How it's made
One kitchen, start to finish.
Everything here is made by us, in small batches, in one mid-Michigan kitchen. No contract manufacturer, no white label, no "partner facility." Here is what actually happens to it, with the equipment named. If something raises a question, ask. We answer every message.
One
Milling
Grain keeps. Flour doesn't. A wheat berry is a sealed package, and the oil in the germ stays protected until something breaks it open. The moment it's milled, that oil meets air and starts to turn. That's why a bag off a shelf tastes flat next to flour milled this week. So we buy grain whole, store it whole, and mill nothing until we know where it's going.
Two wheats come off the same mill. Hard red spring is the high protein one bread bakers reach for, and it's what gives a loaf its structure. Hard white is milder and lighter, and it's the one plenty of families prefer for everyday baking. Made with 100% USDA certified organic wheat berries. Made with 100% USDA certified organic hard white wheat berries. Either way a batch goes through a Mockmill 100, one hopper at a time, slow. Speed is heat, and heat is what dulls the flavor, so we'd rather run a batch twice as long than push it through. The flour comes off the mill warm, never hot, and it cools before it goes anywhere near a bag.
Then it gets sifted through 40 and 60 mesh screens. About 30% of the coarse bran comes out. The germ stays in. That's the part people get wrong about fresh flour. Milling whole is only half of it, and whole grain flour on its own bakes dense enough that plenty of people try it once and decide fresh flour isn't for them. Taking the coarse bran out is what leaves you flour that handles like bread flour and still has the germ in it.
The bag is filled and frozen the same day. We don't sell a bag more than six months old. If you'd rather we mill yours the day it ships instead of pulling one from the freezer, that's the milled to order option on the flour page, and it's $5.
What the screens catch
The coarse bran and germ that come off the 40 and 60 screens don't go in the bin. Wheat germ is the embryo of the seed, the densest nutrition in the berry, and it's the first thing an industrial mill takes out because the oil in it won't sit on a shelf. We bag it and sell it on its own. Keep it cold, same as the flour.
Two
Rendering and whipping
Tallow starts as suet, the hard fat from around the kidneys. It's the prized one, and it's the reason the finished cream behaves like a balm instead of a lotion. We render it at home, slowly. Most of that time is waiting. Rush it and you can smell it in the jar, so we don't rush it.
Once it is rendered and cooled it gets whipped with pure aloe vera gel. Gel, not juice, and not water with aloe in it. Then the concentrated aloe extract goes in on top of the gel, with fractionated coconut oil, jojoba, shea butter, vegetable glycerine, vitamin E, emulsifying wax NF and the two preservatives. That is the skin cream. eleven things.
Aloe gel is mostly water, and anything with water in it will grow mold unless something stops it. Most big brands stop it with parabens, phenoxyethanol or a formaldehyde releaser. We use two things. Radish root ferment, which is exactly what it sounds like: radish roots fermented by the same bacteria that ferment kimchi. And a pinch of potassium sorbate, the salt of an acid first found in rowan berries, the same preservative in a bottle of wine, a wedge of cheese or a bag of dried fruit. Less than a quarter of one percent of the jar. Both are on the label. We would rather name them than sell you a jar that grows something.
The lip balm is that same TaloVera base going a different way: beeswax, mango and shea butter, fractionated coconut oil and jojoba oil, poured into tubes a tray at a time and left to set overnight. The wax is what makes it firm enough to twist up and hold together in a cold car.
Three
Extraction
Two things go in: Madagascar vanilla beans and premium vodka. The beans get split by hand so the seeds are open to the alcohol, and then they sit. Months in the jar, in a dark cabinet. We shake it when we walk past.
We don't filter it. Filtering takes out the seed specks, and the specks are half of why you buy real extract instead of something the color of tea. We also leave pieces of bean in every jar we sell, where they keep working after it reaches you. Top the jar up with a little vodka as you use it and it keeps going for a long time.
Four
Steeping
Premium Mediterranean dried oregano goes into single-source, cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil, and then it waits. Dried, not fresh. Water is what turns an infused oil, so there is none in it. One source of oil rather than a blend, so the oregano comes through instead of fighting the oil.
A batch steeps for about six months. When the infusion is finished it gets hand-pressed through the filter, here in Michigan, and goes straight into bottles. It is a traditional Mediterranean herbal infusion, and nothing is added to it on the way out.
The first run is bottled and on the shop, for Michigan only. It is the slowest thing we make.
Five
Beard blending
Beard oil isn't really for the beard. It's for the skin under it, which is where a Michigan winter gets felt first and where a beard that feels wiry usually starts. So it is six plant oils with jojoba and argan doing most of the work, vitamin E to keep them, and a scent of cedarwood, pine needle and vetiver essential oils rather than a fragrance oil. They go together in one jug and get bottled by hand into a 1 fl oz dropper. A bottle lasts longer than people expect, because a few drops is all it takes.
The balm is that idea with wax in it. It gets poured warm into a 2 oz tin and left to set, and it firms up as it cools. Warm a little between your palms until it turns clear, work it through, and it holds the shape you put it in.
What is in each one is printed on the bottle and on the tin, in full.
Every batch gets a number
Whatever we make, the batch gets a lot number and it goes on the label. That number tells us when it was made and what went into it. If you ever want to know about the jar or bag in front of you, look it up.