{"id":11279,"date":"2019-05-17T17:08:01","date_gmt":"2019-05-17T17:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=11279"},"modified":"2019-05-17T17:08:01","modified_gmt":"2019-05-17T17:08:01","slug":"idahos-farmers-foodies-welcome-new-flour-mill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2019\/05\/17\/idahos-farmers-foodies-welcome-new-flour-mill\/","title":{"rendered":"Idaho\u2019s Farmers, Foodies Welcome New Flour Mill"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fresher pastas, more artisan bread coming soon<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

By Hayden Seder<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Hillside Grain flour mill owner Brett Stevenson in the mill. Photo credit: Brett Stevenson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Idaho\u2019s first specialty, grower-owned flour mill, Hillside Grain, has launched in the heart of the Bellevue Triangle. Started by Brett Stevenson, whose family home, Hillside Ranch, has grown barley for 45 years, the new mill will allow Idaho barley and wheat to be processed in state and to open up new market channels.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an opportunity for her business and for agriculture in the state Stevenson has seen untapped for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIdaho is one of the best grain-growing states\u2014consistently producing some of the best-quality barley and wheat and also some of the largest volumes,\u201d Stevenson said. \u201cMuch of Idaho\u2019s barley and wheat leave the state. I wanted to be able to process some of this high-quality wheat and barley and have identity preserved and fresh flours available.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stevenson grew up on Hillside Ranch, her family\u2019s multigenerational farm, growing organic wheat and barley. Seeing her father growing grain her entire life instilled in Stevenson the desire to build on what her family had created and better the lives of consumers and Idaho\u2019s wheat and barley farmers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHillside Grain is pioneering a new untapped market channel,\u201d said Blaine Jacobson, Idaho Wheat Commission executive director. \u201cThey\u2019re in touch with the way the market is evolving. There\u2019s been a general trend nationally toward more local products and more fresh products; artisan bakeries have taken off significantly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jacobson also points out the trend in traceability and knowing where ingredients are coming from and knowing the growers of one\u2019s food.<\/p>\n

Already, Hillside Grain has had successful test runs of their milling line. They plan to primarily sell bulk and wholesale to artisan bakeries as well as local markets, including those in the Wood River Valley.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, consumers will have a different experience eating bread, pasta, or tortillas made with fresh flour,\u201d Stevenson said. \u201cIn Europe, bread and pastas are so delicious because it is constantly being made fresh, but the part I think we often overlook is that they are also using fresh flour. In the U.S., we typically process and enrich our flour for conditioning and shelf stability, which I think takes away greatly from the flavor, nutritional value, and perhaps even digestibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starting an Idaho-based flour mill isn\u2019t just a game-changer for consumers, but growers as well. While there is a large commercial mill owned by Grain Craft located in Blackfoot, this is Idaho\u2019s first specialty, grower-owned mill.<\/p>\n

\u201cHillside Grain flour mill is unique because we are growers, stone milling, roller milling and sifting our flours,\u201d Stevenson said. \u201cThis process allows us to retain some bran and germ, which is where all the flour and nutritional value is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hillside Grain uses custom, handmade stones from Holland in their milling process, a unique aspect hard to find in the United States. Stone mills are more artisan and provide more flavor in the flour, while roller mills, like the larger commercial mills, produce higher output. The flour also has no additives or enriching, nor glyphosate or GMO, in its grain.<\/p>\n

While Stevenson\u2019s master\u2019s degree in environmental studies has certainly helped in her crusade to bring flavorful, artisan flour to Idaho, growing up on her family\u2019s ranch also provided her with generations of wisdom.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we were kids and wanted to go to the lake on the weekends with friends, our dad used to say, \u2018No way. The crops don\u2019t stop growing on Sunday,\u2019\u201d Stevenson said. \u201cProducing food is the same. People still eat on Saturday and Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stevenson and her team at Hillside Grain are still fine-tuning their grain-cleaning section, bran collection and bagging, but be on the lookout for Hillside Grain\u2019s artisanal flours coming soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fresher pastas, more artisan bread coming soon By Hayden Seder Idaho\u2019s first specialty, grower-owned flour mill, Hillside Grain, has launched in the heart of the Bellevue Triangle. Started by Brett Stevenson, whose family home, Hillside Ranch, has grown barley for 45 years, the new mill will allow Idaho barley and wheat to be processed in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,5,79,18,36],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11279","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-community","8":"category-environment-2","9":"category-health-news","10":"category-news","11":"category-slider"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}