Stone Floor / Chute @museum.de

All good things come down from above – including the flour. The grain is milled into flour on the stone floor, one level up. We process spelt, rye and wheat into wholemeal flour. There’s a sack attached to the chute. The flour pours down the chute from above, straight into the sack. Each sack weighs 25 kilograms – 55 pounds – and we store it here until it’s turned into hearty loaves of bread in our bakery.

The leather strap next to the chute is part of a system of levers with which the miller can adjust what’s called the “cut” – the distance between the two millstones on the stone floor above. As the stones rotate against one another, the grain is ground into flour between them. By pulling on the leather strap, the miller can almost effortlessly adjust the uppermost stone, known as the runner, which weighs a ton. The distance between the millstones affects the degree of fineness and the quality of the flour.

For baking, the flour needs to be very fine. And it mustn’t be allowed to get hot during the milling process, otherwise nutrients are lost. According to millers’ lore, the millstone “sings" when the flour has the right consistency. If the millstone doesn’t sing, it needs to be re-adjusted. This is what it sounds like when the millstones sing:

Feel free to take a moment to look out of the window and enjoy the view before you make your way up to the stone floor!