Hey nineteen

One of these days I am going to finish my post about the trip I took to California to teach at the West Coast Bread Festival last month (which was great fun and extremely fruitful for me in multiple ways), but first I need to remind you that another bread fest is coming up soon, and this year, as always but perhaps even more than ever, you will want to be there. I'm speaking, of course, about the Kneading Conference in Skowhegan, Maine which will be held on July 22–25 this year.

I have written about my fondness for the Kneading Conference here many times before, including this love letter:

Bread Friends are the Best Friends

Or: Why you need to attend the Kneading Conference

wordloafAndrew Janjigian

I'll let you read that one if you remain unfamiliar with the joys of the Kneading Conference and bread festivals in general. Today, I want to highlight this year's lineup of speakers and instructors, which is larger and maybe better than ever, and a testament to how far the conference, the Maine Grain Alliance, and the world of whole- and regional-grain baking has come since the first one was held nineteen years ago.

I recently spoke to the Maine Grain Alliance's executive director Tristan Noyes about the Conference and the Alliance's other events and projects. We were discussing how whole-grain baking has finally become a mainstream notion, thanks in great part to the work of the MGA and other groups like it. Back in 2007, when the MGA was founded (and the very first Kneading Conference was held), it was one of the first of its kind. Nowadays there are similar organizations all around the U.S., thanks in part to the work the MGA has done over the years. There's the Artisan Grain Collaborative in the Upper Midwest (founded in 2016), the Ohio Valley Grain Exchange (2017), the Common Grain Alliance in the Mid-Atlantic (2018), and the Colorado Grain Chain (2019), among others.

As Noyes explained, the MGA was informally involved in the formation of many of these groups, and they all remain connected to one another still. "We're having more organized conversations," he told me. "Not in the in the sense of trying to create any kind of national grain organization, but rather [by] understanding what each of us is doing, learning from [and] sharing resources with one another. And that's really the whole point of what we care about: We want to see every region have its own regional grain group that's helping to champion and tak[e] advantage of the unique set of circumstances that are inherent in their region."

These connections are reflected in the 2026 Kneading Conference lineup too; Alyssa Hartman, the Executive Director of Artisan Grain Collaborative, and Meadowlark Organics' Halee Wepking will be giving a talk on the AGC's network and model called "Strengthening the Midwest Grain Chain." There will also be a free panel discussion moderated by Kim Butz of the Rodale Institute and featuring Maine Grains CEO Amber Lambke, Night Moves Bread's Kerry Hanney, Blue Ox Malthouse's Joel Alex, and Sasanoa Brewing's Kyle DePietro, focused on how organic grain growers can develop and expand into new markets on a local level. This will be followed by a free "grain social" aimed at connecting farmers, millers, and producers with one another. "We know that's one of the the most powerful things that the conference achieves," Noyes told me. "Someone meets someone, they get an idea...and then amazing things happen."

The conference's keynote address will be given by Dave Bauer, of North Carolina's Farm and Sparrow mill, perhaps one of the most important grain-connectors of all. Way back in 2013, Bauer sent a FedEx box of freshly-milled flours to bakers—and Kneading Conference regulars—Blair Marvin and Andrew Heyn, of Elmore Mountain Bakery, inspiring them to design and build a mill of their own. Not long afterwards, Heyn and Marvin founded New American Stonemills, which has since gone on to build mills for hundreds of bakers and millers around the world. Bauer says he sent that package intentionally, knowing that Heyn and Marvin might just take on the idea of fresh-milled flour and run with it. So they did, and the rest is history. I'll be at this year's Kneading Conference myself (as an attendee for the first time since 2008!), and I'm very much looking forward to hearing Bauer speak about all that his simple, single act yielded.

I'm also very excited about the lineup of hands-on baking workshops, which includes:

• Krem & Lily Miskevich Combra, from Martha's Vineyard's Good Pierogi, with a workshop on making pierogi and other Polish dumplings, using seasonal ingredients. (Aside from their lauded pierogi, Good Pierogi is famous for having told Jeffrey Epstein pal Alan Dershowitz to pound sand when he tried to place an order last summer.)
• Night Moves' Kerry Hanney and Existential Bread author Jim Franks with a workshop called "Rye and Maize: Best Friends Forever," which will cover the combination of rye and corn in bread baking, as well as the use of nixtamal in 100% rye breads.
• Graison Gill's hands-on workshop on Whole Grain Baguettes, using fresh flour.
• Rose Wilde's "Tiny Cakes, Big Grains," a whole-grain cake baking workshop.
• Rick Cook, of Maryland's Manifest Bread, who will be teaching "Additions: Scalds, Sprouts & Porridges," on the art of incorporating wholesome grains, sprouts, and porridges into bread doughs.
• Danny and Johnny Dubbaneh, of Maryland's Z&Z Manoushe Bakery, on "The Art of Mana'eesh: Exploring the Flavors of Levantine Flatbreads."
• BBGA Executive Director Karen Bornarth, who is teaching "Bread Baking Fundamentals"
• Sarah Magid, from NYC's Knead Love Bakery, on "Flavorful, Wild-Fermented, Gluten-Free Sourdough Bagels!"
• King Arthur's Martin Philip, with a class on wood-fired pizza, on the heels of the publication of KA's The Book of Pizza.
• Downtime Bakery's Dayna Evans, with "Mill to Muffin, Grain to Galette," on incorporating whole grains into pastries and baked goods.
• And Dave Bauer himself, who will be teaching "New Techniques for Baking with Maize and Buckwheat," covering the use of high percentages of stone-milled corn and buckwheat in breads. (Dave's is actually a demo class, not hands-on, but it's sure to be great nonetheless.)

This is a crazy long list of workshops to hold over two short days (and that's not even all of them), which unfortunately means that an attendee is going to have to pick and choose which ones to get to. One reason the conference is able to hold so many events at once (and to host more attendees than ever) is that two years ago they moved it from the fairgrounds to downtown Skowhegan, where there are loads of different venues to utilize.

As I said, I'll be at the Conference myself this year, and I hope to see many of you there! Wordloaf readers can get 5% off the price of a ticket with the code WORDLOAF5.

The Kneading Conference | Maine Grain Alliance

Maine Grain AllianceMike Hicks

—Andrew