How the mill started

In 2024, I fell down a bit of a food rabbit hole.

I’ve always loved to cook, and I’ve never been shy about calling myself a foodie. I read recipes for fun, plan meals like little projects, and care deeply about how food tastes. But at some point, I realized I wanted to understand more about what was actually in the food I was making, not just how it turned out on the plate. That curiosity sent me to the bookshelf, where I found myself reading books like Savor, Grain of Truth, and The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

Before long, my attention landed on flour.

It was an inconvenient discovery, since flour showed up in my kitchen almost daily. I baked sourdough, tested cookie recipes, and relied on it for everything from weeknight dinners to weekend projects. But as I learned more about modern flour production, I started to feel uneasy. Much of the nutrition is lost in the name of shelf life. The bran and germ are removed. Additives are introduced. By the end of the process, the flour most of us use looks very different from the grain it started as.

Once I noticed that, I couldn’t really ignore it.

That’s when I learned about freshly milled flour. When whole grain berries are milled close to use, the result is flour with noticeably better flavor, aroma, and nutritional value. It doesn’t last as long as mass-produced flour, but that tradeoff made sense to me. Fresh food rarely does.

Naturally, I went looking for a local source in the Nashville area, hoping to upgrade my cooking and baking without completely overhauling my life. I came up empty-handed.

So I bought a stone mill.

I began milling flour at home and experimenting with organic grain berries, including ancient grains like einkorn and emmer that I had never seen on my grocery store shelves. The difference was immediate. Dough felt more responsive. Bakes had more depth. My kitchen smelled incredible. Before long, grocery-store flour quietly disappeared from my pantry.

As I shared what I was learning with friends and neighbors, the questions started rolling in. Could they try it? Could I mill extra? Where could they get flour like this? Somewhere along the way, my personal experiment turned into something I wanted to offer more broadly.

McAlly’s Mill grew out of that shift. It’s a small operation built around a simple idea: freshly milled, organic, unsifted flour made from thoughtfully sourced grains. No additives. No shortcuts. Just good grain, milled fresh.

If you’ve ever wondered why your baking feels a little flat, or why flour doesn’t smell like much of anything, you’re not imagining it. Fresh flour really is different.

I’m glad you’re here.