Many people find their niche and share in it with a handful of others, but Jacob Trumbull is going after his virtually on his own. The entrepreneur currently operates Roaring Fork Mill out of his home on Missouri Heights, and is the only stone-milled flour distributor in the Valley as far as he is aware.
Trumbull was born and raised in Yellow Springs, Ohio, which he says is not dissimilar to Carbondale, with a bustling artist community and surrounding agricultural lands.
“But, I love the mountains,” he told The Sopris Sun, so Carbondale was an idealistic place to hang his hat. After a stint with Southwest Conservation Corps in Salida, and two seasons of ski instructing in Breckenridge, he moved to Craftsbury, Vermont.
“That’s an important facet, because northern Vermont is where one of two manufacturers of stone milling lives,” Trumbull noted.
While there, he worked at Sterling College — one of eight work-based universities in the U.S. “So, everyone on campus has a job,” he clarified. The educational curriculum is based around sustainable agriculture. “It teaches draft horse management; it teaches things that are kind of lost arts in the agricultural space.”
“We also talked a lot about heritage and ancient grains,” he continued. In that vein, Trumbull was connected with the stone mill manufacturer, New American Stone Mills.
“I got to know the benefits, usage and necessity of stone milling,” he stated. “But, I didn’t dive into it myself until coming [back] out here.”
The white fluffy flour consumers find in the grocery stores today comes from a roller mill, which was adopted to produce on a massive scale. A roller mill is so thorough that it extracts most of the nutrients, from the bran to the germ, and “there’s really nothing to it,” said Trumbull.
“Stone milling on the other hand, is two stones that mash the grain together,” he continued. This way, that nutritional value is not lost in the process. “As a result, it’s a much more nutrient-dense flour, and it has a lot more flavor as well.”
The stones keep the flour at a cooler temperature, compared to a roller mill, and “when flour gets heated up to a higher temperature it kills a lot of the nutrients” as well, he added.
Trumbull conceded that roller milling is more efficient and leads to a longer shelf life. “With stone milling the shelf life is shorter because there are a lot of oils still in the flour, which gives it the nutritional components and gives it the flavor and the smell,” he assured. “If you open a bag of stone-milled flour, it smells really good.”
Roaring Fork Mill sources all of its grains from Colorado farms, such as Grains From the Plains based in Hugo, Colorado. And very soon, for the first time, the stone miller will collect from a harvest of rouge de bordeaux wheat from The Farm Collaborative. Photo by Will Sardinsky
Mills have come a long way, from water mills to horse mills, and eventually becoming mechanized like everything else. Notably, Trumbull grew up close to the Grinnell Mill, originally a water mill, back in Yellow Spring.
While it’s still not very prevalent, stone milling is becoming more common, with even Bob’s Red Mill in Oregon starting to produce the old way. Most towns used to have a stone mill, which local farmers would take their grains to. He noted that the resurgence is in no small part due to local and state grain economies making a return.
For instance, the Colorado Grain Chain “is working on building a state-wide grain economy,” Trumbull pointed out, “supporting those farmers that are growing heritage and ancient grains.” In addition, “They’re working on building that interconnection between the farmer and the miller.”
Trumbull is doing his part to bring back that connection, and is only aware of two other stone mill flour distributors in Colorado.
He uses all Colorado grown grains, from durum, to rye, millet (gluten free), hard turkey red winter wheat (high in protein), a soft white wheat (ideal for pastries) “and I make my own whole wheat mixes,” he summarized. “I’m also working on creating a pizza dough mix.”
“The goal is to have all of the grain come from the Western Slope,” he added.
Trumbull mills all of his batches to order, and can mill anywhere from three to 300 pounds at a time. Its shelf life is typically three to six months.
You can find Roaring Fork Mill flour at Mana Foods, and sometimes at Craft Coffee in Basalt or the Redstone General Store. Better yet, pick up a bag directly from your local stone miller by visiting www.roaringforkmill.com