Organic Red Fife Flour

Benjamin Unrau started growing Red Fife wheat on his organic farm 4 years ago, and has been working to develop on-farm milling capacity to bring Red Fife Flour back to Manitoba.  It was love at first loaf, and now we’re hooked!

This flour is stone ground and then very lightly sifted to remove some of the bran, so the result is a beautiful easy-to-use flour with a bit of whole-wheat edge that has become my go-to baking flour.  This year we are including the sifted flour with each grain bundle, but for those wanting additional add-ons, we have the option of either the sifted flour or a more finely sifted “general purpose” flour, that can take the place of white flour in most recipes.

Red Fife is Canada’s oldest registered wheat variety.  According to the Canadian Encyclopedia:  “One legend states that a load of wheat grown in Ukraine was on a ship in the Glasgow harbour. A friend of Farmer Fife dropped his hat into the red-coloured wheat, collecting a few seeds in the hatband, which he then shipped off to Farmer Fife (who was living near Peterborough Ontario). The wheat grew. The family cow managed to eat all the wheat heads except for one, which Mrs Fife salvaged. This was the beginning of Red Fife wheat in Canada.”

Regardless of how much of that story it true, Red Fife Wheat grew to prominence in Canada shortly thereafter, and was the most popular variety of wheat grown in Canada from the 1860s to the 1890s.  Since then it has been almost entirely replaced by higher yielding modern varieties that are resistant to fungi and pests.  Red Fife was “rediscovered” in the 1990s, and has developed a new cult following among Canadian bakers and foodies.