"Top Quality Flour comes from Top Quality Wheat" - Natalie Wood
A short video of growing and harvesting Red Fife wheat at Ironwood Organics. Click on the arrow to start the video. Click on the YouTube logo to view it on YouTube (with more viewing options)
The best flour demands the best grain and we've got that in spades from our supplier, Ironwood Organics a member of the Canadian Organic Growers. The owner, Chris Wooding, believes in sustainable farming and the value of heritage wheats. On the farm, located just south of Delta, Chris began his first small scale organic grain production in 2009. He's started with Red Fife heritage wheat, a wheat first grown in Ontario in 1842.
Present day wheats are "bred" wheats - that is, bred over years for certain characteristics such as speed of growth, disease resistance, and yield (of note, "taste" and "nutrition value" are not a criteria with modern wheats). There are only a few varieties of these (non-diversified gene pool), but the original wheats, the heritage wheats, from which these were bred are maintained by farmers across the country.
Red Fife is a hard spring wheat - a wheat that is high in protein (gluten) and lower in starch. In addition to its high nutrition value, it is an excellent bread making wheat.