(soft eerie music begins)
- Technically,
(upbeat music begins)
this is the introduction
to another terrific episode
of How America Works.
But if you're on the keto diet
or if you're one of those people
who orders the burger
without the bun,
you might wanna look at
this as a disclaimer instead
because what you're about to see
is going to make you want a
long list of delicious things
you're not allowed to have.
I'm talking about
bread and pasta,
and bagels and biscuits,
and muffins and noodles,
and cereal and
cereal bars and beer.
I'm talking about wheat,
the critical grain that is
in 99% of every single thing
that's good and delicious,
like this piece of
chocolate chip almond cake,
which has been
calling to me all day
and to which I
now feel entitled.
Point is, wheat's been on the
menu for over 17,000 years
and here in this country,
it's an 11 billion business.
In other words, 'keto schmeto.'
Wheat is still an
essential ingredient
of How America Works.
Well, it wouldn't be
America the Beautiful
without your amber
waves of grain.
And boy do we have
a lot of those.
So many in fact,
that the wheat
growers of our nation
will plant and harvest an
area the size of Georgia
with this one crop alone.
Why so much? Well,
aside from the fact that
your average American
will eat 180 pounds
worth of it every year,
wheat's also pretty
useful for other things
like the glue on your stamps,
the paper under your pen,
and the rubbing alcohol
wherever you keep that.
But as you might expect,
the bulk of it, by far,
will wind up in our pantries
as one of the many
thousands of foods
made possible by wheat.
Or more often than
not, wheat flour,
which is why the US
relies on some 150 mills
scattered across the country
to keep that flour
in steady supply.
Take Siemer Milling Company,
in eastern Indiana,
for instance,
where a crew of 40 men
and women work tirelessly
to turn raw kernels of wheat
into more than five
different varieties of flour.
But doing that today
will be no cake walk
because thanks to an
unseasonable warm snap,
every farmer in the region
is harvesting their
wheat crop early,
leaving the folks at Siemer
to receive and process
more than a million pounds
of it before closing time.
It's the kind of quota
that promises to push
both man and machinery
to the max today.
And among them, millers,
like Anthony Lakin.
- So the wheat comes
in from the farmers
and then we'll start
breaking up the kernel
and separating it and sending
it where it needs to go.
And it's my job
just to make sure
we're making the right product,
make sure everything's
going where it needs to be.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe] Here
on the milling room floor,
Anthony can turn
a kernel of wheat
into any number of products,
each with their
own special balance
of that kernel's
three main components,
the bran, the germ,
and the endosperm.
Run them all through a
series of roller mills
and you'll wind up
with whole grain flour.
Get rid of the bran and the
endosperm while rolling,
and you've got wheat germ.
Sift out the bran and germ,
and now we're
talking, white flour.
Sounds straightforward enough,
but with 23 roller mills
doing all that grinding
and sorting at the same time,
Anthony must keep a watchful eye
on every stage of the process.
(machine whirring)
- This is our first break roll.
The object of this roll stand
is to pretty much
break open the kernels.
That's its main job.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe] And
since this batch of flour
will be of the white variety,
these kernels will only get
more and more refined from here,
until they take
on the properties
that Anthony's looking for.
- That right there
is our bread money,
lot of good flour.
This is our first quality flour,
not that high in
content of bran.
- [Voice Over Mike
Rowe] Working in tandem,
Anthony and his colleagues
will mill about 900,000
pounds of this flour alone.
But since today's quota
also calls for another
hundred thousand pounds
of whole wheat flour,
he'll need to get
that going as well.
- The whole wheat we use,
all a hundred percent
of the kernel.
You can see the
higher bran content.
It has more protein
and that's what
We're gonna be changing
the roll stands
and switching stuff over
to get to this flour.
- [Voice Over Mike
Rowe] For starters,
Anthony heads to the control
room to adjust some settings.
Then it's back to
the roller mills
to ensure they're fine-tuned
for whole wheat production.
- So right now, when we're
switching on to whole wheat,
you don't add water to it,
so it's harder to
break that bran.
So what we're trying to do,
we're trying, we
gotta tighten up.
This makes us grind
a little harder,
easier to break that bran.
- [Voice Over Mike
Rowe] But even though
Anthony makes it look
like business as usual,
there's more to this
process than meets the eye.
And with five years at Siemer,
he's just about seen it all.
- When you are switching
over to a different flour,
there could be plugs, so you
gotta watch out for that.
You gotta watch your lines,
watch your roll stands,
watch where you're grinding.
Just make sure everything's
going where it needs to be
and try to do it
pretty efficient.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe] But
midway through the changeover,
(machine alarm buzzing)
(grains sifting)
the system pipes
up with one sound
that no miller wants to hear.
- Right now, something
just shut us down.
We're gonna go check what it is.
- [Voice Over Mike
Rowe] When pushing
to pump out record
amounts of product,
the odd mechanical issue
is bound to crop up,
especially on this show.
But for the more serious stuff,
Siemer relies on a team of
four maintenance workers
to keep the whole
mill up and running.
And few know how to do that
better than Chad Wilson.
- You gotta be really
good at troubleshooting.
You know you gotta
work under pressure.
Obviously, if the mill's down,
we're not producing flour,
it, you know, that
affects everything.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
And wouldn't you know it?
Chad's already in route
to a piece of machinery
that's threatening to put
production behind schedule,
a cyclone airlock motor
that's responsible for moving
product to the machine below,
but instead, is sitting idle.
- This part of the
mill is shut down.
This is probably one of the
most vital parts of the mill.
So we need to do this as
fast as we possibly can.
So here's the motor we're
gonna have to replace today.
Obviously, we can
see the problem with
the motor right there
where it's leaking
out of the seal.
We're gonna take this cover off,
which is gonna give us access
to pull the rest
of the motor off.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
On pulling the cover,
it's just as Chad thought.
A leaky seal has
taken this motor
completely out of commission,
but no time to
tinker with it now.
Instead, he'll swap in a new one
to get the mill back online,
just as soon as he
and his partner, Doug,
get the old motor
out of the way.
- Start up.
(upbeat music continues)
You can see on this motor,
the seal also was
going on the backside.
So good thing we ended up
changing the whole motor
'cause if we would've just
changed the front seal,
there would've been no way
to get to the back seal.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
With the old motor set aside,
all that remains is to
install the new one.
- Get this thing bolted in
and we'll have 'em
fired up to verify
that everything's
working properly here.
Can you go ahead and fire
that 4016, that motor up?
Put it in hand please,
so we can verify it.
Everything looks good.
The motors turning fine.
Should be good.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
And it's a good thing too,
because with freshly
harvested wheat
already filing in
by the truckload,
Siemer's gonna need all
the help they can get.
But they're not the only ones
racing to move some grain today.
So too, are the 250 farms
that supply this facility
with raw product.
Places like Adams Farms,
where proprietor, Craig Adams,
has about 200 acres worth of
crop to get out of the ground
while it's still
worth top dollar.
- We are harvesting our
soft red winter wheat crop.
We've been doing
this since 1977,
and this very well, potentially,
could be our best wheat
crop we've ever had.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
But before he can harvest
the last of his wheat,
Craig will first need
to finish up a field
he started this morning,
one that still holds value
in the form of straw.
(machine whirring)
- We're harvesting
straw for our own use.
And also, there was a
market in the horse market
for straw for stables
and landscaping
and things of that nature.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe] At
about four bucks per bale,
this farm will yield about
$25,000 in straw alone.
And to make sure he's getting
every last penny of that,
Craig relies on what's
shockingly known as a 'baler.'
- On harvest straw,
they got it in windrows.
Feeding this windrow
in the bale chamber.
It's forming a bale
roughly 34 inches long
and 18 x 14 around.
It's going up the chute,
twisting on a half coming down
into 10 bale groups.
- [Voice Over Mike
Rowe] Then again,
those bales can only be made
when Craig's equipment
is running as it should.
And with so many moving parts
jostling across the field,
that's not always the case.
(censor beeping)
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
As one of the world's
leading producers of this
stuff, (upbeat music begins)
it should come as no surprise
that America grows a lot of
wheat, and I do mean a lot.
If you were to take
the 1.6 billion bushels
grown stateside every year
and convert it all into flour,
you'd have enough to
bake a loaf of bread
the size of the
Empire State Building.
Actually, about 250 of them.
So yeah, I'd call that a lot.
But keeping our country supplied
with one of its go-to grains
can be challenging
to say the least,
especially when an
unseasonable warm snap
sends farmers headlong
into an early harvest.
Such are the circumstances
for the 250+ wheat growers
that supply Siemer Milling
Company in eastern Indiana.
And in the case of
farmer, Craig Adams here,
it's a challenge
compounded by the fact
that his trustee baler
is not so trusty.
- Oh, we got a wire,
wire off a bale.
Sometimes you get a
wire twisted, caught.
It doesn't clear properly.
Let's open this up
and get a better look.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
With another 20 acres
of wheat to harvest and haul
off to Siemer by sundown,
it's a setback Craig
can scarcely afford,
so he'll need to sort
it out tout de suite
if he's going to
stay on schedule.
- Yeah, there's a wire.
There's a bullish piece
of wire down inside
caught on the twisters.
There we go, got her out.
Get the lock back on her.
We're good to go, hopefully.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
With the offending wire
out of the way,
this baler should once
again be ready to bale,
but before firing it back up,
Craig will also need to clear
some mangled bales
from the system.
- So what we're gonna
do to make it easy,
we're gonna pull the
first good bale out
and then got the broken one.
We're gonna take
a broken one over
and we're gonna put it
in the adjoining windrow
to be rebaled.
Let me take this bale
and we'll put it back
on the accumulator.
One to go and we got
10 ready to bale.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe] While
Craig gets back to baling,
70 miles away, wheat
from across the region
is already pulling into
Siemer Milling Company.
But before these kernels
can start making their
way through the mill,
they'll first have to
pass a series of tests
to ensure they're up to
Siemer's exacting standards.
And the woman in charge of that
is Probe Operator, Amanda Cull.
- It's gonna be truck
after truck after truck.
You know, we're doing
three tests on each truck.
So if you have 50 trucks,
you know and you're doing
three tests on each truck,
that's 150.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
And with the latest
of those trucks pulled
alongside her station,
it's time to start
testing some product.
- All right, thank you. Just
wait on the green light.
- [Voice Over Mike
Rowe] Product, Amanda
will bring into the lab
with a little help
from her trusty probe.
- Probe is bringing up the
wheat out of the trailer,
and I have to make sure
that I get a representative
sample of the wheat.
He's gonna go back to the dump
and he's gonna wait back there
until we get his results.
And then we're gonna
grind up our sample
to do our test on our end.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
The first of those tests
will measure the
wheat's protein content,
which tells Amanda
where best to store it.
Then she'll check the
wheat's enzyme activity,
which if too high means,
it started to sprout.
Can't have that.
But since this batch
appears to be good,
Amanda can now conduct
her final test.
One designed to pick
up trace amounts
of a nasty little compound
called, "Vomitoxin."
- Vomitoxin is is a mold
that is found in wheat.
'Cause if you get too much
of that in your system,
it can make you sick.
So first, we put it in this
spinner and it separates it.
That's the incubator.
It'll stay in that
for two minutes.
And then when it
comes out all that,
we will put it in this reader,
then it'll read it and
it'll pop up there.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe] In
order to accept this wheat
at Siemer, it'll
need to register
less than one part of
Vomitoxin per million.
And fortunately,
for this farmer,
he's sitting pretty
at a mere 0.5,
which the mill can separate
from the load later on.
But for now
- All these look good.
Got him the green
light to get him dumped
and so he can get his wheat in,
and now we're able to
move on to the next truck.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe] While
Amanda gets back to probing
inside the mill,
(machine alarm buzzing)
things are running a
little less routinely
for Anthony Lakin,
who while attempting to
switch these roller mills
over for a whole
wheat production,
has been met by the
all too familiar sound
of a system shut down.
So he's come back to
the mill's control room
to see just what the problem is.
- The fourth, fifth break
was reading, 'no product,'
so it shut us down
with a no rod change.
So right now we're
just resetting in it,
waiting a minute and 20 and
then we're gonna run it again.
And then we'll go back out there
and start watching
our rolls again.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
But to keep the roller mills
from shutting down
a second time,
Anthony will need to ensure
that the pipes
feeding them wheat
do so at just the right pace,
which as you'll see, can
be a little complicated.
- You can see that it's
starting to plug up.
We gotta get it coming down
faster than what we need it.
Hit the side glass, Aaron!
- [Voice Over Mike
Rowe] To keep the system
from fully clogging,
Anthony's colleague
will reduce the flow
by disconnecting its
vacuum powered pipe.
- Just a little bit of air.
We need to give it a fresh
breath of air before it chokes.
Give it a little more.
All right, should be good.
We're starting to
balance out right now.
We've got our RPM set.
Starting to figure out
what it wants to do.
Transition was a success.
We're on to whole wheat.
The best thing about this
job is we run the mill,
the mill don't run us.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe] It
takes quite the workforce
to keep our country
stocked with wheat.
About 250,000 men and
women running farms,
flour mills and
everything in between,
all to bring an annual crop
worth about $11 billion
to the American public.
But getting all that grain
from the field to your table
can be a bit of a grind.
And for the folks at
Siemer Milling Company,
never more so than right now.
Here in eastern Indiana in
the midst of an early harvest,
some 40 employees are
scrambling to receive,
sort, mill, and
otherwise process
a whopping 1 million plus pounds
of wheat by end of the day.
And to pull that off,
they'll need every
facet of this facility
running like a
well-oiled machine.
But as maintenance
worker, Chad Wilson,
has come to learn here of late,
one of those facets is not.
- All right, we just got
a call from a miller.
The Annihilator machine here
seems to be a
little off balance.
We're gonna take this lid off
and we'll see what's in there.
- [Voice Over Mike
Rowe] Annihilator
machines like this one
are responsible for separating
wheat kernels from chaff,
rocks, foreign grains, and
other undesirable debris.
And when they fall
outta balance,
it usually just means they're
in need of some cleaning.
- All right, just like we
thought, we've got some corn,
we got a little bit of
wheat heads down in there.
Definitely, that's the cause
of what's throwing the,
the balance of this
machine off for sure.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
To remove those items,
Chad and his partner, Doug,
will need to pull the
Annihilator's cover
and take a closer look
at its inner workings.
- What this does
is this'll circle,
you got your wheat
comes outta here,
falls directly into there,
and anything that's not
the size of the wheat
should be stuck in here.
What we'll do is,
we'll go ahead and get
a vacuum and air hose,
and we'll get this stuff cleaned
up inside there real quick.
All right, everything
looks good.
We've finally got
this finished up.
Onto the next one.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe] While
Chad gets back to his rounds,
back at the receiving
end of Siemer Milling,
Probe Operator,
Amanda Cull's shift
seems to be clipping
right along,
with several dozen
truckloads of wheat
weighed, tested and approved,
and another dozen
or so left to go.
- The day's been pretty busy.
We've had 75 trucks so far today
and we have another
one coming in now so
(phone ringing)
Siemer Probe, can I help ya?
- Hey Mike, how's it going?
- Good. All right,
well thank you.
Just waiting on the green light.
- All right. Thanks.
- Bye.
- [Voice Over Mike
Rowe] And with that,
it's once again time
to take a sample,
test for protein levels,
measure enzyme activity,
and last but not least,
ensure that this hall is
free of any Vomitoxin.
But on receiving the results,
they're not quite what
Amanda was hoping for.
- Okay, and that looks
to be out of our specs.
That's not something
we want to take.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
Which, unfortunately, means
Amanda will need to be
the bearer of bad news.
- Mike, you got a copy?
- [Voice Over Mike
Rowe] Assuming that is,
she can find someone
to bear it too.
- 0063. You got a copy?
He may not be in his truck.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
Back inside the mill,
and having
reconfigured the system
for whole wheat
flour production,
Anthony Lakin can now go
about making his daily rounds,
which for the moment means,
cleaning out one of the
magnets that remove any metal
that may have found
its way into the wheat.
Studies show, nobody
wants to find barbed wire
in their blueberry
muffin, or in this case
- Looks like I found a ring.
Looks like a lock to something,
just old stuff.
I would be more nervous
if I was checking this
and I didn't find anything,
because that means our
magnet ain't doing its job.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
And since this magnet
appears to be doing
its job just fine,
Anthony can now
head a few floors up
to give the sifting process
a thorough walkthrough.
- These machines right
here are sifters.
They will separate
your flour, your bran,
your course by screens.
So its main job on these is
just to sift the flour through
and what goes over.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe] But
to keep their final product
as pure as possible,
Siemer relies on
more than sifters,
magnets, probes,
and Annihilators.
They also count on what's
known as a 'Vega machine,'
the first of many designed
to separate wheat
from other materials.
But as Anthony's esteemed
colleague is about to point out,
theirs does not seem to
be performing as intended.
- What we're seeing
is a lot of corn.
This tells us right now there's
probably a hole in the Vega.
So right now we got
2-hour tipper time.
Gives us about an
hour to work this,
so we gotta bust through
it and get it done,
or we'll shut the mill
down. Can't be having that.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe] Well,
I guess you can't make a show
about wheat without addressing
the elephant in the
room at some point,
not these days anyway.
So here we go.
It's gluten. Yep.
This protein found in
wheat and other grains
can be harmful to the 3
million or so Americans
who suffer from celiac disease.
But for the other 99% of
us who can consume wheat,
gluten and all, there
are some benefits
worthy of note like carbs,
which should
comprise at least 45%
of your daily calories or fiber,
which can lower your cholesterol
and reduce the risk
of certain cancers
or minerals like iron,
zinc, and manganese,
which we simply
need to stay alive.
All that to say for the
vast majority of us,
the pros of consuming wheat
far outweigh the cons,
which is why in eastern Indiana,
the men and women of
Siemer Milling Company
are working harder than ever
to crank out another million
plus pounds of it by day's end.
But in the throws of that
mission, miller, Anthony Lakin,
has come up against
one piece of equipment
that simply isn't
functioning as it should.
This Vega machine is designed
to separate kernels of wheat
from larger grains like corn,
which often travel
in the same trucks.
And with an apparent hole in
one of its sifting screens,
all he can do now is
inspect them one by one
until he finds it.
- Because we're gonna
have to bust through this
and find this hole to get
this corn out of our wheat.
(metal clanking)
I'll hand it down to you, Nick.
Check for a hole.
Looks pretty good.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
But with another 11 screens
left to go, Anthony and
his colleague, Nick,
will have to find this hole
before the next batch
is scheduled to start.
- That looks good. No holes.
We need to find a hole.
We're short on temper time.
We ain't got time
not to find it.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
But as the saying goes
- There she is.
- [Voice Over Mike
Rowe] It's always
in the last place you look,
which when you think about it,
is really a very dumb saying.
I mean, why would you keep
looking after you found it?
Anyway, Anthony found the hole.
- As you can see, naturally,
this will catch it every time.
It won't go through,
the corn won't.
But if there's a hole,
it goes right through,
right to our mill.
That causes problems.
And it's good we
found it and it's,
it's better that
we can replace it.
(machine whirring)
- [Voice Over Mike
Rowe] And upon swapping
in a brand new screen,
all that's left is to
fire the Vega back up
and take a sample to see
if their repair worked.
- This guys, is what it
should look like, all wheat.
No corn, nothing big.
And that's good news for us.
We found the problem,
we found where that hole
was and we fixed it.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
Meanwhile, not far away,
another of Siemer's team is
already moving finished product
out the door, because today,
this facility will need
to load some 26 trucks
worth of flour to hit its quota.
And one of the men heading
that up is, Josh Bessler.
- This is our busiest
time of the year.
We got trucks
driving in and out.
We are just slammed with
bag loads and bulk loads
of mill feed 'cause
everybody needs flour.
So I'll just have to
be on my game today
to make sure that we
get everything done
and that it all goes smoothly.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
Most recently, that means,
filling what's known
as a tanker truck,
with another 25 tons of
flour fresh from storage.
- We pump air into the
bin from the bottom
and if you send
enough air into flour,
it actually becomes
more of like a liquid
to make it flow much
easier into the tanker.
And it'll actually hit
the bottom and spread out
and fill the whole tanker
all through the one hatch.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
Unfortunately for Josh,
the flour coming
through this hatch
seems to have stopped
short of a full load.
And on eyeing over the works,
he has a pretty
good idea of why.
- There's still 140 pounds
in the bins upstairs.
Didn't drop all of it out.
I'm gonna grab a rubber
mallet and go upstairs
and hit on that bin
and see if I can get that
last 140 pounds to fall.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe] Ah yes,
the old, 'hit the
bin' technique,
one you may recall from
such previous episodes
as salt and concrete,
to name just two.
Turns out it's
good for flour too.
- All this high tech equipment
here and still sometimes,
you have to resort to a hammer.
All right, looks
like that did it.
Let's get this truck outta here.
I got eight more to do.
Gotta get those started.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
Meanwhile, 70 miles away,
wheat farmer, Craig Adams,
still has one last haul of grain
to send off to Siemer today.
And having baled all
the straw left over
from his previous cut,
it's now time to harvest
his last 20 acres.
So having swapped his
baler for a combine,
it's time to get down to it.
- This is a New Holland
6090 twin rotor.
People think that the old,
the old photograph of
grandpa and grandma there
with pouty faces
and a pitchfork,
that was about three generations
ago. That's long gone.
Agriculture is modern,
it's technology,
and it's mechanical.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
And as you might expect,
the mechanics of threshing
wheat have come a long way
since the hand sickles
and mule wagons of old,
allowing Craig to do in
hours, what used to take days.
- The grain is cut off at ground
level with the sickle bar,
the auger concentrates it
in the middle. (beeping)
It goes up a paddle
conveyor system
where the rotors hit
it, knock the grain out,
and the grains falling through
into a collection auger
to take it into the grain tank.
And the chaff all
blows and is sorted out
the back of the combine back
out on the ground as a residue.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
With this one machine,
Craig can cut and thresh
about six acres of wheat
every hour, at least
when it's nice and dry.
But for some patches
he'll need to be a
little more cautious.
- So this corner,
this spot right here,
got a double
application of nitrogen,
which makes the
stems grow taller,
makes 'em a little weaker
because of the height.
And the problem is, is
this material is green,
which makes it
extremely difficult
to run through the combine.
- [Voice Over Mike
Rowe] But hey,
what's the point of
having a $350,000 machine
if you can't mow down
a little green wheat?
So Craig will take his chances.
- We're gonna work
our way towards this
patch of down wheat,
and as we work it
through nice and slow
so we don't plug the combine
and ruin our afternoon.
And we've just about
made it through.
That knot in the
base of my stomach
is starting to ease
up just a little bit.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe] But
as Craig's about to find out,
he and his combine may not
be out of the woods just yet.
- Ah! Dog on it! There's a
noise. I'm hearing a thump.
I better stop, get out
and check this bad boy,
find out what exactly is wrong.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe] They
say your average American
will eat about 14,000 pounds
of wheat in their lifetime,
be it in pizzas, pastas,
paninis, or any number of meals.
But if eating wheat is not
your thing, not to worry.
There are other ways
it can be of use,
like polishing steel,
repelling insects.
It can even be
employed as a shampoo.
But here in America's
bread basket
amid the mad dash
of an early harvest,
farmer, Craig Adams,
has discovered yet
another of wheat's many
superpowers, jamming combines.
- Ah crap!
Bunch of green straw,
down wheat, and its long stem.
It didn't break up
going through the rotor,
so it didn't fall
through like it should.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
Unfortunately for Craig,
there's only one way
to remedy the situation
and that is by hand.
- We'll manually clean
it out and go from there.
And we're going to lose
at least 30 minutes,
cleaning this combine out
if we don't have any
other issues. (spitting)
(upbeat music continues)
Okay, I think we're ready to go.
So we'll climb in and
we'll check it out.
(combine engine revving)
We're in business. It's
time to go back to field.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe] With
another 10 acres to thresh
and send off to Siemer
Milling Company by day's end,
Craig doesn't have time
for any more setbacks,
but since his combine
can only operate
at three miles an hour,
there is some time to ruminate
on why he does what he does.
- But this is a labor of love.
There's nothing like
putting seed in the ground
in the spring, in the fall,
watching it germinate and grow
and mature into a plant
that you could harvest,
with the added advantage of
providing for your family
and your community, and
also helping feed America.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe] And
with his final 25 tons of wheat
now threshed and ready
for the American public,
all that's left is
to dump this hall
into a truck bound for Siemer.
- Combine holds about
275 bushels of wheat
if the tank's pretty well full,
and the semi trailer will
hold two and a half dumps.
Got the last grain dumped.
I'm going to take the
combine when we're done.
Still got some sunshine left,
(chuckling)
and boys, it's time to go home.
It's been a long dog on week.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
While the last of Craig's hall
hits the road, 70 miles away
at its final destination,
the workers of Siemer
Milling Company
are far from done with their day
because with more than a
million pounds of wheat
to process by quitting time,
there's still another
500,000 or so to go.
But down at the
loading department,
Josh Bessler is about to
strike another truckload
from that quota,
just as soon as his latest
flour shipment is all bagged,
wrapped and ready to go.
- So in there is
where we fill the bags
and then they come through
here and get sealed.
So this is the palletizer.
It stacks all the bags
on the pallets for us.
It comes across here and it
goes onto our wrapping machine.
And this wraps 'em
with the plastic
to keep 'em very sturdy in
the trucks for transportation.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe] And
since each of these pallets
weighs about 2,500 pounds,
Josh will use a forklift
to get all 18 of them
into the trailer.
- Legally, a trailer
and the truck together
cannot exceed 80,000 pounds.
We have about 46,000 pounds
(forklift beeping)
of product on this trailer.
So there's 50 pounds
of flour per bag.
We got 50 bags per pallet,
and 18 pallets per truck.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe] But
on retrieving the next pallet,
Josh is quick to spot a mill
worker's worst nightmare,
flour on the floor.
- You can't send it to
the customer like that.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
Josh isn't the only one
with some spillage on his hands.
Back inside the mill, somewhere
near the early stages,
one of the machines designed
to clean whole wheat kernels
has developed a
leak in a topper.
So once again, Chad Wilson,
and his partner, Doug,
have come to the rescue.
- You can see there with a hole,
actually wore through.
So basically, what we'll
do here is take it apart,
take it back to the shop,
get it a plate welded on
it. It should be good to go.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
Chad, typically, tries to fix
as many machines
as he can on site,
but since this job will likely
require things like man saws,
welding torches and grinders,
why bring the
mountain to Mohammed
when you can take one
part back to the shop?
- So basically,
what we're gonna do,
(metal clanking)
we'll get a little
piece of steel,
we'll lay it in there
to cover the hole up,
and get her welded up
and she should be good.
We'll go see if we can find us
a piece of metal to put in here.
(metal clanking)
That's too big.
There's a piece.
We can use that.
We'll see how she fits
in there right now.
Pretty close.
We'll have to take a
little bit off of it,
and that should work
for us right there.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
It's been quite the day
for the workers of
Siemer Milling Company,
who to keep up with
an early wheat harvest
have been racing to
receive, mill, and ship out
a staggering 1 million pounds
of grain by close of business.
And despite the many hurdles
that come with such a quota,
they are finally
nearing the finish line.
But to cross it,
they're going to need this
machine back up and running.
So to that end, maintenance
worker, Chad Wilson,
has brought its hopper
back to the shop
for some much needed patchwork,
which starts with cutting
said patch down to size.
(machine whirring)
(metal clanking)
- Should be perfect.
We'll go ahead and
get the welder fired up,
and get it welded in there.
(welder sparking, clanking)
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe]
With a quarter inch of steel
now covering the hole,
this hopper should be good to
go for another seven years,
just as soon as Chad adds
a few finishing touches.
- We clean this up
a little bit more.
(machine whirring)
And paint should be all right.
(spray painting)
Looks good.
- [Voice Over Mike
Rowe] And with that,
it's off to the mill to bolt
this hopper back in place.
- Get these flanges lined up.
(machine whirring)
This is the last thing we got
on our schedule for today.
So that should finish
it up for today.
- [Voice Over Mike
Rowe] Back in Siemer's
receiving department, Probe
Operator, Amanda Cull,
is still struggling to
resolve issues of her own,
specifically, a
truckload of wheat
that's tested positive
for Vomitoxin.
- 0063, you got a copy?
- [Voice Over Mike
Rowe] And a truck driver
that's apparently gone AWOL.
- Okay, that's not
working. Hang tight.
- [Voice Over Mike
Rowe] So in an effort
to stay on schedule,
she's headed out to
find the driver herself,
and have the conversation that
never seems to get easier.
- They work very hard
to get their crops in,
and I hate having to
turn a farmer down,
but we can't have high
Vomitoxin in our wheat,
so we just have to, sometimes
we have to turn 'em away.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe] But
it may not have to come to that
because before turning
anyone away from Siemer,
Amanda likes to be absolutely
sure that's the only option.
- Hey, your Vomitoxin
come up really high.
Sometimes a pocket can form,
and maybe I just
got that pocket.
So we can reprobe ya,
- Okay.
- I can reprobe ya,
and we can retest you.
- Glad to have the help.
Good, then make sure
that we're getting
all the spots covered.
- Okay.
- Yeah, go ahead, pull around
and I'll get you reprobed
and we can go from there.
- Okay.
- Thanks. Appreciate it.
- All right.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe] And
so, with a zeal for probing
that would have any extra
terrestrial licking their chops,
our driver returns once
more to Amanda's station
for another thorough
review and lucky for him
- Well, it come up
in spec this time,
so I'm gonna let him know
that he's good to dump.
Hey Mike, you got a copy?
- You got the green light
to go ahead and dump.
- [Mike on radio] Good deal.
Appreciate all your help.
- Thank you. Have a good day.
Now I gotta get back to
work. Got trucks lining up.
- [Voice Over Mike Rowe] Back
in the loading department,
Josh Bessler's latest hall
is having issues of its own
because while
loading some 800 bags
of freshly ground
flour into this semi,
it seems one of them
has sprung a leak.
And judging by the
look on Josh's face,
he knows all too
well what that means.
- So we gotta take
all these bags off,
put 'em on a clean
pallet and restack,
rewrap the whole thing and
I'll get a new bag for that.
Yeah, this is the last
thing we needed today.
- [Voice Over Mike
Rowe] Worse yet,
this isn't the kind of thing
that can be fixed
with a forklift.
So Josh will have to restack
each of these 50
pound bags by hand,
along with a replacement
for the damaged one.
- Thanks Evan.
It's the same as the
other ones. No holes.
I'm gonna put this sticker on.
We'll send that to the customer.
Now I can grab the forklift,
load it up, load the rest,
and we'll be good to go.
- [Voice Over Mike
Rowe] And as Josh loads
the last of his pallets bound
for the American public,
the day shift at
Siemer Milling Company
can finally wind to a close,
having processed more than
a million pounds of wheat
and survived their busiest
time of the year by far.
And though we may not pause
to appreciate all the effort
they put into our
favorite foods,
come tomorrow, they'll
be right back here
milling more wheat
for the masses
and going with the grain
of How America Works.
Over 250,000 Americans are
in the wheat industry alone.
And if you'd like
to join their ranks,
there's a ton of
opportunity out there,
farmers, millers, truck drivers.
It takes village to
feed a hungry nation.
And you can check out all
the opportunities in farming
over at mikeroweworks.org/haw.
And if you'd like the last piece
of delicious chocolate
chip almond cake,
I can't help you.
(chewing, chuckling)
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03x08 - Wheat
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Showcasing the many individuals who work around the clock to keep America's infrastructure in working order.
Showcasing the many individuals who work around the clock to keep America's infrastructure in working order.