Description: Bere has grown in Orkney for thousands of years, both for human and animal food. It has been the staff of life in Orkney - in the form of bere bannocks and home-brewed ale. An ancient barley, it differs in appearance and taste from modern varieties. You easily tell the difference between ale made from barley and that made from bere. The same applies to bannocks.
Bere is unique to Orkney and in being the only milling barley. Bere meal is used for baking into bannocks, bread, and biscuits. The dark, acrid-tasting meal, stoneground and flavoured with the smoke from a husk fired kiln, adds an indescribable rather tarty flavour to bannocks. If warmed through before being eaten, the smoky essence oozes through on to the taste buds. Combining with oysters and a wedge of unpasteurised cheese gives the crowning delight.
The Barony Mill at Birsay still grinds bere. Built in 1873, it has changed little. The Mill is stone-built, three storeys high and about 19 x 7.4 metres in size including a kiln for drying the grain. The overshot waterwheel, about 4.1metres in diameter, turns at 12 revolutions each minute and needs 110,000 gallons of water each hour if the Mill is running under full load. Luckily Orkney has plenty of water during the winter months when the mill is operating.
Birsay Heritage Trust has managed the Mill since 1998. It has been lucky to obtain the world’s greatest expert on the mill, Rae Phillips, to run it. Rae’s father and grandfather were millers at the Barony and he himself worked with his father. During summer the Mill is open to the public–admission is free! During these tours Rae amply demonstrates his knowledge. Tours include demonstrations of running the machinery. Rae may tell you about the dangers, millers faced. The mixture of air and dust in mills could ignite and occasionally blew mill roofs off.
Hoists lift grain to the top floor for drying in the kiln- about a tonne at a time. It takes about 6 to 8 hours to dry. A unique wooden shovel powered by the hoist aids in removing the grain from the kiln floor.
There are three pairs of millstones on the first floor. Grain arrives at the first pair, the ‘shelling stones’, to crack the husk and free the kernel. From here the mix drops to a ‘fanner’ - a wind machine that blows away the husks. These provide fuel to heat the kiln. An elevator lifts the grain to a second fanner, after which the grain arrives at a pair of French burr stones, which grind it into a coarse meal. Reground by the final set of stones, it is the finished product.
The Mill has displays of photographs of old-time farming in Birsay, samples of the produce at each stage of the milling and milling tools. Bere meal is available to buy.
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