By DOUG GRAVES

Ohio Correspondent

DAYTON, Ohio – When speaking to a gathering, you never know who’s sitting in that audience who just might open a few doors for you.

Such was the case with Clinton County farmer Jon Branstrator, who was speaking at a seminar called “Grain School” at Agraria Research Center for Regenerative Practices in Yellow Springs, Ohio, three years ago. The event focused on rebuilding Ohio’s grain shed and networking potential collaborators. Branstrator figured he was merely addressing a handful of local farmers.

Branstrator told the group that he was having success growing Turkey Red wheat. That immediately caught the attention of Greg Tyzzer, artisan bread manager at Dorothy Lane Market.

Dorothy Lane Market (DLM) is a gourmet grocery store chain based in Dayton. It began as a fruit stand in 1948 and has since grown into a family-owned specialty grocery store known for its locally sourced gourmet foods, including baked goods.

DLM then partnered with three additional Ohio farmers (Danny Jones, Ed Hill and Dale Friesen) to grow a test plot of Turkey Red wheat. Field tests proved successful, so DLM contracted to buy roughly 55 acres of Turkey Red wheat, and has added hundreds of other local grains to their pantry since.

“We aren’t just dabbling in local grain,” Tyzzer said. “We’re in the midst of a local grain movement that’s growing, and it’s an exciting journey for the farmers and bakers alike. It’s worth noting, though, that creating bread from local grains presents unique challenges to us as bakers. These locally grown grains and flours behave in completely different ways, causing conventional wisdom to often go out the window.”

Branstrator farms 175 acres in nearby Clarksville. He has been a friend to DLM in years past, growing strawberries and asparagus for them. He recently switched to growing heritage varieties of wheat, rye, spelt and even buckwheat. Turkey Red wheat is the latest grain craze.

“When Tyzzer learned that I was growing Turkey Red wheat, we got to talking, and things blossomed from there. That conversation led to ideas of using grain in DLM’s bakery,” Branstrator said.

Branstrator has been milling his own grain since the late 1970s, when he bought his first mill, an 8-inch Meadows, along with an Allis Chalmers All Crop 60 pull type combine. He has worked with such items as Red Fife wheat; corn varieties like Ohio Blue Clarage and Leaming Yellow are also in his grain growing DNA.

Branstrator serves bakers in Dayton, Yellow Springs and Cincinnati, though on a much smaller scale. He takes those bakers 100 to 200 pounds at a time. DLM, he said, uses up to 2,000 pounds of his flour and corn meal each week.

“A heritage grain is special in the sense that it has been crossbred with other grasses but not commercialized,” Tyzzer said. “Jon really focuses on soil science as well, using a no-till method. We’re currently using flaked rye berries grown by Jon in our Artisan Farmhouse Bread, which adds a boost of enzymatic activity, giving our Bakehouse its uniquely sour flavor. We also use his Red Fife flour in our Artisan Classic 10-Grain Bread.”

Other grain farmers in the area are supplying DLM with grain. In Warren County, Danny Jones has long farmed on his 1,100-acre farm in southwestern Ohio, concentrating on corn and soybeans. He tended to hogs, sheep and cattle in the past before turning to Turkey Red. Jones now grows up to 40 acres of Turkey Red on his farm.

Occasionally, Jones, Branstrator, Tyzzer and Scott Fox, DLM’s vice president of bakery, meet at Branstrator’s farm to talk all things grain.

“We learn from each other,” Tyzzer said. “We spend our time talking about everything from the weather and soil health to milling equipment and harvest. Although the flour yielded from locally grown heritage and ancient grains presents unique challenges to both the farmer and baker, we’re all figuring it out together.

“For example, sometimes there are things within our control to adjust at the milling stage, like the amount of bran in the flour. Too much bran can inhibit the production of carbon dioxide in dough, affecting its overall rise and strength. If this happens, we’ll make adjustments to the Turkey Red flour as we go, which is certainly an advantage over using conventional flours that just come in as-is.”

Tyzzer said conventional flours are often blended to achieve more consistent results when it comes to things like strength, taste and the consistency of the flour itself.

“As we add more grains to our arsenal, we are able to make our own blends and varieties of products, giving us an entirely new palate of flavors to work with,” Tyzzer said. “We are now part of an organization called the Artisan Grain Collaborative, which is a network across the Midwest that links farmers, bakers, brewers and maltsters throughout the entire region.”

DLM has three locations in Dayton and one in Mason. DLM is actively growing grains for their artisan Bakehouse, partnering with local farmers to source grain annually. They have transitioned more than 30 percent of their grain ingredients to local sourcing, including Turkey Red wheat and other local grains. This helps secure relationships with farmers and reduce price fluctuations.

“We use roughly 13 tons of flour a year from our local farmers,” said Greg Kaiser, DLM Bakehouse manager. “We also have farms in Carroll and Chillicothe that are milling grain for us. We contract many acres of grain for our artisan Bakehouse, serving four locations in western Ohio.”

DLM’s single bakehouse in Dayton serves four retail locations, and the amount of bread dough produced ranges from 1,000 to 3,000 pounds per day. Maneuvering ingredients for the many breads and baked goods the bakehouse makes is not a simple endeavor, but one that Kaiser tackles with gusto.

“We will take a recipe where we want to use more local ingredients and slowly crawl toward a goal, using small batches and increasing the local ingredient percentage batch by batch,” Kaiser said.