly believethat bread made from good quality flour willkeep you healthy—unlike bad bread which hasnow been claimed responsible for malnutrition,obesity, diabetes, some types of cancer andcardiac diseases.

Knowing that good bread starts with goodflour, it is all very simple to us. We continue onour way towards making the world’s best flour,all the time adjusting and learning more aboutgrain and flour every day.

Marie-Louise: ONE VERY IMPORTANT thing wehave discovered is that a lot of people do notreally know how to use rye and barley anymore: They represent two types of grain thatwere extremely important in the Scandinaviandiet only a few decades ago.

Going through my grandmother’shandwritten book of recipes made me realisethat before and during WWII almost each andevery recipe contained large amounts of barley—for bread, rolls, cakes, and biscuits—because it was cheaper than the exclusivewheat. What they probably didn’t know at thetime was that barley is extremely nutritious andvery healthy indeed.

Barley is known to reduce the risk of highcholesterol, diabetes, some cardio-vascular

conditions and certain types of cancer. Today,barley flour is on its’ way back due to theincreased focus on the Nordic Cuisine, but asa first step on the way whole barley grains orpearled barley is now commonly used in allkinds of dishes where it replaces rice, pastaand potatoes as a healthy alternative.

We produce both pearl barley and wholebarley along with pearl spelt and rye and theirwholegrain cousins and we have doneeverything in our power to promote the usageof these grains.

As we speak, Hanne is finishing off her firstcookbook, which will indeed be about pearlsand whole grains and how to use them in adeliciously contemporary way.

Hanne: IN THIS BOOK, I am also talking aboutrye—my absolute favourite among grains. Ryebread is traditional in the Nordic countries andEastern Europe. But in Denmark we areunfortunately eating less and less rye bread.

"So what?" one might ask.But the thing is that rye is as full of surprises

as it is delicious and dark. Scientists haveknown for quite some time now thatconsumption of two slices of 100 % rye breadper day will help prevent breast cancer. Thenext question was naturally whether onlywomen profit from eating rye? And someDanish scientists have just carried out a pilotstudy showing that men who have beendiagnosed with prostate cancer in an earlystage can actually stop the cancer by eating200 g of wholemeal rye per day and doing one

"1 kg of organicflour will sparethe ground waterfrom being pollutedby 550 litres ofpesticides."

hour of daily exercise.We donated the rye flakes needed for this

study and it was a very special day in our liveswhen the results were published. Being in asituation where what you produce suddenlyturns out to be of crucial value to critically illpeople, that leaves you with a feeling of aweand respect for nature.

There are so many things we do not knowabout grain—but now we DO know that ryedeserves to be a substantial part of our dailydiet. And fortunately this is not a problem. Pearlrye or whole kernels are just delicious! As isproperly baked rye bread!

jarkko: Educating people about bread andhome baking is an important part of yourbusiness too: you organize courses aboutbread making, and you even have published abook on baking. Can you tell a bit more aboutthis?

Marie-Louise: THE COURSE FACILITIES are ofgreat importance to us—not economically butcertainly educationally. Here, we have beengiven the opportunity to create what I like tocall a gastronomic power centre with undividedfocus on food quality, organics and skills.

The baking classes take their starting pointin Bertinet’s way of making dough and greatbread, but we have added more because wehave a unique setting at Skærtoft. The peoplewho come here get to actually see the fields,the mill and the grain. And they go home withbags full of freshly baked bread, hands full of

new experiences and techniques and headsfull of new knowledge about grain and flour.

It is such a great pleasure to be able to givepeople new tools—or inspire experiencedbakers—and when they leave this place with asmile on their faces I know we havesucceeded.

HANNE'S BOOK, Home Baked (Hjemmebagtin Danish) was another attempt to reach someof the people who want more from their (daily)bread.

The book contains around 70 recipes forbread and pastry made with stone milled flour,but almost 30 pages are devoted to realeducation of the home bakers. Knowing “why”has always been a driving force in my familyand making stone milled flour and bakingbread has certainly triggered some of thegreatest “why’s” we’ve ever come across.

We strongly believe that when you havelearned something out of the ordinary thatenriches your daily life, you have to teach it toothers. A book is a great way of doing just that.And so are the baking classes.

TRUE, TEACHING TAKES UP a lot of time andwe are busy enough as it is. But without thebaking classes we would never be able torevolutionize people’s way of looking at bread,flour and grain.

There are so many things to know, so manyways to make better, healthier, more nutritiousand flavourful bread—and the time is indeedripe. People are ready to accept that making

good bread takes time and that the quality ofthe flour has great influence on the quality ofthe finished loaf.

I FEEL PRIVILEGED to have this job. That myparents dared change from safe to unknownterritory has probably been one of the greatestgifts they have ever given me. I get to work withsomething that’s meaningful to me every day,and I get to teach people who are genuinelyinterested and curious which I just love.

For more information on Skærtoft Mølle, youcan visit the company web site.

Bread - Issue 2: Flour 33

Bread - Issue 2: Flour 35

INSANELY INTERESTED IS APUBLISHER OF MICROMAGAZINES FOR THE CURIOUS.

MICRO MAGAZINES ARE magazines thatfocus on a very specific topic, publishedonline by a very small team—in the caseof Insanely Interested, just one man: me.

I am Jarkko Laine, a stay-at-home dad,online writer and publisher, beginnercigar box guitar player, and an all-roundcreative guy from Finland.

I believe as humans, we are borncurious and need to keep learning aboutmany different things to enjoy our lives tothe fullest and to get the most of ourminds. Insanely Interested is here todeliver a part of that healthy diet for acurious brain.

MY LOVE FOR A DARK CURST ON A softwhite crumb combined with a need to findout how things are made lead me to

create the magazine you are now reading.

IN ADDITION TO BREAD, InsanelyInterested publishes an email newsletterfor those of us hoping to turn their mindsinsanely interested in everything into ameaningful change in the world—bycreating important work and sharing itwith the world.

The newsletter is calledCurious&Creative and you can subscribeto it for free at the Insanely Interested website.

SLOWLY, AS I KEEP LEARNING howpublishing online works, I'm buildingInsanely Interested into a sustainable,long-standing business that can serve theworld by presenting new ideas andstories from people doing things theybelieve in.

FLour In Bread Making

Most of a bread dough is flour. But what actually is flour?Why are there so many different varieties? And what happenswhen you switch the regular white flour for wholegrain, spelt,rye, or maybe something as exotic as barley or khorasan?

In the next pages, we will take a look at the most popularbread making flours with a bit of history and information on thecrop as well as tips for making them a part of your bakingrepertoire.

Starting from page 61, you will find some ideas for moreadventurous bread making experiments.

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Bread - Issue 2: Flour 38

WHEAT BELONGS TO the family of grassesand comes in a variety of different species:types of wheat can be differentitated by sowingtime (spring or winter), color (red, white,amber), and hardness.

The most important characteristics of wheatfor a baker is hardness: harder wheats containmore protein than their softer siblings. Two ofthe proteins—glutelin and gliadin—wichaccount for 80 % of the protein in wheat flourform gluten when they get in contact withwater.

Bakers often speak of gluten strength whentalking about the baking properties of differentflours (with equal protein quantities): flours withstronger gluten lead to a dough that can bekneaded longer and create better elasticity,leading to a bread that retains its shape betterwhen it's resting than a weaker flour.

WHEN BUYING FLOUR from the grocery store,depending on where you live, you will find arange of different flours, made of different

wheats for different intended usages.Bread flour is white flour made of hard,

high-protein wheat. The protein percentagecan be as high as 14 but usually stayssomewhere around 12 or 13. This is a goodchoice for yeasted breads, especially if youuse a bakery mixer, but can be too strong forslowly leavened sourdough loaves worked byhand.

A softer alternative is all-purpose flour,which is a mixture of hard and soft wheatvarieties, with a protein level of 8 to 11 %. This,on the other hand can be too weak for a goodloaf of bread. In her book, Bread Science,Emily Buehler recommends a level of about11.5 %—the protein level of the French "type55" bread flour—to get the best glutenstructure for white bread.

Experiment with the different flours until youfind one that works for you and the recipes youuse. Also, keep experimenting with the amountof water you use. Flours with more glutenforming proteins benefit from more water. As

you experiment, you will notice that yourfavorite flour in the end might not be what you'dexpect at first. For example, although I'm a bigfan of organic food, my favorite white flour herein Finland is not organic or fancy in any way—itjust leads to the most consistent results, so I'msticking to it until I find an organic flour thatdoes the same for me.

FRESHLY MILLED WHEAT FLOUR is lightyellow and the gluten in it is still quite weak.When the flour is allowed to rest and age for sixweeks or more and the flour reacts with oxigen,it turns white and the gluten forming proteinsgain more strength.

This process takes quite a bit of time, somany flour manufacturers are eager to hurry itup. To get the same results quicker, they use ableachening agent such as peroxide (benzoylperoxide) or chlorine oxide. This leads to aflour that has the same baking qualities as anaturally whitened flour but faster.

As this process can also leave unwanted

WHEAT (triticum Aestivum)Wheat is the best known and most popular of bread grains—

and for a good reason: its high gluten content gives the flour greatbread making properties: the dough is easy to handle, and breadmade of wheat rises to form beautiful, light and airy loaves.

side effects to the flour, most bakers willrecommend using unbleached flour wheneverpossible. And naturally, it's always a good ideato go for a flour with as little additives aspossible.

A GRAIN OF WHEAT is composed of threelayers: the bran, the germ, and the endosperm.When making white flour, all except theendosperm is discarded. As this processwastes such a big part of the grain, it used tobe a special treat only available to the richestpeople of the time, and therefore consideredthe healthier choice everyone should strive forif possible.

Nowadays, white wheat flour is available toeveryone, but at the same time, wholegrainflour is gaining in recognition as the healthier—and more flavorful choice: in theory (although,as we will soon see, things are not always thisclear cut), it contains all of the vitamins (B1, B6,A, E), minerals and fats of the grain, as well asthe bran that helps your body in digesting thebread.

These good properties come at a cost:making a beautiful, airy loaf of bread from full-grain flour is much harder than doing it withwhite flour. Luckily, although a wholegraiindough will always be denser than its whitecounterpart, with practice and a couple oftricks, it's possible to create a good wholegrainbread that doesn't look and taste like a brick.

JUST LIKE MOST WHITE FLOUR, most of thewholegrain flour sold in stores is roller milled. Inroller milling, the bran and germ are removed

from the grain before the rest of the grain isground. After the grinding, depending on theextraction level of the flour being made, someor all of the bran is added back in the flour. Thegerm, because of its high fat content, will gorancid quickly, so it's left out—and with it, a bigpart of what makes wholegrain flour healthy!

STONE MILLING WORKS works the oppositeway: the whole grain is ground between a pairof stones, and only then, some of the bran issifted out as desired—but with the germincluded. This is why stone ground flour isprobably healthier and more flavorful than rollermilled flour.

Because stone ground flour contains thegerm, you should use it while it's still fresh,within a couple of weeks from milling, or store itin a cool place such as your refrigerator.

The oxidation period is long enough to losemost of the minerals and vitamins from theflour. For example all of vitamin E disappearsfrom fresh flour in just one day from grinding.For white flour—which doesn't have much ofthe goods left in it anyway—this doesn't mattermuch (and in most cases, aged flour is the wayto go), but if you want to get the health benefitsfrom wholegrain, buying fresh flour from anearby mill or milling your own flour are theonly options.

WITH THIS INFORMATION (and there is awhole lot more available in books and on theinternet), you are ready for new experiments,including our first recipe variation on page 45.

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Bread - Issue 2: Flour 40

rye (Secale Cereale)

RYE THRIVES IN a poor soil and hard climateconditions, which is probably why for centuries,it was the most popular grain grown in theNorthern regions, such as my home country,Finland.

Just like wheat, there are summer andwinter varieties of rye. Winter rye is sownalready at the end of summer and it survivesunder a bed of snow with the crops alreadyslowly growing. As soon as the snow melts andsun shines on the sprouts, they start growingand just when the spring rye is only starting tosprout, winter rye is already steadily gainingheight and preventing the weeds from gainingground. Because of this, rye—at least itstraditional forms—requires little or noherbicides and easily leads itself to organicfarming.

IF WHOLEGRAIN WHEAT is good for you, ryeis even better. If you believe the biggestproponents of rye, we have yet to find out allthe health benefit good wholegrain rye comes

with. And what has been found so far is alreadyimpressive: vitamins, magnesium, potassium,iron, zinc, copper, manganese, and bran thatcould even protect you from certain types ofcancer.

RYE CONTAINS BOTH of the gluten formingproteins, gliadin and glutenin, but whileglutenin is aplenty, the gliadin content is quitelow and therefore bread made of rye flour willnot have a lot of gluten.

In fact, a dough made of nothing but ryeflour doesn't benefit from kneading—you won'tget a strong gluten net no matter how muchyou knead. In fact, you won't be able to domuch kneading: the dough will stick to yourhands, and even washing it off after finishingyour dough is hard work.

RYE TASTES GREAT and gives white bread anearthy favor that gives traditional Frenchbreads such as Pain de Seigle or Pain deCampagne their fine touches. In northern

countries, where rye has long been thedominant grain, 100 % rye breads—or breadsmade mostly of rye are more popular, such asPumpernickel in Germany, or Ruislimppu inFinland. These breads are dense and full offlavor.

Maybe because rye ferments faster thanwheat, these traditional breads have a strongacidic and sweet taste from naturalfermentation.

START YOUR RYE EXPERIMENTS bycombining rye flour to your wheat dough,increasing the hydration level to account for thehigher bran content in the flour.

And when you are ready for a moreadvanced recipe, flip over to page 48 for myrecipe for Finnish, naturally fermented 100 %rye bread, Ruislimppu.

Wheat's close relative, rye is best loved in Northern andEastern European countries, with Russia, Poland and Germanybeing its biggest producers. Bread made with rye, oftenfermented with sourdough, has a strong, distinctive taste.

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SPELT (Triticum spelta)

THIS TRENDY NEW GRAIN has come a longway from being one of the most popular breadcrops to almost forgotten in the 19th centurywhen breeding of wheat lead to new andimproved grasses more resistant to thepesticides used in modern farming.

Today, spelt—which was almost forgottenfor a century—is rising in popularity for the veryreason that it hasn't been extensively refined.As a natural option, it's often sold in health foodstores, and more and more in regular grocerystores as well.

The taste is described soft and nutty—andone you won't get bored with.

Spelt is high in protein, but forms only amoderate gluten net. While it's not suitable forpeople with coeliac disease, many people withother allergies or intolerances to wheat havereported being able to use spelt.

YOU CAN FIND MANY KINDS of spelt flours,from white to wholegrain—just like with wheat—

but in spelt, the endosperm contains more ofthe vitamins and minerals compared to wheatwhere almost everything healthy is located inthe bran or the germ, so white spelt flour canbe healthier than white wheat flour. Assumingit's still fresh enough!

BAKING WITH SPELT, you can quite easilyreplace some or all of the wheat flour withspelt, with just a few adjustments to youroverall recipe.

If you are already using a lot of wholegrainin your dough, you might not need to change alot. Otherwise, use more water than in yournormal dough, leaving the dough slightly wet toallow spelt to absorb water still while resting.Marie-Louise from Skærtøft recommends using70 to 75 percent (bakers' percentage) of waterin the dough, but depending on the specificspelt flour you are using, you can go to evenhigher hydration levels, such as this 100%hydration spelt dough.

Wholegrain flour gives more food for yeast,making it more active, so to get the bestresults, use a little less yeast than you normallywould, or pay close attention to how the doughis behaving: it might be ready to shape andbake sooner than you'd expect.

SPELT IS USUALLY ORGANIC and the grassspecies hasn't been developed much throughbreeding, so there might be variations in thebaking properties from one bag of flour to theother.

If you can find a flour mill that provides aconsistent quality, such as Skærtoft Mølle fromthe article on page 19, go for it. Otherwise, beprepared to adjust your dough every time youbake, adding only a part of the flour at onceand keeping a close eye on the structure of thedough.

FOR YOUR FIRST SPELT RECIPE, try the oneon the following page.

Spelt is often described as an ancient species of wheat. Itsearly history is not completely clear, but nevertheless, signs of itscultivation have been found from as far as 8,000 years ago.Today, spelt is living a new revival as a more nutritiousalternative for bread wheat.

"Stone milled spelt has nice water absorptionand will give you very smooth and elastic doughif you use for instance 1 kg of spelt (1 kg finespelt or 700 fine/300 wholemeal), 20 g yeast (7 gfor an over-night fermentation), 20 g salt and680-700 g of water (or even more if you like tochallenge yourself, e.g. 750 g). The resultingbread has a wonderful crumb and the crust isjust delicious."— See page 19 for the complete article on Skærtøft Mølle and a lot

more information about spelt.

100% wheat(BREAD)

flour

THE RECIPE

70% water

2% salt

2% FRESHyeasT

Bread - Issue 2: Flour 45

IN ADDITION TO THE kernel, wholegrain flouralso contains the bran of the grain, a part of theflour that doesn't have any gluten formingcapacity. This makes the flour better for health,and gives it a stronger taste, but also reducesthe bread's rising potential.

A bread made from wholegrain flour cannever be quite as light as a loaf made of whiteflour but this doesn't mean that a wholegrainloaf has to be dense and thick. With a fewtweaks to the recipe, we can use wholegrainflour to make a loaf of bread that is soft, lightand delicious.

HERE ARE SOME SIMPLE STEPS that willmake the bread much more enjoyable withoutrequiring a lot of extra effort or complexity:adding more water will soften the bran andmake the bread easier to digest, adding anautolyse step at the beginning of the mixing (Iwill explain this in a minute) helps in workingthe dough to add strength to it, a longerfermentation gets more flavor out of the flour,

and finally, baking the bread in a pan helps theloaf keep its form while resting.

Many wholegrain wheat recipes includesweeteners such as honey or fruit, and I mustadmit that although I'm not a big fan ofadditional ingredients beside flour, water, saltand leaven, a little sweetness, for example fromdates, suits the wholegrain flavor very well.

This recipe doesn't add any sweeteners,but as you experiment further, I recommendyou give this idea a try once you feelcomfortable with the basic version.

FINDING YOUR FAVORITE formula is a matterof experimentation: your flour is different frommine, as are your preferences, so take thisrecipe as a starting point and—taking notes—change the percentages of ingredients,proving times etc. until you feel you have got itright.

Remember that wholegrain flour is more"thirsty"—or hygroscopic than regular whiteflour and keeps absorbing water from the

dough still long after you have mixed theingredients. So, even if the dough feels too wetat the beginning, err on the side of too wetrather than too dry and try to keep yourselffrom adding more flour.

The RecipeAS WE START EXPERIMENTING withwholegrain wheat, the most important to therecipe is increasing the amount of water by 5 to10 percent.

If you have been successfully making yourwhite bread with a 70% hydration level, 75%could be a good place to start. If you haven'tbeen using quite that much water, you canstart with a lower percentage in this variation aswell. Give it a try and adjust depending on theresults you get.

To make the bran easier to handle, you cando a simple autolyse step at the beginning ofmixing your dough. Despite the fancy name,this technique—first described by French

Recipe variation #1: wholegrain WHEATThis first variation to our basic recipe replaces 50% of the

flour content with wholegrain wheat flour. As I don't particularlyenjoy dense breads, I have added a few steps to make the bread aslight as possible without making the recipe too complicated.

Bread - Issue 2: Flour 46

professor Raymond Calvel—means nothingmore complex than mixing the flour and waterand letting them rest for twenty to fourtyminutes before adding the rest of theingredients and working the dough.

But now, let's get started!

TOTAL FLOUR CONTENT is again 100% butnow we divide it into two: 50% all-purpose flourand 50% high quality wholegrain flour. If youcan find a stone-ground flour, go for it (noticingthat stone-ground, fresh flour will require evenmore water than roller milled wholegrain flour).

I like to bake my yeasted wholegrain breadsin a tin, so depending on the sizes of yourbaking tins and the number of loaves you aregoing to bake, you can pick the total flouramount. 500 grams (250 and 250) is good forone medium sized tin. I like to use 750 gramsfor my larger tin.

50% BREAD flour50% Wholegrain flour75% Water2% Fresh yeast

MIX THE FLOURS and water until no dry lumpsof flour remain. Cover lightly and leave to restfor about 20 minutes at room temperature. Thisis what artisan and French bakers call theautolyse.

Then mix in the rest of the ingredients,maybe adding a small amount of water to help

Bread - Issue 2: Flour 47

dissolve the salt if the dough doesn't seem toowet already. Flip the dough to your worksurface and work the dough for fifteen minutes—or until it feels soft and springy. Keepworking the dough a couple of minutes longerthan you would with an all-white dough.

Let the dough rest for an hour or untilalmost doubled in size. Then shape it into a logand place in your greased baking tins. At thisstep, you can either leave them rest at roomtemperature for another hour, or refrigirate tomake them rise more slowly to gather astronger flavour.

If you want to keep the loaves in the fridgeovernight, use only 1% of yeast so that yourbread won't taste too yeasty in the end.

Ideas for further explorationWHEN YOU FEEL comfortable with the 50/50wholegrain to white flour ratio, try adding morewholegrain to your mix, maybe even trying100% wholegrain loaf.

As you increase the wholegrain percentage,or if you just want to make your loaf a littlelighter, you can try adding a preferment at thebeginning of the recipe. We will discussfermentation in detail in the next edition ofBread, but without going too deep into it, here'show you can create a simple prefermenteddough (known as poolish) to make this doughlighter.

THREE TO FIVE HOURS before mixing the finaldough, prepare a thick batter by combining50% of the total flour with half of the yeast used

in the dough and two thirds of the water. For 1kg of flour in total, this means 500 g of bothflour and wter. Cover the mixture with someplastic wrap (or as Tom Herbert recommendsin his book, The Fabulous Baker Brothers, youcan use a disposable plastic shower cap as areusable cover) and leave to rest in roomtemperature.

When the starter is bubbling and smellssweet and yeasty, it's ready for finishing thedough.

Mix in the rest of the flour, water and yeast,stir well and then finish the dough according tothe instructions above. You can now skip theautolyse as a big part of the flour has beenalready soaked well in the prefermentingphase, or do an autolyse for the remainingwater and flour before mixing them with thepreferment and the rest of the flour.

ONE MORE IDEA TO TRY FOR A lighter loaf isto bake the bread in bread tins rather thanshaping them to loaves or buns. This way youdon't have to touch the dough quite that much,and the tins help in keeping the bread in shapeas it is resting and rising.

Baking bread in tins—greased with realbutter—also gives them a nice crispy surfacewith a hint of the taste of butter.

I made the bread shown in the photos inthis article using a poolish as described aboveand with 80 % hydration, working the dough forabout 25 minutes before the resting period.

Delicious!

Bread - Issue 2: Flour 48

VISITING VIIPURILAINEN KOTILEIPOMO (seepage 51) in the preparation for this magazinereminded me of how good a real, naturallyfermented loaf of rye bread can taste. So, eventhough we will only fully cover fermentation inthe next issue of Bread, I decided to give youmy Finnish rye bread recipe already in thisedition.

If you don't feel confident about creatingand maintaining your own sourdough starterjust yet, leave this recipe to wait and comeback to it after the fermentation issue, or whenyou feel ready.

Instead of following this recipe, you can firsttry replacing 5% of the wheat in your normalwheat dough with rye for some addedpersonality and flavor. Also, just like withwholegrain wheat, increase the amount ofwater a bit to keep the dough easy to handle.

As you increase the amount of rye, you willnotice that the dough becomes stickier—ryedoesn't have gluten forming potential, so noamount of kneading will create the same

results as wheat does. In fact, as you will noticefrom this recipe, making a traditional Finnish100% rye bread you won't even need to kneadthe dough at all!

THIS RECIPE IS MY ADAPTATION of thedifferent Finnish rye "limppu" recipes I havefound so far.

In my experience it creates a very nice,sour and dense yet soft bread. The breadkeeps well, and makes a nice present, forexample—as they used to do traditionally inFinland—housewarming parties.

The "ruislimppu" is best with a thick layer ofreal butter, and maybe a slice of hard cheese ifyou like.

The RecipEIT ALL STARTS FROM A rye sourdough starter.You can either create one using full grain ryeflour and water, or transform your wheat starterinto a rye starter by feeding it with rye for a

couple of times before mixing the dough. I usea rather liquid starter with a 125% hydrationrate (I added some water compared to mynormal wheat starter as rye absorbs morewater than wheat).

This is a bit different from the traditionalFinnish method of making rye bread where thestarter is the remains of the previous breaddough, left to dry on the sides of the doughbowl, or a lump of dough saved from theprevious bake. So, as you see, with rye, whatmatters is that you have a starter, not that muchwhat it's like.

If you use a drier starter, add more water inthe first step.

THE NIGHT BEFORE you want to bake yourbread, mix 100 grams (a rye starter is quiteactive, so even a smaller amount will do) ofyour ripe starter with 500 grams of full grain(dark) rye flour and 750 grams of water. Coverand leave to rest and ferment overnight in acool place.

Recipe variation #2: RyeStart your rye experiments by replacing a small percentage of

the wheat in your dough—that simple step will already give you anice, earthy flavor. Once you feel ready for some more challenge,to get the most out of rye, slow fermentation is the way to go.

50 % (500 g) rye flour

75 % (750 g) water

10 % (100 g) SOURDOUGH starter

IN THE MORNING, or about twelve hours later,as the starter has become soft and airy, mix in500 grams of flour and 20 grams of salt. Theresulting dough will still be sticky and ratherwet, so don't try to knead it—in fact, the breadwon't benefit from kneading. Just mix itthoroughly, and leave to rest for one to twohours in a warm draft-free place.

If the dough feels dry, add a little water. Forthe loaf pictured on the left and on the nextpage, I added 50 grams of water after addingthe flour and the salt.

All of the starter above

50 % (500 g) flour

2 % (20 g) salt

5 % (50 G) WATER

WHEN THE DOUGH HAS RISEN a bit and feelssoft and airy—like the starter in the morning ofthe bake day but denser, it's ready for shaping.Divide the dough into two pieces of equal size,and on a heavily floured work surface, shapethe pieces into cones.

Put the cones to rest on a floured couche orkitchen towel, pointed side up. Make sure to

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use enough (rye) flour to keep the loaves fromsticking.

AS THE BREAD RISES, the cone shape slowlychanges into that of a round loaf, and followingthis change, you will be able to judge thecorrect time to bake the loaves: when theshape has changed (or a little before—whenthere is just a small peak at the top of the loaf),it's ready to be baked.

PRE-HEAT THE OVEN TO 250 degrees Celciuswhile the loaves are rising. I use a cast iron pancovered with a clay pot to capture heat andsteam escaping from the loaf, but you can alsouse a baking stone or bake the loaves on abaking sheet if you like.

When the oven is hot and the bread isready to be baked, put it in the oven anddecrease heat to 230 degrees.

At this step, I cover my cast iron pan withthe clay pot to keep the bread's crust fromdrying too soon. After 25 minutes, I remove theclay pot and bake the bread for a further 25minutes to a total of 50 minutes.

LET THE BREAD cool on a wire rack, and enjoywith butter—and in true Finnish style, a glass offresh milk!

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Viipurilainen kotileipomo

THE STORY STARTS IN 1995, in the middle ofthe economic depression of the early nineteen-nineties.

Veikko Ylä-Hemmilä, a machine engineer bytrade, was working in a line manager positionat the Finnish household appliance companyUPO when the company was bought by theelectronix giant, Electrolux. As it started tobecome clear that Veikko would have to startfiring his coworkers, he made the choice andquit his job instead.

At the age of 44, and in the middle of arecession, he found himself in the hunt for astable job.

Finding a permanent job was hard, butalthough the thought of becoming anentrepreneur crossed his mind, Veikkocontinued to look for work in his originalprofession as an engineer.

THEN ONE DAY AT MIDSUMMER 1996, whenthe family—mom, dad, and four boys—wassitting at the dinner table, they were having

buns from Viipurilainen kotileipomo, some oftheir favorites. The company, originally foundedin 1924 in Vyborg, and then moved 200kilometers west to Lahti as the city was lost inwar, was now about to go bankrupt after over70 years in business.

”These are the last buns from Viipurilainenwe are going to get", Veikko told his family."The company is going out of business."

The answer from his 9-year old son Tuomasmarked the beginning of a new era: ”Why don’tyou buy the company and keep making thebuns?”

Yes, why not?Veikko decided to go for it, and the life of

the whole family was changed for ever.

SOON AFTER THE DISCUSSION, Veikko madean offer to buy the bankrupt’s estate, planningto make enough money to support himself andone other baker. At first it looked like he wasgoing to lose the bid. But just as he was aboutto accept a permanent job offer, the winning

bidder bailed out from the purchase andVeikko's offer made it to the top.

He bought the business and one monthafter the family discussion, he was the owner ofa small bakery.

WITH NO PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE in baking,Veikko had to to learn the tricks of the tradequickly. Using his engineering mindset, hemade the logical decision and dramaticallystripped down the bakery's offering. Instead ofselling all kinds of bread and pastry as thecompany had been doing before, he decidedto go down to the basics and start by sellingonly three of the most popular products—all ofthem bread. This way he was able to make hislearning process more manageable—and as itwould later turn out, it was a smart marketingchoice as well.

Today, Viipurilainen kotileipomo sells seventypes of bread, and is still very careful whenadding new breads to its offering.

”We don’t jump after passing trends but

In the Finnish town of Lahti, by giving faces to bakers,farmers and millers, a family of bakers—father and four sons—are teaching the buying public to appreciate the craft that goesinto a loaf of hand-made bread made of locally grown flour.

trust the basic work and our own intuition withthings. We have also decidedly kept ourselection small to use the bakery space asefficiently as we can. We bake about 2,300breads per day, but the bakery is only 180 m2

in size, so we have to take all we can out ofthose square meters.” Veikko's son, Teppo Ylä-Hemmilä told me.

THE NEW BEGINNING OF Viipurilainenkotileipomo started from cleaning up thebakery.

In the months leading to the bankruptcy, thebakery had been neglected: it hadn’t beencleaned properly and small issues needed tobe repaired here and there.

After a month of cleaning up and fixing theplace, the chief of production from the previousowner came over to teach the new bakers howto make the products they wanted to keepdoing. With a help of this baker and anotherthey hired from Sinuhe—another bakery fromthe region—Veikko and his sons started topractice the craft.

”Even learning three doughs proved to bequite a challenge: when is the dough ready tobe shaped, how about the resting times, rise,baking? Rising the dough properly was thehardest to learn.” Teppo recalls.

VEIKKO'S FOUR BOYS quickly realized thatthe survival of the company relied on the wholefamily. They were never forced to work at thebakery, but they knew that the family wouldn’tmake it financially if everyone didn’t do their

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part.”I remember the time when we could just

barely reach to the baking table. Onlyafterwards I have understood how tough it wasat that time. I’m surprised at how Veka wasable to keep it all together.” Teppo says today.

”The work days were 12-14 hours long, sixdays a week, plus a little preparation onSundays. There was no time to relax and backthen we boys weren’t old enough to helpenough.”

The boys baked on Saturdays and duringschool vacations. On Saturdays, the alarm rangat 1:20 A.M. They got up and dressed, andthen continued their sleep on mattresses in theback of the family car for the 40 kilometers fromhome to the bakery.

AS IF LEARNING a new profession wasn’tchallenging enough, the baking family facedunexpected hurdles from the behalf ofsuppliers and customers. Although the newowners had nothing to do with the previouscompany, customers and suppliers treatedthem as the same Viipurilainen as before—which they had no trust left for.

Everything had to be paid in cash or inadvance, and to get on the shelves of theshops, products needed to priced the same asbefore. This was a slippery road, as it was wellknown that those low prices were a big part ofwhat brought the company to bankruptcy in thefirst place.

Veikko and his company had to find a wayto get his breads to the stores for a better

price. They decided to take all the risk from thecustomer and carry it themselves: ”We willbring the bread, put it on your shelves, andtake the ones that are left unsold with usafterwards, billing only for the bread that issold,” they told the shopkeepers.

In mid-October, four months after startingthe business, Veikko had deals with the firstthree stores to carry the bread and despite allthe trouble, baking continued.

”Veka has sometimes commented on thisthat he hasn’t regretted becoming anentrepreneur for a day, but had he known whatit is like, he would have definitely not done it.”Teppo recalls.

TODAY, THE FOUR BROTHERS are all grownup and work at the bakery, eager to implementtheir big plans for the future while managingthe day to day business.

Teppo completed his business studies atTiimiakatemia in Jyväskylä and joined thecompany full time four years ago. He wrote histhesis about the strategies of bakeries—therewas no escaping of the family business evenwhen living in another town.

In his thesis, he found that 95% of thebakeries in Finland bake ”everything foreveryone” and all use very similar marketing,focusing on the same benefits. Here, he foundan opportunity for the bakery to take a differentpath and focus its marketing efforts.

”When I came to Viipurilainen full-time, thebusiness was running as usual, but therewasn’t enough time or knowledge to further

develop the business. Some of therelationships between employees were tense.And when you googled ’Viipurilainenkotileipomo’, you would only find businessdirectories with an address and a phonenumber—which almost no one answered.”Teppo says.

It was time for some of the biggest changesin the history of Viipurilainen.

”During my studies, we had developed theimage of what we want to look like and whatkind of a bakery we want to be: real, funny, anddifferent.” Teppo says.

THROUGHOUT THE YEAR, the managementorganized five discussion sessions with theemployees, talking about things that affect theeveryday work.

”We created the rules we want to work by,discussed, and developed our baking to thedirection where everyone shares the same ideaof what good bread is. And we made it clearwhat we want to be. We wanted our employeesto be proud to be working with us.”

Despite the grand ideas, this wasn’t asimple process. The change was big, andalthough it was mostly seen as a positive thing,demanded a lot from everyone.

VIIPURILAINEN KOTILEIPOMO has a strongvisual identity: their packaging highlights thepeople who make the bread—bakers, millersand farmers and makes it clear where the flourcomes from.

This visual style—which caught my attention

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in the first place—was developed incooperation between the bakery and a smallad agency run by Teppo’s school mates fromJyväskylä. The people from the agency cameto the bakery to bake bread and discuss thepackaging and visual identity—all the thingsViipurilainen wanted to do differently from otherbakeries. The core idea was to create arecognizable style with a strong personality.

”We want to grow the appreciation for ourbakers as well as the whole industry in the eyesof the customers,” Teppo says.

The ad agency created a backgroundimage, Teppo wrote some inspiring texts andthe packages started to take shape.Viipurilainen was determined to telling thestories of each of their bakers, so Teppo satdown with them and listened to what they wereabout. The bakery printed business cards forall of their bakers, added their stories andphotos on the web page, and set out to renewthe packaging one type of bread at the time.

All of this took about two years to complete.

THE RESULTS WERE GOOD, but this wasn’tenough to affect the sales in a remarkable way.Viipurilainen needed to dig deeper.

”I thought that this would bring a lot ofadditional benefit to the customer, so I wasvery disappointed when people didn’tunderstand our ’great’ idea.” Teppo says.

As the family thought about the idea more,asking what it was that the customer reallywants, traceability of the flours used becamethe next big idea to pursue.

”Our rye comes from Vääksyn Mylly, so Icalled Kari Savola [CEO of the mill] and askedif it would be possible to trace the rye all theway back to the farm where it's grown. Hemade some inquiries and said that it ispossible.” Teppo says.

Vääksyn mylly is a small mill employing fivepeople that mills grains from local fields toorder. Their products are only sold at their ownmill store and some specialty food stores—ingrocery stores and supermarkets, they are notavailable. Its rye flour is ground using stonepairs.

Clearly a good match for the values ofViipurilainen kotileipmo.

AFTER A LITTLE MORE PLANNING, theyidentified two farmers, Risto Kailaniemi andMikko Metsäkangas, who grow high quality ryein quantities big enough for the bakery’sneeds. Teppo had a few meetings with thefarmers and millers to build a concept thatwould work well for all parties. Now, if you visitViipurilainen’s web site, you will notice that thefarmers and the miller are presented on the sitejust as personally as the bakers working for thecompany.

"We want to keep the countryside alive—after all, we all come from the village of Viitaila,Asikkala. Also, flour grown nearby isecological. In Finland, the agriculture is clean,using much less pesticides than farms incentral and southern Europe, so the flour isalso healthier. The long summer nights andcold winters make the grains grown in Finland

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different as well. The color as well as mineralproperties are different. Flour produced nearbyis a value question for us." Teppo sums up thereasons for their focus on locally grown,traceable flour.

"If the consumer finds something wrong withour product, we can guarantee that we will findthe reason", he also promises.

BUT IT'S ALSO A MATTER OF chemistry. AsTeppo says, it's better to work with people whoyou enjoy being with:

"We meet with the mill every week andorganize many events together. With thefarmers, we chat often, and we have forexample organized joint little christmas partieswith the millers and farmers. I have always saidthat even if two producers offered the sameprice, I rather play at my sandbox with thosewho I have fun working with!"

FOR WHEAT, Viipurilainen kotileipomo hasn'tbeen able to get the same level of traceabilityyet. They have been having discussions withVääksyn mylly but haven't been able to find asuitable farming partner just yet. At themoment, all the wheat used at Viipurilainencomes from a bigger provider, Fazer, thatcannot provide the same level of traceability.

In all, focusing on the traceability of the flourhas proved to be a good decision for thebakery.

”We believe that this is something thatmatters to the consumer more and more all thetime. We also see this as something that helps

the farmers and the mill as well.” Teppo says.The stores selling the products have also

benefited from this focus on traceability andlocal flour.

”They want to sell products like ours.Therefore the reception has been warm and itnegotiations have been quite enjoyable.”Teppo says.

But he continues to tell that traceability initself is not enough. The product has to begood too. 70% of the bread sold in Finland ismade by two of the biggest companies, so fora small bakery to reach the masses, there is alot to do.

”Most of the bread in Finland is still sold inbig supermarkets, where unfortunately a bigpart of the bread sold is fluff in plastic bags.There is a lot of work to do in rising customerawareness and changing the buying behavioris slow. People often act differently from whatthey say their values are.” Teppo says.

THE NEXT BIG STEP in the future is opening anew, spacier bakery at a better location. Thecurrent bakery is limiting the company's growthas there is no room left for baking any morebread than the bakers at Viipurilainen arecurrently baking. The current space leaves littleroom for experiments and trying out newbreads—the operations have to be veryoptimized to get the maximum capacity out ofthe two ovens.

"Everything goes according to a plan andyou have to be awake all the time so that theday's work goes smoothly. There can't be any

breaks in the baking so someone has theresponsibility in overseeing the processthroughout the day. In our case, it's the bakeroperating the oven who tells—according to therising of the breads—when a dough needs tobe mixed and when it's time to roll the breads."Teppo says.

When I visited the bakery this May, I got tosee this in action. I went to the bakery at nine inthe evening and met the four brothers busyshaping their 100% rye loaves. During the fourhours I spent at the bakery, there wassomething going on all the time: as the ryebreads were baking, the four men rolled bunsand wheat breads or packed breads from aprevious batch. Whenever someone took abreak, at least two of the bakers in the shiftkept working.

Most of the work at the bakery is done byhand, including the packaging of the bread—and the bakers even deliver the bread to thestores themselves.

"Bakers come to work in shifts so that thenumber of people at work increases during theday. We have rotating shifts so that every bakerbakes for one week, shapes for the next, anddrives bread to stores for the third, and so on."

IF EVERYTHING GOES AS PLANNED, in thenext couple of years, Viipurilainen kotileipomowill move to their new space in Asikkala, nearthe mill that produces their rye, and next to themain road used by people driving from Helsinkito their summer homes. This should attractmore visitors and customers as the plan is also

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"There is a lot ofwork to do in risingcustomerawareness andchanging the buyingbehavior is slow.People often actdifferently fromwhat they say theirvalues are."

to open their own shop, one dream that hasn'tbeen possible to implement in the currentspace, which is old and located on a ratherremote place.

"We will know by September if we get thebuilding permit. If we do, we'll start building inthe fall." Teppo says.

The Ylä-Hemmilä family stands firm with theproject even through they know it will be yetanother big change for the company.

"We believe that this move is important forour brand. We want to grow slowly andprofitably, doing things smarter and moreefficiently than we do now—without losing oursmall business identity."

The new location will also be an opportunityto add new elements to the business.

"Our goal is to further develop our businessfor example by providing rye bread bakingcourses, and seling sourdough starters. We allknow that this also brings new risks, but wehave made the decision that we are makingthis into a life's work."

BUILDING THE BUSINESS is a slow processthat requires a lot of patience: you have tokeep the day-to-day operations going, but atthe same time, big plans and dreams forbusiness development keep you going:

"I believe it's important to be able to dreamand act on our ideas, as long as we rememberthat too much hippie stuff rarely brings profits.A good dose of realism is important." Tepposums up the company's business philosophy.

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BarleyBARLEY IS ONE OF THE oldest and mostpopular crops in the world. Its cultivationbegan over 10,000 years ago in the area of theFertile Crescent (see page 4), and even today,ranks fourth on both area of cultivation andquantity produced, right after corn, rice, andwheat. In its original area in the Middle East,barley is still used for a wide range oftraditional foodstuffs.

Today, barley is used mostly for beermaking and animal feed, but it's healthy andhas a lovely taste, and thus should not beneglected in bread making.

BARLEY CONTAINS gluten forming proteinsbut not enough for making a loaf breadcompletely from barley. A mixture of barley andwheat will however get you great results. Oryou can go for a flatbread, such as the Finnishrieska or Swedish Tunnbröd, which make adelicious bread eaten still warm from the oven.

When baking a loaf bread with barley, gofor full grain, fine barley flour with a mix of

about 2 parts of barley to 3 parts of wheat. Fora more detailed recipe, and a good, detailedwriteup on barley, visit this article over at thebread blog Farine.

BuckwheatBUCKWHEAT IS PROBABLY best known asthe main ingredient in Russian blinis andJapanese soba noodles. But despite its lack ingluten, it can just as well be used in breadmaking when mixed with flours rich in glutenand maybe some added gluten, if that doesn'tfeel too artificial to you.

Also, many people who are unable to digestgluten have started looking into buckwheat asa gluten-free alternative, so you will find manygluten-free bread recipes using buckwheat.

Buckwheat has a strong flavor that doesn'tappeal to everyone, so you may want to tryadding some honey and spices like suggestedin this recipe. For another good buckwheatrecipe, you can look at the Breton Bread recipefound in Richard Bertinet's book, Crust.

DURUMDURUM IS THE HARDEST of wheat varietiesand contains a lot of protein, but surprisinglynot that much gluten. Therefore, even thoughdurum—or semolina—is widely used in breadmaking, breads made without adding regularbread flours are rare. One such example is theSicilian treat, Pagnotte di Enna.

Breads made of semolina have a rich flavorand a chewy texture, so they are well worthexperimenting with.

KHORASoN (KAMUT)KHORASON, LIKE SPELT, is one of the socalled ancient forms of wheat, cultivated in theearly days of agriculture and now found againas a part of the trend towards all things organicand original. It is closely related to durum andthus shares most of its properties.

The gluten in khorason is not as strong as inregular wheat or even spelt, so it's a good idea

The world of flours you can include in your dough is vast.Here are some ideas for a few things to give a try, some morefamiliar, others more exotic.

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Exotic flour IDEAS

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to mix the khorason flour with wheat or spelt ata ratio of about 50/50. According to theinstructions from Shipton Mill, who producekhorason flour, gentle handling is requiredwhen making bread using this type of wheat.

If you are into ancient varieties of wheat,you might also want to look into emmer andeinkorn.

RED CABERNET GRAPE FLOURCABERNET GRAPE FLOUR is technically not aflour, but powder made of the left-overs fromwine-making. The powder has a delicious,fruity and earthy flavor and together with somerye and wheat makes for a great bread.

In his book, Crust, Richard Bertinet shares abread recipe that uses this flour (which he alsosells through his online store) that is madeusing red wine as the liquid. While that makesa great bread, my wife likes a version I makeusing just water better. I still have to try usingthis flour in a sourdough loaf.

For more information on Cabernet GrapeFlour, visit the producer's web site.

BARK FLOURWHEN TIMES GET TOUGH, people becomecreative. One of the best examples in recenthistory has been the use of inner bark frompine and birch trees for bread making.

Bark bread, Pettuleipä, was eaten in most ofFinland and parts of Sweden in the 18th and

19th centuries whenever there wasn't enoughrye available for bread making.

While bark still rings bad memories inpeople's ears, it is gaining fame as a heathfood rich in minerals and low in calories. Alone,the taste is bitter and sour, but combined withrye flour at a low percentage, I hear it isdelicious.

Finding bark flour for your own baking canbe tricky: I have found one store in Finland thatsells bark flour, and apparently there are somebusinesses that are trying to export the flour tothe US and the rest of Europe, but I don't havemuch information.

If you manage to find some bark flour, clickhere for a simple recipe to start from.

KEEP EXPERIMENTING!AS YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED, the theme ofexperimentation keeps popping up from onearticle to another. I believe trying thingsyourself is the best way to learn, and whenworking with bread, what can really go wrong.

Anything edible can be used in bread. Itmay not always taste great, and you mighthave to change your recipe and try again, butin the end.

Making a terrible tasting loaf of bread is notthe end of the world. And when you succeed increating a mixture of flavors you enjoy—like thetalkkuna lingonberry bread pictured on the left—the warm, happy feeling is well worth all thefailed experiments before it!

You can now find Bread on Facebook!

Like the page for interesting bits of breadrelated news and inspiration in between themagazine editions.

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INtroduction to home millingStoring flour as grains and milling your own flour is a sure

way to always get the freshest possible flour for your baking—with all the nutritients and flavor intact.

But is it worth the investment in money and effort?

IF YOU ARE LUCKY, you can find a small millthat grinds fresh flour using stone pairs nearyour home. If that's the case, it's a good idea totake use of their offerings and support a localbusiness while enjoying great bread. But millslike that are not very common these days wheneverything is big and focused, so it's morelikely that you are like me, and have to travelalmost two hours by car to reach your closestmill. In this case, if you don't want to settle withstore bought flour, the choices left are ratherlimited: either you burn fuel to get your dose, oryou buy your own small mill.

Prices for quality mills are quite high (themost basic KoMo model costs about 500dollars in the US and 350 euros in Europe), sowhether you really need one or not is a validquestion.

IN THE CLASSIC BOOK, The Bread Builders,Alan Scott talks about the benefits of usingfresh wholegrain flour: "With its full complimentof vitamins, minerals, soluble and insoluble

fiber, antioxidants and other beneficialphytochemicals, the whole-grain breadnaturally provides nutritients that, day-to-day,protect against diseases that have becomecronic in modern society: diabetes, severalcancers, diverticular disease, andcardiovascular problems."

The problem with store-bought flour is thatmost of these nutritients are lost quickly afterthe protective structure of the grain is broken inmilling. Also, a big bart of the vitamins andminerals are located in the germ. The germ—the part of the grain that will become the newplant—contains fat, and therefore goes rancidquickly after being ground. That's why mostmodern mills remove the gem when makingflour—even when it's labeled wholegrain!

THIS IS WHY, if you want to get the most of thenutritients in your flour, you should buy freshstoneground flour and use it as soon aspossible (for example, most of the vitamin E islost within the first day from milling!), or mill the

flour yourself.As a side effect, you will also become more

self-sufficient, as grains are easy to store.

AS I HAVEN'T made the investment andbought myself a grain mill yet, to get some firsthand experience, I contacted Phil Agnew, thepassionate home baker whom we met in thefirst edition of Bread, and asked him a fewquestions about milling your own flour.

—Jarkko:Milling your own flour is not somethingevery home baker is doing. How soon afterstarting your baking did you start milling yourown flour as well? And how did that happen?

Phil: I ONLY STARTED milling flour in the pastyear.

I first become enthralled by the idea whenreading about the French baker GerardRubaud in Vermont. He was adding 30% of

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freshly milled grains to his levains and finaldough. I had never seen anybody doing thisbefore.

Not long after this I had started reading TheBread Builders which has some lovelypassages from the late Alan Scott on thevirtues of freshly milled wholegrain flours. Ihave been thinking about this for some timeand finally decided to do something about itlast year.

I haven’t looked back.

Jarkko:How does freshly milled flour differ fromregular store bought flour?

Phil: FOR ME, THEY ARE WORLDS APART.To begin with, they smell nothing alike.

Freshly milled wheat flour has a sweet flavorand aroma.

When baking with freshly milled flours, Itend to change my process a little. I pay veryclose attention to temperatures, using coolerwater if necessary as they tend to fermentquicker. I also make use of a long autolysebefore thorough kneading to allow the bran tosoften.

I haven’t noticed a significant change in theoutside appearance of the loaf but the taste onthe other hand is cleaner and fresh. I can finallytaste the wheat.

Jarkko:What do you pay attention to whenchoosing the grains for milling?

Phil: I PURCHASE WHITE WHEAT milling grains

from well known organic and biodynamic millsin Australia. I have used flours from these millsso I usually have a rough benchmark on howmy milled flours should perform and taste.

I am still reasonably new to milling so I amlearning quite a bit regarding the physicalappearance of the grain and what to look for.So far I have had only one bad experiencepurchasing grains which was a batch of ryegrains that was probably sprout damaged andfermented like crazy and caused disaster in myrye breads.

WHEN HELPING MY FRIEND bake, we weresupplied a batch of starch damaged flour froma local biodynamic farmer who mills his owngrain. It was the most stressful day I have everexperienced as the dough turned to slushthroughout the fermentation. This happened asmy mill was being shipped to me so I hadbecome quite apprehensive by the time itfinally arrived.

So far I have not had any issues with thewheat and spelt grains I mill.

Jarkko:Do you always use flour milled byyourself, or do you mix it with store-bought flourfor different breads?

Phil: I TRY TO BE FLEXIBLE depending on thetype of bread I am trying to achieve. So, I stilluse white flour but there will always be freshmilled flour mixed with it.

I do sift the fresh flour on occasions but thiswill only remove the coarsest bran so I am left

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with a high extraction flour that is still quitedark... but so flavorsome.

Jarkko:When buying flour, how do you choosethe kind of flour you use in your baking?

Phil:HERE IN AUSTRALIA, we don’t seem tohave a broad range of flours for home bakersand it feels like I have tried every kind of flourthat I can lay my hands on.

There are some great biodynamic growersand millers in Australia but they are not localwhich makes it hard to source their products.

In the past I used organic flours from a localmill but have found it very strong. I haverecently switched to a medium strength bakersflour when I bake lighter products. While it’s notorganic, it is reliable and has great color andflavor.

I tend to judge my bread by aroma andtaste but I also really want a nice mouth feel.And while organic white flours had great flavorthey felt tough and chewy.

Jarkko:How does milling your own flour changethe baking process?

Phil:MILLING DOES ADD an extra step in theprocess. I spend time the day before preparingflours and sifting if necessary.

At first I was milling right before mixing butthis meant waking all in the house with thesound of grinding grain first thing in themorning. It also meant it was harder to controldough temperatures as the flour fresh from the

mill was quite warm.Now I mill no more than 12 hours before so

the flour is measured out and sitting at roomtemperature before I begin mixing.

In the back of my mind I keep a little mantragoing: ”everything happens quicker withfreshly milled wholegrains”.

Jarkko:What kind of grain mill do you use? Whydid you choose this one?

Phil: I AM USING a Komo Fidibus XL. Aftermany weeks of deliberation I settled on theKomo for a few reasons.

It is beautifully assembled. Nat and Iwatched some YouTube clips about thecompany producing them and we related tothe way they went about their business.

It easily produces the amount of flour I usefor my baking and is practically self cleaning. Ican’t imagine my kitchen being without it now.

Jarkko:What kind of bread is best suited forhome milled flour? Where should someone startexperimenting with milling her own flour?

Phil: YOU CAN INCORPORATE having a millinto any kind of bread making really. Fromusing exclusively fresh milled flour for whole-grain breads to adding a small percentage towhite breads for added flavour and fragrance.

I jumped right in and made some 100%whole-wheat breads the day after my millarrived. Others may want to take a morecautious approach and include small amounts

of fresh milled flour and build confidence.

Jarkko:Would you have some tips to share withanyone who now is considering starting millinghis own flour?

Phil: PERHAPS TO BUY grains from a reputablemill. Even better would be one that producesit's own stone-milled flour so you can comparethe flour you produce and how it performs.

Pay attention to the temperature of the flourcoming off the mill. I have started refrigeratingthe grains to produce a cooler flour.

To follow Phil's bread making and home millingadventures, visit his blog at the popular breadmaking site, The Fresh Loaf.

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GROW YOUR OWN WHEATIf grinding your own flour isn't extreme enough, there is

always the option of growing your own. While it's very unlikelythat you will become self-sufficiant with wheat, it's a funexperiment to try with children.

MY INTEREST IN PERMACULTURE andbuilding things with my hands often test thelimitations of our two-bedroom apartment.

While I haven’t been able to fit a bakeryoven in our kitchen, our balcony already hostsa playhouse for the children and a smallgarden—and as its latest addition, a tiny fieldcovered with sprouting wheat.

I had been thinking about whether it wouldbe possible to grow wheat on the balcony ornot for a couple of years already, but thisspring, inspired by a Real Bread Campaignproject called Bake Your Lawn, I decided togive it a try.

BAKE YOUR LAWN is a project aimed atteachers, parents, and other people who workwith children and want to show them wherebread comes from. At its best, Bake Your Lawncan bring local farmers, millers, and bakerstogether to help children grow their wheat,harvest it, mill it, bake it, and finally eat it. Theproject's grassroots guide is free and can be

downloaded from the campaign’s web site.If you are curious and want to give growing

your own wheat a shot, it’s best to start bydownloading the manual, reading it through,and then jumping in.

As this magazine comes out in thebeginning of July, it’s already a bit late forspring wheat, but don’t worry, you can sowyour winter wheat in October or November—orjoin the fun next spring, from January to lateApril. If you have a backyard where you can fittwo to four square meters of wheat, that’soptimal.

I don’t have a backyard, and my wife wasn'tvery excited about my first idea of filling half ofthe balcony with dirt (and buying a tiny tractor),so I settled with something a bit smaller: adozen or two of seeds and roughly 0.25 squaremeters of soil.

I will let you know how this works out afterharvest time!

STARTING THE EXPERIMENT CAN BE a bit

tricky as wheat seeds are not sold in thegardening stores where you would normallybuy your carrot or cauliflower seeds—and thecompanies that do sell bread wheat do it inquantities that are clearly targeted atprofessional farmers: The smallest ”mini pack”of bread wheat seeds I could find was 40 kilos!Not quite what I had mind for my balcony.

But don’t be intimidated by these quantities.For me, contacting the friendliest looking ofthese big agriculture suppliers and telling that Iwas curious to give wheat a try to show mychildren where bread comes from did the trick.

0.25 square meters seemed to me like ajoke, so I asked if I could buy enough seeds fortwo square meters—or one loaf of bread. Thelady from the company, Kultajyvä, repliedpromptly, saying that I would need 60 grams or700 seeds and that it would cost me 4 Eurosand postage.

I ordered the seeds on the spot.If the response you get from the seed

providers in your country isn’t quite as

Bread - Issue 2: Flour 71

supportive, contacting a local farmer andasking if he has a handful of seeds to spare isa good idea to try.

Also, if you are in the UK, the guidecontains a list of places that support theproject.

MY EXPERIMENT has just begun, but if allgoes well, when fall comes, I will have a fewgrains to show. Not enough for a loaf of bread,but just the right amount for a goodexperiment.

I will post progress reports and somephotos on the magazine’s Facebook page aswell as my Twitter feed, but why settle with myreports when you can try it yourself?

If you decide to go ahead with theexperiment, it would be fun to see your resultsand read about your experiences on themagazine’s Facebook page as well!

The next edition of BREAD—out onSeptember 20th, 2012—will be allabout fermentation. From fermenteddough such as biga and poolish tothe all famous sourdough, we willexplore what makes bread rise.

Subscribe now to get notified right asthe magazine comes out.

IF YOU ENJOYED THE MAGAZINE,SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

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