Thoughts on Stel's Meulen after being home for almost two weeks

I arrived back home two weeks ago this upcoming Monday.  It has been an adjustment being back here in the US. The events of the past three months have been the start of a monumental life change. Part of that change is my current work as volunteer miller for Stel's Meulen, a windmill built to mill grain into flour in 1851. 

Another thing in my life which dates from the 1850's is the house I just bought. We are not certain of the date the house was built, but it is very early in Vermont's history. The town I'm living in got it's Royal Charter in to be a town in 1763. This means that my house, if it is from the 1850's could have been witnessed by a human being who was alive for both events. 

Brick part is from the 1850's and the wood part from the 1890's

If I find out that the mill and the house were built in the same year that would be cool!

Anyhow. Stel's Meulen is fully operational. It has one grinding stone couple (two stones make a couple). 

This image shows the internal workings of a grain mill.  Stel's Meulen has only one millstone couple. This image shows two. It also shows two moments in the operation of a mill.

• The left, where the mill stone and is connected to the mill's power wheel (het spoorwiel) and
• The right, which shows the top stone (loper in Dutch) being lifted to allow for cleaning of the stones for hygenic reasons or to sharpen the top stone

Those interested in an exhaustive discussion on how this all works, gear ratios, angular velocities, types of stone used, type of carving of the ridges on the stones...we can get into all of that. But that is later and much more in depth.

  This image shows the mill stones of Stel's Meulen. You can see the curved shape of the mill crane in the upper middle of the picture. The "kuip" or "hoop" is wooden sides of the mill stone which keeps the flour inside of the couple stone assembly. Here you can see it is open and the "loper" or runner (the top mill stone which turns) is visible. During normal operation this would be closed with another wooden part of the "kuip".   This "kuip" is made up of four parts. The entire assembly can be taken apart for cleaning, lifting the runner stone for sharpening, etc. 

Stel's Meulen hasn't milled any flour in years, but this will soon change. I have plans to start milling grain there within a year, and hopefully early in that year.

I spoke with one of the instructors at MSMOG (Molen Stichting Midden en Oost Groningen) about milling grain. He said that the mill is all ready to do this and grain is easy to find. The issue, he explained, was that there is noone to take the flour. In order for the flour to be usable by people or animals it needs to be certified as hygenic by the Dutch version of the US Food and Drug Administration (De Nederlands Voedsel- en Warenauthoriteit or NVWA). These are the people who come and make sure that you are making something that is not going to make people sick.

I want to have their stamp of approval. I was warned that this would require that I clean the mill stones and other parts of the milling assemblies each time I was there.  "That's fine with me," I said. "That is what the mill is supposed to do and I plan to have it making flour the way it should."

The miller (Lex van der Gaag) was happy to hear that I am so resolute. We discussed setting up a meeting (virtually for me of course) where we discuss what this would take, involving the Henk Klopping, the other miller instructor and the Board of Directors of the Association (MSMOG). 

We'll have to see how this all works out.

A mill like this would be able to grind about 150 kg of grain into flour per hour (330 lbs)!!! 

It does take quite a bit of time to clean up once you are done, but if that is the requirement to be allowed to make flour with the mill the I am down with that!

  This is where the flour comes down from the floor above (stone floor/steenzolder). Once it has been ground between the mill stones it is pushed to a hole in the bottom of the hoop assembly (kuip) by a piece of leather called the "jager". Jagen is an interesting word. Kind of like driver. It literally means 'to hunt', but that meaning has expanded over the centuries to include 'to push forward' and even 'to egg on'.  It also means 'to drive' as in driving cattle.  In this case we use the meaning 'to push'. This piece of leather which is attached to the top mill stone (de loper) and sweeps the inside of the kuip (hoop assembly) pushing the freshly ground flour to a hole.   This hole feeds into the flour pipe (meelpijp). You can see the meelpijp (prounounced mail-pipe) in the image above. It has a red piece of paper attached to it.  

The flour shoots down this wooden chute and lands in the slanted wooden holder called the meelbak (meal box - prounounced mailbok).  Here the miller has the opportunity to feel the flour for heat and roughness before it goes into a bag. Once it is in the bag it is ready to go to the baker or to people's homes to be baked into bread.

One of the main jobs for the miller, in order to get flour of a good quality is to ensure that the mill stones are the proper distance from one another. Too close and the grain is heated up by the process and begins to bake, ruining the flour. Too far away and the flour is too grainy, not suitable for eating as flour or the products made with flour.

This requires constant attention, as the distance between the stones is also a function of the speed at which the mill is turning. In this sense, the miller is operating a clutch to manage the quality of the flour, not by adjusting the speed of the stones...which is set by the speed the mill is pushed by the wind, but rather by adjusting the space between the stones. 

The mechanics of how this is done is fascinating, but I'll leave that for another blog. 

The Dutch are very much a bread culture. The whole 'gluten-free' fad is not very popular there. You can find lots of gluten-free stuff, but it isn't like that because of a fad diet. There are just many products which historically are not made with wheat flour. Roggebrood or rye bread, is a heavy bread made only with rye and no wheat flour. This is a completely gluten-free bread which dates back to medieval times.

Well. That is the post for this time. 

See you next time.

PS. I am working on setting up guided master tours of Dutch windmills. The Dutch used windmills from the 1300's through to the 1950's as the driving force of their industries. There are over 50 things that mills were used for and many different types of mills. Participants in these tours will get a special, insider look at different types of mills and see how they work. At the end of the week-long tour the participants will get an opportunity to work for a few days on Stel's Meulen, learning how to make flour from grain. How cool is that!?!