I am delighted to be able to announce that we have finalised our milling wheat for 2025 – 2026. After sampling and test baking 5 different potential parcels of wheat from the 2025 harvest, we have identified a stunning wheat for you to enjoy – great flavour and baking qualities. If you can excuse the “wine pun”, it’s a “rare vintage”! The variety is Edelmann with a protein content of 13.7%, grown near Derby, UK. With nice plump berries, it will be good to home-mill as well as enjoy as The Priors Flour.

The 2025 harvest was certainly challenging. I found that whilst protein content was typically higher than average, grain size was smaller and for most of the samples, the balance of the two proteins (glutenin and gliadin) was poor leading to doughs that did not maintain elasticity, nor remain robust and viable for long enough to work well when used for sourdough, or to deliver a good rise as a wholemeal bread machine loaf.

All our wheats are test baked in a bread machine, hand-baked with dried yeast and as sourdough. Before our final decision, I share the sample flours with other talented artisan bakers to get their feedback.

As you can see from the photos below, our 2025 harvest wheat produces bountiful oven spring, a lovely open crumb and a great loaf in a bread machine, both wholemeal and white using standard recipes (we use a Panasonic Machine for testing).

The grain will enter production later in November 2025. In the meantime, please continue to enjoy our 2024 harvest grain flours!

I am often asked how we sharpen or dress our millstones. It is a logical question and one which illuminates a whole ancient craft discipline of its own.

In many ways, we have lost much of the learning and understanding which our forebears posessed. Up until the 20th Century, Stone Dressers were a craft profession in their own right, good Master Stone Dressers were highly sought after by millers and they knew precisely how to cut millstones to suit the kinds of grain being grown and milled in particular regions / areas of the country. It was a hard, exacting physical job using basic tools which did not change for centuries.

Our language is littered with phrases which arise from stone dressing – for example “show us your metal” – a phrase which arose from the tradition of asking a Stone Dresser to show their hands – the darker they looked (the more fragments of steel that were embedded in their fingers from the mill bill tools they used), the more experience they had, the more proficient they were likely to be!

Thankfully, some of their understanding and experience has been passed down to us 21st Century Millers. We also now use steel tools with tungsten carbide tips which prevents the fragments getting into our hands!

I have created a training video, primarily for those involved in milling, which you may enjoy watching which explains the process. It take around 15 minutes to watch – enjoy if you’re interested and have time:

If you can’t see the link in your email, please follow the link to the main Priors Flour website!

Still Milling in the Heat!

We’re still milling away in the warm weather, so if you’d like to order flour, find your way to the Online Store

Happy Baking! Jon Cook

With staff taking some annual leave in June, our mail order service will be “offline” for the period 1st June to the 20th June.

The mill shop will remain open with our usual Thursday morning (9am to 1pm) and 2nd Sunday in June (2pm to 5pm) openings.

If you would like to order flour for delivery, please get your orders in as soon as possible.

You are still welcome to place orders after the 1st June, but they will be fulfilled when we resume our normal service after the 20th June.

Greetings (as I write this) on a stunning Saturday, at least here at Priors Flour HQ! A reminder that tomorrow, the 11th May 2025, we celebrate National Mills Weekend with our Bread Creche Event. The event starts at 2pm and we are open until 5pm.

There is a good wind forecast, so the mill should be working all afternoon, a number of people have confirmed they will bring their dough to bake off in the Wood Fired Oven at 3pm.

Tea, coffee and cakes will be served all afternoon from the mill shop along with all our usual flours, honey and oat products.

If you can join us, come and say “hello”, join the bread bakers conversations or simply enjoy a tour of the mill and a cup of tea. Please park on the roadside as the mill yard will be rather busy.

Come and join us on Sunday 11th May from 2pm to 5pm for “Bread Creche” – your chance to talk and bake real bread!

To celebrate National Mills Weekend 2025, we’re firing up the Wood Fired Oven (ready at 3pm), so why not bring your dough ready to bake off? Over a cup of tea (or coffee), talk real bread with fellow bakers, get answers to those bread questions you’ve been desperate to ask. We’ll be talking hydrations, flour, autolyse, dough temperature, shaping, moulding, oven springing and much more!

The mill will be open and, wind permitting, working, the shop will be open and we will be serving tea, coffee and cakes.

The event is free, although, we’d be grateful for the odd donation to support the ongoing maintenance of the mill.

Other mills in our area are also open on Sunday 11th May – locally, Wicken Windmill, Burwell Windmill and you can view the Swaffham Prior Smock Mill from the outside.

If you’d like to bring dough to bake-off, please, ideally, let us know in advance (send us a message here) so we can plan the space in the wood fired oven!