The stone mill
We grind the grains and pulses we grow in our farm mill: soft wheat, maize and chickpeas. The stone turns slowly, at around 70 revolutions per minute, and turns the grain into flour.
At such a slow speed the flour warms up very little during milling. The whole grain is ground, germ included, and only afterwards do we decide how much bran to remove.
Sieving and flour types
After milling, sieving (known in Italian as abburattamento) separates the flour from the bran. The more the flour is sieved, the whiter and finer it becomes. This is why Italian soft wheat flours are classified, from the most refined to the least, as type 00, type 0, type 1, type 2 and wholemeal.
Our type 0 soft wheat flour is finely ground and has a lovely light colour, but it still keeps part of the bran. The semi-wholemeal soft wheat flour contains the germ and a larger share of bran: in terms of sieving it sits between a type 2 flour and a semi-wholemeal one, with a fine grind that makes it easy to work with.
For maize and chickpeas, sieving mainly sets the grain size: fine for sweets such as paste di meliga, coarser for polenta, and fine for the chickpea flour used to make farinata.
From field to mill
Sowing, harvesting and milling all take place on our farm in Montabone (AT). The characteristics of each flour are listed on its product page.