About The Flour Lab
About Us
We are a dedicated grain and flour lab and have been since 2006, if anyone knows flour, its us. We have seen every variety of every cereal made into various grists and often baked to evaluate the product that they make.
My name is Abigail and I started the business because I really enjoyed seeing how the different varieties of wheat performed in different years and the end markets that they then served. In a slightly sad way, I just love wheat, is that a bit weird? Well even if it is, we decided that at a time of national food shortage since we could produce flour, we would, and distribute it to those in need. The WI members of the surrounding villages have all been baking with our flour, and the time has come to go to a wider market; after all, we have staff to pay and we believe a good product to sell.
We're working hard in the lab to develop an array of wonderful flours for you to buy. We are offering an initial 4 flours available to purchase on the website, with a very exciting range of nutritional goodness to follow!
About the Flour
Milling wheat varieties have lovely names that evoke the spirit of the season and a kind of special distinction as they’re the highest quality wheats, names such as Solstice, Cordiale, Granary, Illustrious, Crusoe, Gallant and names like Malacca (now gone) which memorise the eastern origins of wheat as a cultivar. Milling wheats have a higher protein and gluten content than other wheats, and their strength for baking is determined by their Hagberg falling number test, and then baking quality evaluated by alveograph and extensograph to determine their potential for dough making. We publish these results on the bags when we manufacture them.
Biscuit wheat varieties have names that are a bit more down to earth and betray a beautiful softness to them as they are indeed usually softer grains. Croft, Scout, Delphi, Brittania, Motown, Sundance, Revelation are all made into grists for biscuits, pastry and cakes where a softer grain is required.
Barley, which is traditionally used for beverages but makes an excellent wholegrain flour generally is named after something to do with drink! We use varieties such as Sassy, Moonshine, Tipple, Quench, Talisman and Flagon, but we often use barley which would not qualify for malting as it consequently has a higher protein content. Varieties such as Propino and Planet are our go-to varieties.
We are also able to produce flour from millet, pulses, Canadian red wheat or other niche crops.
We prefer to produce wholemeal flours as they are more nutritious and involve far less processing, however, we all love a bit of white bread don’t we, so we’ll work towards producing a range of unbleached white flours too…watch this space!
About the Lab
If you want to know the nitty gritty of our flour processing and what makes The Flour Lab unique from other flour mills, read on...
Flours and doughs are subject to a series of tests in the lab. We are an accredited GAFTA (Grain and Feed Trade) Analyst No. 238. One of only 4 in the UK.
The cereals progress through our lab via a variety of tests:
Whole Grain Analysis
Firstly, all grain is tested using a dedicated whole grain analyser which gives us rapid measurement of Moisture, Protein (Nitrogen) and specific weight. This helps us to sort the wheat from the chaff and tells us whether the wheat is any good for specific industries. It’s one thing having the right variety of wheat but different seasons and growing conditions can sometimes mean that it doesn’t make the grade.
Hagberg
Next we will test the Hagberg falling number of the sample. This involves grinding the wheat into flour, adding some water to make a paste and then heating it up in a water bath. A weighted viscometer stirrer stirs it and then falls through the paste. The greater the alpha-amylase activity in the sample, the faster the stirrer drops which indicates a poorer quality wheat. Good bread making wheat holds the stirrer for 250s, very strong bread making wheat will last 400-450s. Plain flour needs to reach 180s. Anything less than this and the wheat is usually destined for animal feed mills.
Gluten washing
We might then examine the gluten content of the sample, by making a small dough ball and quite literally washing it. This washes away the starch and leaves us with a small ball of gluten which resembles a piece of chewing gum. This ball can then be weighed and it's colour examined for bakers.
Alveograph
This is a really cool instrument! We make calibrated dough balls and the instrument forms a bubble using the dough, gradually increasing the pressure until the bubble bursts. This measures the strength of the dough and is really usefu for bakers.
Farinograpgh
This is another really cool instrument that resembles something from a Dr. Who episode! Again, this uses a dough and it measures the strength over a mixing time to give an idea of when the gluten has become overworked. The typical unit here is a non S.I. Unit called the Brabender Unit. Where 500 is the peak mixing time to give the best dough.
Further NIR
We have various NIR calibrations for measuring colour parameters on flour which give useful indicators for not only bread flour but also baking malt flours which are used to enhance colour. But the malt story is for another day, as we also test a lot of malting barley for brewing…
So, we REALLY know flour! And we think that it's important that you know exactly where your flour comes from and how we ensure that you only receive the HIGHEST quality from The Flour Lab.