The team is now back rested from their break and along with offering our existing range, we’re delighted to launch a new range of flours from the heritage population “Millers Choice”. Below, I share the history of this wheat population and what you can look forward to!
Millers Choice is known as a wheat “population” – it is a collection of different varieties of wheat which have similar characteristics, varieties that date back to the 18th and 19th Centuries. Created, or curated by Andy Forbes of the Brockwell Bake Association, Andy took a selection of wheat berries (seeds) from another population put together from seed banks by John Letts (organic farmer and grain specialist) and created a population with a strong dominance of Lammas type varieties. Lammas varieties dominated in the British Isles up until the mid 19th Century and were renowned for their bread baking qualities.
To this population he added 20% of Spanish long straw variety grains to improve the populations ability to withstand drought.
The result is a wheat population which produces a soft, creamy flour with huge flecks of golden bran with bags of flavour.
I am still experimenting with the flours to fully explore the baking characteristics, but I share below some images from the Brockwell Bake of Millers Choice White flour baked off into delicious boules!
Our Millers Choice wheat is grown at Camp Green Farm, Debenham, Suffolk. You can now purchase wholemeal and white Millers Choice flours from our mill shop (online or in person). We are grateful to Andy Forbes and to Durie Partners for their help in preparing this article.
All our other flours and grains are also, of course, available!
