Wheat Innovation
Nontraditional crop rises in Skagit Valley
STORY AND PHOTOS BY MEAGHAN FLESCH
The smell of baking bread and cookies wafts through the air as Stephen Jones walks through the halls of the Washington State University research center toward the bread lab.
Chefs Devin McDavid and Adam Kaye of the James Beard award-winning Blue Hill restaurant in New York City are visiting to participate in the innovative research at the agricultural research center. Jones, a professor, scientist and director at the Mount Vernon WSU extension center, experiments with crossbreeding of wheat varieties with his team. They research for local farmers that grow wheat, barley and oats and test flour flavor for local bakeries and mills.
One of the goals of the bread lab is discovery, Jones says. The on-staff bakers aim to create the best bread with the least ingredients while maintaining flavor and nutritional value, he says.
The Skagit Valley Malting Company, located in Burlington, is also researching the use of grass crops grown in the Skagit Valley with their new, patent-pending technology for malting barley and wheat.
The WSU research team and Skagit Valley Malting Company are working together toward a common goal: to add value to the wheat and barley grown in Skagit Valley. Their work will provide farmers with the ability to grow high quality wheat for a purchaser and have it malted or milled locally for resale.
Farmers in the valley use wheat, barley and other grass crops to break up disease cycles that result from planting their cash crops, such as tulips and potatoes, year after year. The harvesting of these bulb crops leaves no organic material behind, so farmers must add organic matter back into the soil by planting a grass crop, Jones says.
The research center does not work with grains that are part of the commodity market and that are supported by corporations such Cargill, ADM and Goldman Sachs, Jones says.
By definition a commodity is a mass-produced, unspecialized product.
“If you don’t know where your wheat or flour comes from, chances are you are supporting the commodity market,” Jones says.
The over-arching goal of the research is to connect the grain growers to the local bakers, millers, malters and distillers.
Kevin Christenson, owner of the Fairhaven Organic Flour Mill, has worked with both the WSU center and the Skagit Valley Malting Company. Before the WSU center had the capability of milling its own flour, they would have Christenson mill it for them at his Burlington factory. Christenson utilizes farms in Eastern Washington and one in Lynden to produce his organic flour and hopes to work on a new malted flour when the malting company is up and running, he says.
WSU established its extension center in Skagit Valley because of the unique maritime climate. The valley experiences long days followed by cool, damp nights, and is surrounded by mountains, which create rich, alluvial soils. All these factors give the region its terroir, Jones says.
Created by the French, the concept of terroir became a way to describe the unique aspects of a place that would affect the outcome in the flavor of wine.
“We noticed in bread five years ago that there is a terroir here,” Jones says. “It’s these cool moist springs and summers and falls that we have that add to the flavor in the crop.”
Although known for its agriculture, the Skagit Valley’s largest industries are aerospace, boat building and oil, says Wayne Carpenter, co-founder and CEO of Skagit Valley Malting Company.
Concerned about the valley being taken over by these industries and losing its rich agricultural roots, Executive Director of the Port of Skagit Patrica Botsford-Martin contacted Carpenter, a former computer software technician, to perform some consulting work.
During this time, Carpenter learned farmers were concerned about loss of income with their grass rotation crops.
The consulting experience inspired Carpenter and the eventual group of nine owners of the Skagit Valley Malting Company. They came together with the intention to help economic development in the valley while at the same time helping local farmers, Carpenter says. The company is made up of former computer executives, machinists, designers and a seasoned malter.
Soon the malting facility on the Port of Skagit property will be filled with ecologically conscious malting machines never seen or used in malting before.
While waiting for the fleet of machines to be manufactured, the group stays busy conducting ongoing research and malting locally-grown grains in a smaller, prototype machine.
“Just the other day we made a software change that saved us 32 percent on our gas usage,” Carpenter says about the efficiency of the malting machine.
A small brewing system sits in the corner of the large space where they use their own malted grains to brew beer and test the differences in flavor.
Word is spreading about the new local malting company.
Carpenter has had interested breweries, distilleries and bread companies from all across the U.S. visit the Port of Skagit warehouse the company has occupied since February 2013.
“Essentially we will be able to do custom malting for breweries,” Carpenter says.
Of the 15,000 varieties of barley and 40,000 varieties of wheat, Carpenter says large beer corporations such as Budweiser and Coors use only eight or ten varieties in their beer recipes.
“We now have farmers growing specific varieties for us,” Carpenter says.
Skagit Valley Malting has been working closely with Brooke Brouwer, a Ph.D student researcher at the WSU center. Brouwer is specifically researching malting barley and helps them with testing the grass for protein, he says.
A strain of barley that is ideal for custom brewing has high starch content and a low protein content, Carpenter says.
With innovations and research being done to promote the growing of wheat in the Skagit Valley, the amber waves of grain usually associated with the great plains of the United States should become more visible in the fields of this northwest corner of the country.
