About Our Flour & Cornmeal

Since we’ve started selling the Mill’s flour, we frequently get the question — is it whole grain? Our answer is a resounding “Yes!” In fact, this is as whole grain as it gets. The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines “whole grain” as grain that contains the entire grain kernel — the bran, endosperm, and germ.

The flour you buy at the local grocery store is most likely refined — that is, the bran and germ has been removed, as well as well as dietary fiber, iron, and many B vitamins. Refined grains are then “enriched,” a process where the nutrients are added back in.

With The Mill at Anselma’s flour, what you see is what you get. We pour wheat into the hopper, and it is ground and sifted — you end up with all the nutrients you started with!

Unbleached flour, like that ground at the Mill at Anselma, does not have any additives and is creamy in color when first ground. Unbleached flour naturally “bleaches” and becomes whiter when allowed to age for approximately three to four weeks. This aging process gives dough its elasticity during gluten formation. The Mill’s flour is stored in a freezer to promote natural aging and to mitigate rancidity.

Bleached flour uses a bleaching agent to speed up the natural aging process. Most commercial mills use potassium bromate or chlorine to bleach flour.

The coarser texture of stone-ground flour can make it slower to rise, so mixing it with a lighter flour will produce more satisfactory results. Simply mix the Mill’s bread flour and pastry flour together at a one-to-one ratio. So, if your cookie recipe calls for 2 cups of all-purpose flour, simply use 1 cup of our bread flour and 1 cup of pastry flour.

We recommend that our visitors refrigerate our flour products. While the germ is nutritious, it also contains oils that limit the shelf life of the flour. Flour stored in the freezer will last indefinitely.