Spice Up the Season

The Foraging Chef

BLACK IS T HE N EW GAR L I C

HARVEST 2014

ISSUE 25

Feature

Local Milling,
The Daily Grind of
Small Batch Flour
Makes a Comeback
by Anthony Todd

Chicagos local food scene has experienced an

explosion of interest over the past decade. With
farmers and artisans delivering fresh varieties of
everything from tomatoes and pork chops to bread
and honey, consumers are snapping up the products.
Despite this range of offerings, one thing was still
missing from the artisanal food scene: local milling.
We had wheat growing in every direction, but
nobody was producing any local our! exclaims Chef
Jared Van Camp.
His frustration, combined with his desire to be
true to sourcing locally, drove him to nd a solution:
install a full scale milling operation in his restaurant
so he has quality control over what goes in and how
it comes out. Now, Van Camp isnt the only miller
in townothers have taken his lead. Two other
businesses have jumped in: a craft distillery started
a milling operation and a high-prole bakery/
millhouse just opened in Lincoln Square. Is grain the
next frontier of local eating?
The vast majority of our in the United States
is made by a few enormous companies. As I learned
from interviews with many local food advocates,
even the brands that look artisanal and come with a
picture of a farm are often contract-milled or copackaged by the giants, then rebranded.
Chicago has a deep milling heritage, and it
was only in the 90s that General Mills and the
other milling operations moved out of Chicago,
explained Dave Miller, owner of Baker Miller
Bakery and Millhouse, one of the new pioneers of
local milling. Chicago was once the Midwest hub
of grain processing, with brands like Gold Medal
our being shipped out by the tons at the height of
production. Nearly two decades later, small batch
milling is beginning to gain traction in the local food

community.
But its not just the happy idea of producing
something locally that makes chefs and bakers want
to spend thousands of dollars on milling equipment,
training, dust lters and all the other complications
of making our. Its the ability to make custom blends
of ours and grains that lead to better breads, pizzas,
liquors and more.
It can take a long time to gure out the best
methods for different recipes. Van Camp found
out through trial and error. When his team rst
assembled a mill in the basement of his restaurant
Nellcote and started milling, it was an insane
disaster, he remembers. They didnt pick the correct
wheat, opting for one with a low-protein content,
and so the rst attempt at pizza ended up a mess.
These days, theyve perfected their mixes and use
a combination of different varieties of wheat, some
local, some not. They buy wheat from Breslin Farms
and Spence Farms in Illinois, but Illinois isnt a
great place for growing durum wheat, explains Van
Camp. Durum wheat is the super-high-protein wheat
that gives pasta its unique bite. So the Nellcote team
mixes, matches and experiments constantly with
their blends, and they sell their our and pasta at the
restaurant and at local gourmet stores.
CH Distillery had a slightly different take
on grain. Rather than milling it into bread our,
the owner of CH, Tremaine Atkinson, wanted to
break down grain and use it to distill alcohol. Most
distilleries use pre-ground meal, but Atkinson insists
that his way is better. To be able to really control the
avor and the whole process, you have to start with
the whole grain, he explains. Theres a freshness
factor. Once you grindlike coffee or spices or
anything elseit immediately starts to lose its avor

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and character.
When CH Distillery built its West Loop bar and
distilling operation, the team made a commitment:
they would only mix cocktails with local ingredients.
That meant no Grey Goose, no Tanqueray and no Jim
Beamand it presented a logistical problem. In order
to produce everything they needed, they built a huge,
intricate 2-level system. And it all begins with a mill.
Wheat, rye and corn (sourced from farmers
near Kaneville, Illinois) come into the building in
2,000-pound nylon sacks, and a pulley system hoists
those sacks into a hopper. After grinding the grain
in the mill, the resulting coarse our is carried by
bucket elevator directly into the mash tanks of the
distillery. Its a custom setup, and it wasnt cheap to
build, but as CH plans to increase its volume over
many years, it seems to be a labor-saving investment.
The immediate payoffit saves their backs. Our
mash tank is 11 feet tall, so youd have to climb a
ladder with 50 pound bags of grain hundreds of
times. Thats a lot of wear and tear on a body, says
Atkinson. CH distills vodka, gin and amaro (a bitter
Italian spirit) for retail sale and makes rum, whiskey
and other liqueurs that are used in the bar.
Dave Miller, of Baker Miller Bakery, may be
the local milling star whos gotten the most recent
attention. After Dave and his wife Megan (formerly
of Bang Bang Pie Company) began building their
new Lincoln Square Bakery, they started a small
Kickstarter fundraising campaign to cover the cost of
producing small-batch our. They had experimented
with small mills, but they wanted to create something
big enough to produce all the our for their bakery
and create a retail brand on the side.
That Kickstarter campaign paid off and raised
more than 20 times its goal and allowed the Millers

36

edible CHICAGO

| HARVEST 2014

Left: CH Distillery Restaurant

and Bar with a direct view into
their spotless brewing room

to plan and build a custom facility. Just like Van Camp

and Atkinson, for Miller, its a question of quality.
When you start milling your own our and playing
with texture and moisture content, you can take your
baking to a whole new level. We can do things weve
never seen before.
Baker Millers new mill has a 12-inch stone, a big
improvement over their small 3-inch experimental
mills. I had to mill the our into a huge bucket, then I
had to, by hand, scoop it into a sifter that could do a cup
at a time. That just wont work for retail, says Miller.
The excitement about local our ourishedBaker
Miller our will be sold at 22 Whole Foods locations
by the end of the year, and hes in talks with another
45 grocery stores. Hes already procured the wheata
contract option for 60,000 pounds of it from a farm in
Grundy, Illinois.
Local our is not going to be as cheap as
commodity our sold in grocery stores. Expensive?
I guess it depends on peoples version, says Miller
contemplatively. I spend a lot of time at stores staring at
our shelves. I dont understand how some of their prices
are so low. Three dollars for a bag of our is insanewhat
type of wheat can you possibly be using? Miller expects
his our to retail for more like $6, though unless youre
an avid home baker, thats unlikely to make a huge dent in
your grocery budget.
The milling revolution is already spreading fast.
Other distilleries are looking into either doing their
own milling or contracting with these early adopters.
Restaurants are talking about getting custom blends
of our. And Baker Miller sold out of its entire stock of
baked goods on opening day in late September. Judging
from the increased interest, local grains could be in a
kitchen or a cocktail near you in this new frontier.
Nellcote is located at 833 W. Randolph St. Chicago,
IL, nellcoterestaurant.com, CH Distillery is located
at 564 W. Randolph St. Chicago, IL, chdistillery.com,
Baker Miller Bakery & Millhouse is located at 4610 N.
Western Ave. Chicago, IL, bakermillerchicago.com. ec

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Retail store coming soon to 1427 W. Willow in Bucktown

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Anthony Todd is a writer and editor who has

contributed to multiple blogs covering Chicagos food
and drink scene. He was also the editor for The Tasting
Table. If hes not eating, gardening, mixing cocktails
and writing about it, he is thinking about it. He spends
his spare time working as a lawyer.

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