The Crumb Trail

Fran and Mark Fischer began processing local grains at Castle Valley Mill in Doylestown about six years ago, but the facility first milled grains in 1730. Mark’s grandfather, a German miller, purchased the property in the 1940s and restored it; the Fischers have continued this work and then some, operating the only remaining fully functional stone mill in the area.

“When we started, there was practically no small-grain economy [in the area],” Mark says, “so it was a bit of a challenge even finding interesting local grains.”

The Fischers set about identifying farmers, often approaching conventional-wheat growers about growing heirloom varieties that were new to them and transitioning a few acres each year to chemical-free practices. Small Valley Milling, a larger-scale organic-grain producer north of Harrisburg, was an indispensable supplier to and supporter of the project.

The Fischers grew their operation slowly, as supply, demand and money allowed. They sent out postcards advertising their products to bakers and chefs in the city. Soon, the likes of Pete Merzbacher, of Philly Bread, and Alex Bois, then of High Street on Market, were making regular trips up to Doylestown to get their hands on Castle Valley’s stone-milled products. They told their fellow bakers, and interest grew. “It’s just been a slow but steady growth, and it’s been all word of mouth,” says Mark. “The product—stone-ground, locally grown stuff—just speaks for itself.”

Today, the Fischers source non-GMO corn and hard and soft wheat, as well as less common grains like spelt, emmer (also known as farro), rye and deep-red Bloody Butcher heirloom corn that they process into flour, meal and grits. Their sources are half a dozen farmers in Pennsylvania who are growing these crops without GMO seed and using organic practices. Their customers are some of the city’s top restaurants and most innovative bakeries, which they reach through four wholesale distributors.

As exciting as Castle Valley’s progress has been, most city bakeries don’t use local grains, and those that do often combine them with more conventionally milled flours from larger entities like King Arthur or Central Milling to achieve their desired end product. Consumers have heard about the mill over the years, and the Fischers field daily phone calls about how amateur bakers and home cooks can get their hands on the product. Unless they want to purchase a 25-pound bag and drive to Doylestown to pick it up, they’re out of luck.

“It seems that most [commercial bakers] who are using [local flour] now are using it because they believe in it, not because customers are demanding it,” Pete Merzbacher, owner of Philly Bread, says. “And the number of [consumers] who are demanding it have too little buying power to really create market signals to producers, whether it’s bakers or chefs or millers or farmers, to do more of it.”

While an increase in demand would be a positive thing—from bakers to farmers—the supply chain isn’t able to put local grains and flours in every kitchen in Philadelphia, residential or commercial, just yet. “It’s like a train on a track,” Mark says of the regional farmer–miller– baker supply chain. “You’ve got several cars, and no one can go any faster than the one before it or behind it.”

That train tends to move slowly. To get farmers to grow organic heirloom grains, the Fischers agree to purchase their whole crop up front, making each harvest a potentially risky proposition. Issues like vomitoxin (a fungus that can grow on grain if the weather is too humid before the harvest) or improper storage can turn a high-value organic crop fit for human consumption into a low-value grain fit only to feed livestock. Just purchasing a few grain bins to store the carefully cultivated, harvested, and cleaned grain properly requires an investment of tens of thousands of dollars. With this high barrier to entry and potential pitfalls, it’s no surprise that the mill’s market hasn’t expanded by leaps and bounds.

As excited as some of the city’s commercial bakers are to be using local flour, the higher price can be a challenge, especially when baking a wide selection of breads, rolls and sweets primarily for wholesale customers, as bakeries like Philly Bread and Wild Flour Bakery do.

Wild Flour, run by Laura and Nishon Yaghoobian, occasionally uses Castle Valley flour in breads sold at their farmers’-market stands around the city. The Yaghoobians experiment with 100% spelt and wholegrain free-form loaves and bring them to Headhouse Square Farmers’ Market, where they sell well—but price-conscious wholesale business is what drives their growth.

Loaves made with local flour, Yaghoobian says, “are really delicious, but it’s a different type of consumer.” The city’s gastropubs just aren’t ready for the different texture and higher price tag that would accompany a locally milled, whole-grain burger roll. “I like the idea” of using local flours, she says. “I want to see more readily available on a wholesale level and retail for home bakers, but it’s a challenge.”

Philly Bread’s Merzbacher sources whole grains from Castle Valley and mills them himself on a small machine at his Olney production facility. At least some flour from local grains ends up in just about every recipe he makes, which includes a full selection of loaves, breads and rolls for wholesale accounts. Merzbacher also makes the famed Philly Muffin, an outsized sourdough take on the English muffin, and its Heirloom Grains variety includes a healthy percentage of local grain. But it’s challenging to move the needle and increase his orders when his wholesale customers seek conventional-style bread products at a low price.

“Nobody knows that we buy local—we don’t really do much to promote that,” he says. “But even if we address that, it doesn’t change that pubs want a regular burger bun, and French toast is probably better for most people with white bread.”

In restaurant kitchens, cost is still a challenge. But when flour or grain is only one of hundreds of ingredients used, the higher cost is easier to rationalize than when it’s the main ingredient.

“It’s a funny spectrum,” says Claire McWilliams, baker at Vetri, where Castle Valley products milled on site end up in breads, pastries and pastas. “At one end, you have cheap, cheap, cheap grain, and you’ll probably pay five or ten times [more] to get good grain. But relative to your other food costs [like proteins and dairy], it’s extremely cheap.”

James Barrett, head baker at Metropolitan Bakery has been using some freshly milled local flour since he implemented the in-house bread program at the White Dog Cafe back in the early 1990s. As with the restaurant’s other ingredients, it was important to source as close to home as possible. Before Castle Valley opened up one county over, Barrett purchased organic stone-milled flour from Lindley Mills in central North Carolina, the closest source he could find.

But simply getting fresh, stone-milled flour to the bakery has been a consistent challenge for Barrett for the past 23 years. “It’s always a delivery issue,” says Barrett. “It’s expensive going through FedEx or other avenues.”

And there’s much to learn about stone-milled flour when you’ve spent your career baking with snowy drifts of Gold Medal or King Arthur. Stone-milled flour must be stored in a refrigerator or freezer and used within a few days; to use the flours outside that brief window, the bakery must “age” it for about three weeks so that it’s processed at the optimum level of natural enzymatic action.

Once the dough is mixed, bakers not used to working with freshly milled flours or ancient grains might not be prepared for how they act during the production process.

Ancient grains especially, Barrett says, “ferment very quickly because they’re so full of enzymes.” At Metropolitan, bakers receive special training on how to work with these flours to avoid disasters that would result in dumping dough. “We’re on a tight schedule with each bread, so with any of the breads that contain these flours, we treat them with kid gloves.” It takes some getting used to, but once a skilled baker learns how freshly stone-milled flours and rare grains behave, the payoff is more than worth it.

Once McWilliams started using Castle Valley’s products at Vetri, she had to let go of lessons she’d learned baking with conventional flour. “There are these things that every single baker knows [are] true that I reluctantly and finally gave up, and now my bread is coming out so much better because these grains don’t act the same way that [conventional] flour acts,” she says.

For home bakers who want to start baking with stone-ground, freshly milled flours, whether from Castle Valley or a larger supplier like South Carolina’s Anson Mills, McWilliams has some advice. “Commit. Keep doing it,” she says. “At first it might seem harder or like it doesn’t work, but it does work. You just have to figure it out. It’s like a fun puzzle. Your products, what you make, will ultimately be so elevated if you get through the awkward learning phase. It’s humbling, and then the payoff is fantastic.”

For home bakers, Bois recommends research and practice. “My advice is to read a lot and bake a lot,” he says. He also recommends experimenting with local flours for purposes besides reaching for the perfect levain: they’re delicious in pancakes, biscuits and English muffins, too.