The Dirt #78: Specialty Grains Revolution
By identifying and developing grains purposefully geared to this growing region [the WSU Breadlab has] provided farmers a crop that is worth so much more than commodity grains.
In the late 19th century, industrialization had caused wholesale conversion of how things were made. As it pertains to specialty grains, the topic for this issue of The Dirt, it caused such an upheaval that much of what makes grains special no longer applied, especially in wheat.
What industrial millers were looking for at that time was uniformity. Wheat with certain characteristics was milled very fine, removing two of the three components present in wheat seeds (kernels), the bran and the germ. What remained was the white portion of the kernel, the endosperm.
White is important here. It was thought that white flour was somehow purer. Once roller mills—as opposed to stone mills—became the norm, white flour became the standard. White flour producing white bread—predictable, consistent, pervasive.
With that uniformity came a shift to commodity production of wheat. A farm's yield was combined with others into a vast collective, indistinct and untraceable. It demanded large-scale production to achieve financial reward and left smaller operations with a crop that consistently did not, indeed could not, break even at a minimum.
So it continues today. But while conversion to white all-purpose, same-same flour consolidated flour production from 22,000 regional flour mills in the U.S. to the less than 200 in operation today, it did something else.
It stripped flour of nutrition, as well as regional variations in flavor, color, and even its suitability for specific end products.
According to the experts at the WSU Breadlab, "By using only the white portion of the seed, wheat is reduced from a nutrient-dense food to one that lacks basic nutrition: 60%to 90% of individual micronutrients (importantly, most, like zinc and selenium, are not replaced by enrichment) are lost along with all the fiber by discarding the bran and germ."
Once that loss was generally accepted, there was a pushback to "make good." Tellingly, Stephen Jones, founder and director of the Breadlab says, "Most of the ‘whole wheat’ bread sold in grocery stores is made from white flour with the bran and germ added back in, along with non-food ingredients such as the common emulsifier soy lecithin or preservatives like sorbic acid."
A Skagit Valley Revolution
But something revolutionary has been happening in Skagit Valley. It's the resurgence of specialty grains, fostered by a remarkable collaboration between breeders, growers, millers, maltsters, brewers, distillers, and all types of bakers.
It's a resurgence of true specialty grains—wheat, barley, and other grains bred and developed to grow well under local conditions. Grains that are grown to use the full expression of the seed: bran, germ and endosperm, without alteration, elimination, or compromise.
Flour, anyone?
According to Skagit success story Cairnspring Mills, "Different flours are good at different things."
Two local flour mills are champions of that truth.
Cairnspring Mills at the Port of Skagit has adopted an ethos that starts with identifying grain strains—many developed at the Breadlab—that not only thrive under our specific local growing conditions, but that meet equally specific requirements for superior end products.
Once the grain is harvested, Cairnspring uses traditional milling techniques on natural stone to grind the kernels into flour without sacrificing the nutritious, delicious components of the grain.
From their first milling in 2017, Cairnspring has been able to say, "Our flours are not artificially enriched or treated. We don't add dough stabilizers or conditioners such as enzymes, ascorbic acid, mononitrate, or malted barley. None of our flours are bromated or bleached."
Launched originally in 1974 in Bellingham, Fairhaven Mill has seen many iterations and changes, including relocating to Burlington. In 2019, a new group took on Fairhaven Organic Flour Mill and it thrives with a wide range of organic flours from several small grains, many 100% whole grain.
Both Cairnspring and Fairhaven emphasize a clean and genuine product that originates in the well-being of the farmer.
Specialty grains in your glass
If you've enjoyed a local craft brewery's offering, or a fine distilled spirit produced in our region, chances are high that drink owes a lot of its unique flavor to the contribution of Skagit Valley Malting.
SVM's founding was inspired, in part, by the Breadlab. In learning about the Breadlab's work, SVM's founder Wayne Carpenter was, according to their own narrative, "introduced to the concept of getting outside the commodity system and offering unique grains that could present some interesting flavors."
Those flavors are derived from a whole host of malted grains that, "offer our customers the ability to start their recipes on the right foot. Our malts are single variety, single batch, and offered in styles that provide their best expression."
The many craft brewers and distillers that have launched their businesses in the region these past few years can testify to the success of SVM's approach. It gives those brewers and distillers the means to offer truly unique products in a very competitive market.
A true consortium
Most of the impetus for this specialty grain revolution can be traced to the work of the WSU Breadlab. By identifying and developing grains purposefully geared to this growing region they have provided farmers a crop that is worth so much more than commodity grains.
By adhering to the Breadlab's focus that the crops should support the farmer in terms of yield, ease of cultivation—including requiring little or no inputs like fertilizers—and salability, farmers are able to plant grains that not only supply remarkable benefits to the soil in their crop rotation system, but are actually profitable.
First the breeders, then the growers, and then the wonderful expansion in uses for the grains in specialty flour production, grain malting, baking, brewing, distilling and more—it's a revolution that's brought rewards at every level.
The true goodness of the grain is used in all its glory, the farmers have an alternative to the loss leader of commodity production, specialty businesses are established and succeed.
It is an ongoing revolution as more and more attention is paid to sustainable production, from the ground up through the many levels leading to the ultimate consumer. A consumer who enjoys choice, flavor and worth like never before.
It's a specialty grains revolution right here in the Skagit Valley.
By Teresa Bennett: info@skagitonians.org
Photos: Richard Raisler