But how do you make flour?

The flour production process is a long but very interesting journey! First of all, everyone knows, there is wheat. The wheat we use in our mill comes from France, more precisely from Beauce. The wheat is harvested in July and kept in silos until the new harvest. Thereafter we receive the wheat by truck, a truck of wheat transports on average 30 tons of wheat. Once at the mill, the truck dumps its wheat onto a grid and the wheat is sent to storage silos. After being stored, the wheat is cleaned, impurities such as stones, straw, dust, etc. are removed. Then this wheat will go to wetting, wetting consists of wetting the wheat so that the humidity penetrates into the mealy kernel which is the heart of the wheat. When wheat is moistened, it is easier to crush and more flour can be extracted. After being wet, the wheat must rest for 24 hours before being crushed.

We arrive at the most important moment, the wheat arrives on the first pair of cylinders at a rate of 6 tons per hour. The first pair of cylinders, also known as the "first crusher". Crusher type cylinders are cylinders with teeth that will crush the wheat seed to be able to reach its heart. After being crushed, the product will rise thanks to the pneumatic suction and will fall on a machine called "Planchister". The planchister is a set of sieves of variable size which will sort the products crushed by the cylinders. The fine particles will pass through the sieve and the larger ones will be returned to a pair of cylinders. The crusher type cylinders will continue to crush the large particles of wheat, the "clapper" type cylinders will crush the semolina to reduce it to flour. Finally, the "converter" type cylinders will convert the medium-sized particles into finer particles so that it passes the finest sieve of the skateboarder and ends up in the final product. In these stages of wheat processing, the flour must be separated from the bran and the meal. Bran and middling are products from the grain husk. It is the maroon part which surrounded the seed. This fibrous and low-protein part is separated as much as possible from the flour because it lowers the protein level of the flour, which will impact the quality of the baker's or pizza maker's products. The bran is the grain envelope still in a thick form while the remould is much thinner. Both of these products will end up as livestock feed. Once the flour is out of the planchister, it will be sent to a safety sieve, in case a sieve of the planchister is perforated. After that, the flour will be treated in ovens, these are compartments that will heat the flour to around 70 degrees to kill any potential insects that may be there. Finally, the flour will rest in a silo before being bagged and sent to customers.

At the end of the process, the flour can be of several types. The type of flour (T00, T45, T55, etc.) is defined by the level of mineral matter present in the flour. The higher the flour type, the more brown the flour will be and will have bran in it. Conversely, the lower its type, the whiter it is. The whiter the flour, the more protein it has. To obtain the type of flour, this operation is done during sifting in the planchister. As we explained before, the finer the sieve, the less sound there is and therefore the lower the type.

We don't make the same types of products with the same flour. Each type of flour has its type of product. For example, T00 flour is used more for making pizzas or simply products that do not need to develop much in the oven. Then the type 45 is more suitable for pastries because these products need protein to swell in the oven and the part of the wheat, its kernel, is very present in the T45 and is very rich in protein. Type 65 flour is used to produce bread or baguettes. In milling have said that type 65 flour is the basic flour and it is also the most sold type of flour in the world. Finally we find flour with much higher types such as type 110 or 130, these flours are made to make rustic breads with a lot of fiber.