Wikipedia: Red Star Yeast Company, LLC is a joint-venture of Lesaffre, and Archer Daniels Midland Company. Red Star operates two plants in the United States—a plant in Headland, AL, and a new plant built in 2006 in Cedar Rapids, IA. Lesaffre Yeast Corporation (prior to the joint-venture) used to operate plants in Milwaukee, WI; Baltimore, MD; and Oakland, CA, but those facilities have been closed since 2006. Their corporate office is located in Milwaukee, WI. Red Star Yeast and Products was the former division of Sensient Technologies (formerly Universal Foods), which distributed the Red Star brand. Red Star Yeast was then sold to French-based Lesaffre group in 2001. In 2004, Lesaffre and Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) created the joint-venture that the company operates under today.

We don't have the equipment to remove the bran and the germ from the wheat, leaving the endosperm for making "white" flour. You'd be amazed if you ever toured a flour mill. The processes the wheat goes through are impossible to duplicate at home. I've been in several modern mills and an 1880's water-powered mill not far from here. The best advise I can give on how NOT to make a 100% Whole Wheat "Brick" is to use a variety of wheat called hard WHITE (spring or winter) wheat (think of it as the albino of wheat). Wheat Montana's - Prairie Gold Spring Hard White Wheat is the best for bread that I've used. I also use Soft White Wheat for quick breads, pastry, cakes (it has less gluten than hard wheat varieties). I mill "cake" flour from 3-parts soft white wheat and 1-part oat groats. It's a low-gluten flour that can be used for angel food cakes and chiffon cakes. Too much gluten makes cake tough. All-purpose flour is a mixture of hard and soft wheat varieties. Pastry and cake flour is milled from soft wheat varieties. White wheat is like red wheat varieties in looks, as a plant, nutrition and fiber, and other attributes. It just doesn't have the genes necessary to make the bran "red". There are up to 3 genes that make the bran color. The original hard wheat - granddaddy of them all - Turkey Red Wheat - has 3 genes and the bran is very dark and the flour very acidic-tasting. Most of todays red wheat varieties only have one or two of those genes. Because white wheat has no genes for bran color, there are no strongly-flavored phenolic compounds that we associate with the bitter taste of whole wheat flour. The next thing is to incorporate an old-fashioned sponge technique (which takes more time), rather than the more modern Straight or Direct Method of making bread. I usually let the sponge set for 2-1/2 hours, or up to 12-hours (or anything in between). This helps to break down the bran and hydrate the gluten which improves the texture and flavor of the bread and helps it to rise higher. I also use a Zojirushi Bread Machine for making the dough. That has been shown to make whole wheat bread rise higher than by-hand OR a stand mixer in side-by-side tests done in King Arthur Flour test kitchens. Even sourdough breads are lighter because they included l-o-n-g rises, which does some of the same work as the sponge technique. In "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon, she uses a soaked flour method that renders whole wheat bread nearly as light in color and texture as white bread. I've had problems with this method, but DO use a sponge with half the flour in my standard recipe, and my bread is as light and high-rising as any white bread. But it took the sponge method to get me off making light wheat bread (a portion of the flour unbleached flour as well as whole wheat) and into 100% Whole Wheat Bread. I haven't used bleached flour in a couple decades - I consider it next to poison. I no longer use commercial flour of any kind - only freshly-milled. When I ran out of commercial unbleached flour last winter, I didn't purchase anymore. I want 100% of the nutrition and fiber you can only get from freshly-milled flour. Much of the commercial whole wheat flour is nothing more than white flour with some of the bran raked back into it. Even those companies that use 100% of the grain, the germ oil goes rancid and the nutrients degrade rapidly after milling. Within 3 hours of milling the flour has begun to rapidly degrade. -Grainlady

I asked a friend (who will remain nameless) who's a buyer of lumber for commercial and retail market. This is his reply: ItâÂÂs really hard to say. If the lumber is white oak it will be far more valuable in the present market than red oak. Many mills are not even cutting red oak right now since there is virtually no commercial market for the lumber. What inventory is in the market is being sold at or below replacement cost. I have seen truck-load quotes in the last 90-days at below $1.00/bf for both 4/4 and 5/4 #1 common, the lumber most frequently sold to manufacturers. White oak is another story, though the market there is nowhere near historical levels�"the greatest value is in quarter-sawn material. I would also suggest that, while theses widths are nice, they are not exceptional, especially for flat-sawn lumber. The fact that the lumber is 12/4 is also a mixed bag, The commercial value of oak this thick is limited�"more so if we are talking red oak. White oak may have some appeal among boat builders; but, âÂÂup to 12â longâ implies some shorter boards and that limits the appeal in this market. There is also the matter of condition. Oak, white and red, are highly subject to sticker-stain. Depending on how this lumber has been stacked it could be anything from desirable to firewood. For example, I was recently offered (and rejected) over 700 board feet of 4/4 quarter-sawn white oak with an average width of nearly 9â (quite good for Q-S) that had been improperly stacked for air-drying. The resulting sticker stain goes completely through the boards resulting in a rather odd and very noticeable âÂÂstripeâ across each board at regular intervals. Even at 0.60/bf the lumber is little more than firewood for us. It may have value to box builders; but, 700bf will make a lot of boxes. The bottom line is that if this lumber was within a Saturday or Sunday drive of my home I would probably go and look at it. If it is white oak, grades at least F1F (First one face), has no sticker stain, and there is no evidence of powder post beetles, I might to as high as 1.20. Even so, assuming âÂÂstandardâ bunks, we are talking 800 to 1000 board feet per stack. ThatâÂÂs a bunch of 12/4 lumber�"without a market for these thicknesses I would be tying up a fair âÂÂinvestmentâ for a long time.

I am going to get on my design high horse and probably offend some people who personalize discussions about design theory, because I am good at annoying people in this way. First, I think almost anybody who buys a post war house in almost any part of the country that was not built as a completely custom house is probably going to end up with a lot of choices in houses that include a patch of brick or stone on the front facade and plain siding or plainer brick on the rest. Almost anybody who builds a new house in a development or subdivision or home owner's association is not only going to face the same, thing, but in addition are not going to be allowed to leave the stone or brick accent off even if they want to. The element that was originally used as a budget cutting device is now "important" to the design and consistency of the entire development. The consistency of materials of the individual house is no longer important, but the inconsistency of materials and how they are used must be consistent throughout the neighborhood. The building a house forum is full of questions about how to tack the stone or brick onto the front of their houses even if they don't want it because the guidelines say the house must be 10% stone and 30% brick on the facade. Second, I don't think there is anything the matter with vinyl siding. I don't think there is anything the matter with any particular building material. Frank Lloyd Wright built beautiful houses out of concrete block. There's nothing the matter with building a plain rectangular house with plain modest materials that go all away around the house and calling it done. But as a culture we have been convinced that this is cheap looking somehow. But if its three sides of a rectangle with a convoluted elevation on the front including three or four different building materials, it's "pretty". Third, if you are building a custom or semi custom house, why not build something that you can afford to finish the same on all four sides? We are also in a culture where people are pressured into feeling it's necessary to take everything to a level that we can just barely afford it. And who is that impressing? Some random stranger may be impressed by your house driving by, but what about the people who get inside, and see that there's barely any furniture, and many of the rooms are cheaply detailed drywall boxes. I understand if you live in a HCOLA that it is easy to be house poor, but whats the point of a 4000 square foot house when you are entertaining people on card tables. Sheer volume isn't everything. Should you apologize to friends because the back of your house is vinyl? I dunno, but think about where you are putting friends and family. There is this fancy facade out front that no one ever spends any time in front of. They are escorted to the back yard. There are $1M townhouses here that have stone and brick facades with genuine copper bays and details on the front. The end unit has plain stucco on the side that faces a side streets. The backs are vinyl siding (you can easily see all three materials together.) So some stranger sees the fancy front of the house where the real friends are taken out back where they sit on crudely built pressure treated decks next to vinyl siding with all sorts of PVC pipes and vents and such sticking out all over with no concerns about esthetics, or quality, and it's all right at eye level. As a culture, maybe we should apologize.