Where do we start?

Let’s start with what brought you here. There are many reasons why someone might choose freshly stone ground flour milled by a neighborhood bakery. It could be supporting the local economy, local farmers, or perhaps you were attracted to the beautifully designed packaging. But ultimately the point is that this flour is the most delicious and the most nutritious.

The Milling Process

All of our grain is currently sourced from Virginia and Pennsylvania exclusively. We have direct relationships with all of our farmers and thus have the ability to speak with them in depth about their choice of varieties and growing practices. We use two New American Stone Mills (read more about our mill evolution here) and we mill both whole and sifted flours. The amazing thing about our sifted flour is that while it is lighter and finer than whole grain, it still retains some of the bran and germ unlike roller milled flours generally available. The bran is the fiber and the germ contains the oils and minerals, making a flour that is both more nutritious and more aromatic. It is this evocative flavor that first pushed us to dedicate a large part of our bakery to sourcing freshly stone ground flour.

Tips & Tricks

As we develop this part of our webpage you will be able to find tips and tricks to working with unique local flours. After all we are re-establishing grain as a regional foodstuff which it hasn’t been for over a hundred years!

First, remember that you can always “ease” in to baking with these flours by blending. No need to force yourself to jump in deep end! That way you can see the difference in a more gradual way; start with 25%, then 50% of your recipes flour and you’ll learn a lot just from the changes inherent in working with a new texture and flavor.

Second, stone ground flours, even sifted ones, take on higher hydration. Thus, our recommendation is to begin by increasing the hydration in your recipe by 2-4% —with whole grain this number may even double or triple. Again, the gradual increase will teach you more as you see the difference from batch to batch.

Flour Storage & The Aging Debate

One of the unique aspects of buying local freshly stone ground flour is that you have access to flour almost directly off the mill. A revelation in some instances. However there are different schools of thought on the best time to use flour. In short there are those that favor using it immediately (within 24 hours of milling) and those that see benefit in aging the flour, primarily to help “stabilize” the starches, making the flour easier to work with on the bench. Whiles Sub Rosa tends to use most of its flours within a few days of milling, we are currently experimenting with aging flours for 2-3 weeks to see if we can notice the difference. We will be sure to update our findings here. On a technical note a recent blurb from the book by Lutz Geißler, “Besser Vollkorn Backen,” (shout out to Mark Woodward for the information and translation) says that rye flours that have high enzymatic activity (low falling number) do better when aged after milling while rye flours with lower enzyme activity (higher falling number) do better when used immediately after milling. Intuitively this seems correct but we’ll be sure to publish our findings here!

We will say however that no matter what the time frame storing in a cool dry place sealed from air is a must. Our bags are specifically designed to hold flour and can even be kept in the fridge accordingly. Make sure you remember to make up the difference in your recipe when using cold flours!

PLEASE BRING YOUR BAGS BACK TO BE REFILLED AS OFTEN AS YOU LIKE!

In The Future

In the future we will update this landing page to include

• an encyclopedia of grains milled by Sub Rosa with specific information available for flours currently on sale in our line up

• more in depth guides to using each one of these flours with a sample recipe

• an FAQ highlighting the most common questions and challenges in using freshly stone ground flours from the Mid Atlantic region

Stay Tuned!

Thank you for supporting a new grain economy and most importantly a new grain culture. By using local grains in your diet you are redefining the relationship between yourself and the land, and the culture that may grow from it.