About six years ago we needed to decide what we were going to do with Sunrise Flour Mill. We had three choices. One, call it a day and hang up our aprons. Two, continue at the current level. Or three, grow.
Even though we were 10 and 20 years into retirement, and never planned on owning a mill, so many people asked us to never stop what we were doing since they could finally eat wheat again. In reality, options one and two weren't really a choice. The only real choice in our minds was option three; grow.
With growth came the need for new milling equipment. Our small table top mill wasn't cutting it anymore. At that time (and even today) people were looking for stone-ground flour. We were very interested. Stone-ground signified fresh, small-scale, and artisan, which meant we cared about quality and nutrition.
Darrold started looking at stone mills with a higher capacity. He discovered one that seemed to check off all the boxes. It was manufactured in Denmark and was the predominant small-scale stone mill in the US at the time. We thought about it for a long time and decided it was time to make the trip. The representative took us all around Denmark and Sweden showing us milling operations that were about the size we wanted to be.
We came back after 10 days convinced that stone-ground milling was for us.
Something held us back - for many months.
One day a farmer, to whom we supplied seed, contacted Darrold and asked him if he knew anything about Unifine mills. He said he was going to Washington to look at the mills and asked if Darrold wanted to go along. They flew out and met Steve Fulton, the man who had resurrected an old technology for milling whole wheat flour. Visiting two sites using the mill showed that the Unifine milled was able to mill whole wheat with finer bran.It operated at lower temperatures to keep the flour cooler, and it had a larger capacity than stone mills. We were completely sold.
There were only five mills at that time and three were in use. We were lucky enough to get one of the last two available.
Stone-ground whole wheat flour has bran pieces that are relatively large compared with the rest of the flour. As dough develops, the bran pieces cut the gluten strands so bread doesn’t rise very well. This can make it difficult to bake with.
The bran from the Unifine mill is almost as fine as white flour. This enables a lighter, loftier loaf of bread.
Between the heritage grains and the Unifine mill, we found the golden ticket to the most nutritious, most digestible, most delicious bread. This is exactly what we had been looking for. It's not just us, thousands of other home bakers seem to agree. Just look at their product reviews.
Our Heritage White Flour is certainly our most versatile product. But in truth, our Ultra-Fine Whole Wheat, milled in our Unifine mill, is our favorite. It combines the best of all worlds, nutrition, digestibility, and flavor. It is 100% whole grain and retains maximum flavor and nutrition.
Do you want to add superior nutrition to your baking? Try using, or substituting, a bit of Ultra-Fine Whole Wheat flour into your recipes.
We certainly love baking with it. We hope you do too. Let us know what your favorite things are to bake using Ultra-fine Heritage Whole Wheat Flour.
All for now,
