Our Milling Process
Laucke Flour Mills select the best grains to process through our roller and stone grinding mills to create the great flour appreciated by our customers. “Flour” is used to describe any edible substance in powder form. Of all the cereals milled for flour, wheat is the best known grain and most consumed flour in Australia due to the unique properties of wheat gluten. Laucke utilise a variety of grains including wheat, rye, spelt and triticale.
To produce the highest quality flour, the aim of the miller is to identify and source the most suitable grain and properly prepare it for milling, and then to separate as much good quality flour as possible from the grain without excessively damaging the constituents of the grain, being the endosperm and germ in the heart of the grain, and the branny outer layers of the grain. The endosperm is a crystalline matrix of complex carbohydrate and protein, which, when progressively reduced in particle size, is reduced from chunks of semolina into fine particles of flour. The wheat grain has a natural crease where branny layers are trapped within the endosperm, and this prevents a perfect separation of bran and germ from the endosperm. Milling to produce white flour removes most of the bran layers and the germ, which together amount to about 15% of the wheat grain. This means that, depending on the milling technique, not all the bran can be separated, and up to 50% of the germ is retained in the white flour.
Milling is now much more than the simple Grinding of grain. The following description will give you an understanding of the processes of milling of grain as we perform it.
Break Grinding
This is what was, in earlier times, the first and only stage of the milling process.
Grain is progressively passed through a series of several individually fluted “Break” grinding surfaces (either Roller grinding or Stone grinding) with different grinding gaps, where the grain is broken open and the adhering endosperm scraped off the branny layers.
The endosperm may be ground finely enough to approximate fine flour if the grinding gap is reduced and enough grinding pressure is applied as with a traditional stone grinder.
With “modern” milling, after every grinding passage, the stock (ground / sifted product) is sifted and graded so as to then stream the most suitable stock to the next grinding passage.
Grain
There are thousands of varieties of wheat, and each has adapted to its environment. Plant diseases are constantly evolving, and compromising the agronomic viability of existing varieties. Plant breeders are constantly finding and sourcing new parents from around the world, and assessing the quality and agronomic viability of both parents and their offspring as they seek to improve both grain yield for farmers and baked product quality for consumers.
Laucke Flour Mills work with all Australian plant breeders to provide guidance as to desired outcomes and assist with practically achieving improvement, and work with individual farmers to produce grain of targeted processing characteristics.
Grain Cleaning
Farmers clean the grain as they reap it. Millers clean the grain as they receive it, and again clean the grain before they mill it. Mill cleaning is an intensive and multi step process, intended to remove any foreign or unsuitable seeds, unmillable material and physical contaminants.
Grain Conditioning
Water and Time are utilised to progressively condition or temper the grain, where we seek to make the branny outer layers of the grain more flexible and readily separable from the endosperm, and seek to modify the crystalline matrix that binds the endosperm such that the complex carbohydrate provides the intended rate of water absorption and rate of fermentation when utilised as flour within a dough.
Effective grain conditioning is essential to create high quality flour, and Laucke Flour Mills utilise a highly controlled and sophisticated two stage process of grain tempering.
Grain Sourcing
Grain, like grapes, is a seasonally grown crop that is harvested annually, and which varies in quality according to the genetically conferred attributes of the grain, the intrinsic nature of the soil and region, and seasonal effects on the growing environment. Thus, while the potential processing quality of every grain Variety is considerably different, the environmental effects can be even greater and will ensure quite remarkable differences even if the grain is of the same variety. For example, a wheat variety that is useful for making shortbread biscuits will be totally unsuitable for making flaky pastry. And, too much rain during the growing season can make a bread-making variety unsuitable for intended purpose, while too little rain will similarly affect a biscuit-making variety. Grain, when reaped, is therefore typically separated within Segregations by variety and region and environmental effects for the purpose of selection by Millers for making different types of flours.
Laucke Flour Mills work closely with farmers and grain handlers to ensure that the most appropriate quality grains are reliably available, and Laucke’s greatest physical asset is its large number of on-site grain storage segregations.
Grain Processes
Over thousands of years, people have milled grain using a variety of means and power sources, using their own strength, animals, wind and water to power a variety of grinders.
The hand operated saddle stones used by the Egyptians were supplanted by Roman querns, which were still used in Europe in the 1800s. Hand stones and Querns were progressively replaced over two thousand years as other forms of motive power supplanted human muscle.
Water-powered mills date back to early in the Christian era, while windmills first appeared in Europe around 1300 and were widely used until the invention of the steam engine in 1751 provided a more efficient power source.
As improvements in technology enabled more efficient power sources, so too did such improvements allow the development of more efficient grinding and sifting.
Our Milling Process
Laucke Flour Mills select the best grains to process through our roller and stone grinding mills to create the great flour appreciated by our customers. “Flour” is used to describe any edible substance in powder form. Of all the cereals milled for flour, wheat is the best known grain and most consumed flour in Australia due to the unique properties of wheat gluten. Laucke utilise a variety of grains including wheat, rye, spelt and triticale.
To produce the highest quality flour, the aim of the miller is to identify and source the most suitable grain and properly prepare it for milling, and then to separate as much good quality flour as possible from the grain without excessively damaging the constituents of the grain, being the endosperm and germ in the heart of the grain, and the branny outer layers of the grain.
The endosperm is a crystalline matrix of complex carbohydrate and protein, which, when progressively reduced in particle size, is reduced from chunks of semolina into fine particles of flour.
The wheat grain has a natural crease where branny layers are trapped within the endosperm, and this prevents a perfect separation of bran and germ from the endosperm.
Milling to produce white flour removes most of the bran layers and the germ, which together amount to about 15% of the wheat grain. This means that, depending on the milling technique, not all the bran can be separated, and up to 50% of the germ is retained in the white flour.
Milling is now much more than the simple Grinding of grain. The following description will give you an understanding of the processes of milling of grain as we perform it.
Process Control
Flour Mills are very complex beasties. They are very sensitive to changes in heat and humidity, and take some time to settle down and adjust after startup and after any change. It is best to run them continuously, 24 hours per day.
Laucke Flour Mills' reputation for quality stems in part from its attention to detail with Mill process flow, systems, setup and adjustment, and the choices made regarding questionable quality flour streams.
Purification
Endosperm chunks with adhering or an admixture of bran flakes and germ can be differentiated by density. Carefully regulated air currents, in combination with oscillation, stratify the stock so that sifting can progressively remove the purest semolinas from the contaminating bran flakes.
Effective purification is essential to create high quality semolina and white flour, and while purification as a process is not routinely used by all flour millers, Laucke Flour Mills utilise a highly controlled and sophisticated multistage process of sizing and grading to ensure highly efficient purification of its specialist white flours and semolinas.
Quality Control
With the Genetics by Environment complexity, every single grain offers different end product potential. Laucke evaluate the existing and potential quality of every parcel of grain and indeed every ingredient before sourcing it; before receiving it; and before, during and after processing it at every stage of processing. We also produce from every batch in our test bakeries the intended range of end products so as to assure ourselves that our product has the capability of meeting or exceeding consumer expectations.
Reduction Grinding
After sifting and purification, each group of various sized chunks of endosperm are sent to different roller mills to be reduced in particle size. Grinding gap and pressure are carefully regulated so as to protect the integrity of the grain quality, but also to create the required fermentation characteristics of the intended dough.
By progressive grinding over a series of reduction rolls and sifting to sort the ground product after each grind, semolina is progressively reduced in particle size until it becomes fine flour.