Class: Millstone dressing, or the sharpening of millstones, is an art unto itself with various theories among millwrights as to the best way to cut and sharpen millstones. In this workshop, Andrew Heyn of New American Stone Mills and Tass Jansen of Jansen Grist Mills will join forces to lead a millstone dressing workshop. The workshop will take place at Carolina Ground, where the focal point will be Carolina Ground’s 48-inch diameter New American Stone Mill. Participants will learn the basic anatomy of a millstone: the bedstone, runner, furrows, lands…; will gain an introduction to the use of pneumatic stone carving tools; and will have hands-on practice dressing stones, under the guidance of Andrew and Tass.

Participants are to bring safety goggles to this class.

When/where: Saturday, April 22nd // 12:30 - 4:00 pm // Carolina Ground (Dock), 1237 Shipp St, Hendersonville, NC

NOTE: This workshop will span two time slots, though you are not required to stay for the duration.

Instructor(s): Andrew Heyn owns Elmore Mountain Bread with his wife, Blair Marvin in Northern Vermont.  They bake wood-fired breads using stone ground local grain.  Andrew designed and built his own mill for their bakery, and in 2015 started New American Stone Mills to provide bakers with natural granite stone mills. Now he has built over 175 mills around the world for bakers, millers and farmers. 

Tass Jansen has been designing and building stone mills with his father, Roger Jansen and brother Larry, for over 30 years. Roger learned stone cutting and dressing while working for Meadows Mills in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. He was inspired to work at Meadows after he experienced the taste and smell of freshly stone-ground flour at a food co-op in Vermont. (This was after reading Henry Miller’s “Treatise on Bread.”) He then began Jansen Gristmills with his two sons, determined to not only revive the craft of stone milling but also teach the skills to dress one’s stones. Roger and Tass built the mills for Natural Bridge Bakery (1994-2008), and those mills were foundational to both Carolina Ground and Farm and Sparrow. Tass has maintained Carolina Ground’s mills since its inception.