Flour power a draw at Decew Falls
Hank Braun sifts a little flour through his fingers to see if it’s fine enough.
Not yet, he makes some adjustments and the second palmfull is finer, soft and silky to the touch.
Braun is one of a handful if millers that work at the Morningstar Mill by Decew Falls.
He says they try to run it six times a year, falling on the fourth Saturday of every month starting in May, except for the weekends that fall on the Rankin Cancer Run and the Grape and Wine Festival parade.
“The mill was started in 1872, and it ran until the 1930s. Then some fellows approached the city to see if they could restore it — that how Friends of Morningstar started,” says Braun.
Holding the fine flour, he says history is in the palm of his hand.
“It’s 100 per cent pure flour, you’ve got no chemicals.
“You see the stone there? The grain goes in on top, from the bottom it comes out, and you’ve got pure flour. All the nutrition left in.”
Nearby, Debbie Bird is with her five year-old daughter Abigail, brought to see the milling in action.
“It makes good bread and stuff,” she says. “Stone-ground whole wheat, everything is left in except the bran. Mix it half and half with all-purpose (flour), otherwise it gets a little dense.
“It’s tasty, better than storebought. It’s not bleached.”
The flour produced on Saturday was cake and pastry flour. A $4 donation gets visitors a twopound bag.
“We go through 300 pounds of grain that gives at least 250 pounds of flour,” explains Braun.
“We put it in a proper paper bag. When you take that flour home, put it in a container or a Ziploc bag.
“After a year in the freezer you take that flour out and it’s just as soft and pliable as when you put it in.
“We’ve been baking with it for 15 years, and I’m still here so it must be pretty good.”