The mill week
One grain a day, because the stones have to be cleaned between them.
A single set of stones and a dressing that takes an hour. Milling rye after wheat without cleaning down gives you rye-flavoured wheat, which is nobody’s idea of either.
Monday
Milled
Hard red wheat, whole
Tuesday
Milled
Hard red wheat, sifted
Wednesday
On the stones
Rye, whole and light
Thursday
Next
Dent corn, both grinds
Friday
Next
Buckwheat
Saturday
Store
Farm store open, 9 to 2
How long it keeps
This is the other half of the same fact. Fresh flour is better and it does not wait for you.
- Whole grain flour
- Three months in a cool cupboard, six in a freezer.
- The germ is still in it and the germ contains oil. Oil goes rancid. That is the whole reason supermarket flour has the germ taken out.
- Sifted flour
- Six months cool, a year frozen.
- Most of the germ is out, so it keeps longer and tastes of less. Both of those are the same fact.
- Cornmeal
- Two months cool, six frozen.
- Goes off faster than wheat and more noticeably. If it smells like crayons, it has gone.
- Whole berries
- Years, in a sealed bucket.
- This is why people buy a home mill. A berry is a seed and it is designed to wait.