Wheat: Oliver Evans

Small mills had been constructed in most communities in the colonies by 1700. The wheat was usually not bolted (sifted), so the bran remained in the flour. By the late eighteenth century finer flour was being produced, but mills were much more labor-intensive: millers carried sacks of grain up ladders to the top floor and dumped the grain into a rolling screen that removed the dirt and chaff. The resulting meal was then ground between millstones on the first floor, where it was shoveled into buckets, which were then hoisted by hand to the mill’s third floor; there the meal was spread out on the floor to cool and dry. It was then pushed to the center of the floor and down a chute to the bolting cylinder, which separated the flour from the lower-grade “middlings” flour, which generally consists of bran, germ, and coarse flour remnants. Middlings flour was sold at a lower price or used for animal feed. The flour was then shoveled into barrels, which were sealed for shipment. Even with these improvements, the flour varied in quality from one season, batch, or barrel to the next.